I used to do some AG work training on the Antonov 2. That video is excellent.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Long story short: You can be (and there are) a great pilot w/o almost any ot the superior knowledge mentioned in this thread.
I think I subscribe to that. However, when it comes to teaching and learning strategies, education matters a lot. Being an MSc PhD myself (not IT), as an instructor I initially thin that I found that students with scientific backgrounds was the best learners. We were obviously on the same frequency. Over the years it has been a great learning experience for me to improve my instruction to students without any academic background at all (musicians, entertainers, even one religious leader). In the end, I don’t find that prior education beyond the basics is very much related to becoming a good pilot, but it can definitely be related to what is the best path for getting there.
@huv I conversely find that you can take the student out of engineering but not engineering out of the student. Some of the slowest students have been engineers. Students with practical mechanical skills (eg RAF technicians) OTOH have been students which progressed quickly. Ditto for lorry drivers :)
The RAF only required five O levels, which include Maths and English, and you got a bonus point for an O level in Physics.
RobertL18C wrote:
Some of the slowest students have been engineers
I’ve heard that before, but during 20 years of instruction it is not what I have seen. I have seen very good and rather slow students from all levels of education. However, being a slow/fast learner is quite strongly related to the age of the student when starting the training.
I do, however, agree that students with practical mechanical skills tend to learn the handling bit of flying quite quickly.
huv wrote:
However, being a slow/fast learner is quite strongly related to the age of the student when starting the training.
It’s said that the hours needed to learn to fly is equal to your age in years 
If you are 18, you need 18 hours. If you are 50, you need 50 hours. I have also heard that ATC prefer gamers as students. They already have the right training regarding simultaneous multiple events, and can react without hesitating.
There is a surprisingly accurate formula but it isn’t like that. It is something like
hrs = c + age*x
where c and x are constants.
It reminds me of the age of women. We used to discuss that when in the mid 30s, early 40s and it was time to find a new one (after the first one got fed up ) If I remember correctly, the “minimum age” of a new women was:
min age = (your age / 2) + 7
Nothing about max age as I can remember
Successful landing a tailwheel Jodel on a hard runway with a turbulent gusting crosswind is pure muscle/visual interaction memory.
If you think your off the runway. (Unless the thought was to go elsewhere, before roundout.)
Peter wrote:
There is a surprisingly accurate formula but it isn’t like that. It is something like
hrs = c + age*x
where c and x are constants
Required hours increases more rapid than that for old students:
Required hours = 20 + 500 / ( 70 – age )
Obviously the formula works only for students below 70, just like initial flight training :-)
At 50 years you need 45h? at 20 years you need 30h? and at 70 years it’s infinity?
Do they had any 20 years old getting PPL in 30h in their data points
