[daveover]

I'm 49 years old. It is a miracle. I have lived at least 29 years past what I deserved.
This is going to sound like venting and perhaps it is, but I hope there is a point, a point about what is required to obtain a private pilots license in the US. I decided to do this because I got tired of hearing about how JFK Jr. had the best possible training and with less than one hundred hours flight in a high performance aircraft he headed into a weather situation that could kill any really experienced pilot.
The point is that I do not believe the requirements for obtaining a private ticket are even nearly tough enough. I'll illustrate with my story. I know it has been many moons, but I don't think things have changed much.

When I was 19 I got lured into an airport by one of the $5 Learn to Fly Cessna ads. I got my first taste of an under-achieving airline pilot wanna-be instructor. We went up. He was obviously bored to tears and hated being there. He showed me how to do a turn around a point around a barn. While I was dutifully focused on keeping that wingtip on the barn I noticed the cows were getting bigger and bigger and I could see chickens in the yard. I looked over and my "instructor" was sound asleep next to me. I punched him at about 200 feet altitude. He woke up, screamed an obscenity at me and grabbed the wheel.

I was undeterred and went to another airport, a controlled field near Chicago and actually had sense enough to interview instructors. I found a guy I really liked and paid the full price for my first hour of instruction. After that day I had a total of 1.5 hours of instruction.

On the next visit we went up and did a few touch and gos. After about the third landing we were at the end of the runway waiting our turn and he got out of the airplane. He told me to take it up and make three full stop landings and closed the door and walked away. Meanwhile the tower was encouraging me to get moving and before I had time to think I was in the air solo, with a total of 2.0 hours of instruction. Somehow, someway I managed to make it down alive on the first landing. On the second trip around I came in WAY too high. Keep in mind, I had never even heard the term "go around". I had no clue what kept an airplane in the air and the tower had told me I was cleared to land. In my mind, that meant I had to land. I came over the threshold way too high, so I pointed the nose at the numbers (I'll never forget those big white 2's coming up at me)
Pretty quickly, I figured out that wasn't going to work and pulled all the way back on the stick. Naturally, the little 150 responded by doing what any self-respecting aircraft would do in a nose up position fifty feet above the ground. It stalled and fell off on the left wing and I plowed straight into the runway.

As God was my co-pilot that day, I was not killed. Wasn't even injured. My embarrased instructor told me to tell the investigators that I was a student pilot, that if you were a student pilot you would get away with anything. He was right. I actually continued my training after considerable second thoughts.

A few months later when it came time for my last cross country I went to the airport. I checked the weather reports for the trip between Chicago and Champaign and it was problematic. But, I only had a week left before I had to leave for college and wanted to get finished so I found some line mechanic to sign off on the trip. I took off and headed south.

About thirty miles south of Chicago I entered heavy fog. I had no clue what to do. I was trying to follow my VOR, but my training on that had only been cursory as had been my "instrument" training. I new I was heading the right direction and kept plugging along. Suddenly, with no warning a huge black thing roared past me less than a hundred or so feet away. The little 150 practically rolled over from the wake. I was shaken and began checking radio frequencies. I tuned into a frequency which featured a screaming controller at Rantoul Air Force base demanding the identity of the fool that just cross into their airspace. Remembering what my instructor told me, I identified the aircraft and followed that with "student pilot." There was pause in the threats and the controller said, "OK, where are you going?" I told him Champaign. He gave me a heading and that was it.

I managed to land in Champaign (in the wake turbulence of a DC-9) I was running late and found another mechanic to sign off and took off into the sky again, without even thinking about gas. By now the day had turned sunny and bright and all was right with the world, except for one small problem. I was encountering fifty knot headwinds and as anyone who has flown one of those litle devils knows, they don't move very fast.
To shorten the story, I finally noticed the tanks were almost empty over the south side of Chicago. I was again lost and had no idea where I was. Panic prevented me from being able to navigate. I was about to declare an emergency when I looked down and saw my airport. I landed, paid the bill and left. The next day my instructor called me and asked if I knew I had a gallon of gas in each tank. I never let on.
The bottom line is that the next week I passed my checkride and received my ticket at the minimum 35 hours.

I learned more about aviation in those critical moments than most people ever do in a lifetime. I learned about what makes an airplane fly, weather, common sense, etc.

But as I read the NTSB final reports on the fatal accidents involving student pilots I think how lucky I was to have dodged the bullet so many times. Many of them parallel exactly the same things that happened to me. The only difference is that I lived through it.

I guess I don't know what the point of this is exactly. I know it isn't going to change. If anything there will be continued pressure to make it easier to get tickets. It's just like education in America today, self-esteem is all that matters.

I wish my instructor had been tougher. I wish he had made me do spins and other maneuvers that aren't required. I wish he had really hammered me on real instrument training in real situations instead of the occasional hood work. It wasn't his fault. He was only doing what was required. I guess I'm asking whether or not the requirements are enough. Maybe the requirements were enough and I wasn't a good enough pilot. I don't know. Just curious if anyone else has had similair experiences.