Yes, that is about right. The youngest ones were quite capable of handling the airplane after 30 hrs or less and would likely have passed an LAPL skill test.
We had two ~60 years olds, one completed after I think 80+ hrs and one gave up after almost as many. Obviously I do not claim the formula as a scientific fact, but it fits our students reasonably well, and it underlines the fact that above a certain age it is not really practical to start flight training as a general observation. Whether that age is 60 or 65 is of course individual, but above 60 we do discourage people from starting.
I would expect a similar behaviour just question of which age where people can pass on min hours and which ages they will never pass and everage hours for 50 years old bucket
Actually many of the 50 years olds have had somewhat more than 45 hrs, but I would say that has been mainly been due to the fact that they were busy with careers and family and hence they could rarely schedule frequent lessons. But that is a different matter.
I (age 51 at this time) had about 50 hrs of training for the LAPL. I think i needed this amount of training hours because we had a nice trip to the yearly meeting of the OUV, about 7 hrs, but really important were only 2 hours, doing navigation using VOR and NDB. Additionally two COVID related breaks.
Looking back i think about 40 hrs are realistic to get a LAPL in my age.
I would agree with the hours quoted above especially as one who started “piloting”, I use the word because I spent many years before starting my PPL in light aircraft, mainly helicopters, and I definitely took more hours for all the reasons quoted above.
However, I do find it a bit ageist to discourage people over 60 from learning to fly. Often such people have a better theoretical knowledge or at least have more patience to learn. They have more money and are prepared to spend it on instruction, they are more able to self critiques and yes if they find they don’t have the aptitude they are more likely to accept that but still help out or pay to accompany others.
At 80 + Jean Luc Chrétien is still flying his Beech and other aircraft, and is still advising astronauts and still looks younger than most pilots I come across, even those much younger:)
I would also point out that in France there are clubs where people with physical handicaps have PPL’s including the blind or partially sighted and the deaf with various technology so why should someone over 60 be discouraged from doing something they want to do? END OF RANT.
Physical handicap and age are not comparable. There probably exists tons and tons of books about this, but it seems to me that stuff you learn at young age, especially stuff that requires coordination of hands and feet, this stuff “stick” in a young brain and don’t in an old brain. When tipping a certain age it’s more about how much longer you can enjoy the stuff you know rather than learning new stuff. Life is short, the is no way around it. 🛩️😎
gallois wrote:
a bit ageist to discourage people over 60 from learning to fly. Often such people have a better theoretical knowledge
No to ageism, yes to the better TK.
All my 50-60+ students have been marvelous at TK. Fast and motivated learners and able to incorporate their life experience in the TK to get it to make a lot of sense.
But for the practical flying, it is a moral thing – we feel obliged to tell 60+ people what to expect: very hard work, low odds for completion, and they are going to pay for many, many hours of training, and then they may give up. If they still insist, we go ahead and fly!
And we are not discouraging anyone from flying because they are 80 or any other age. Maintaining old skills is something completely different from starting to learn to fly.
In many ways, life at 60 is great. Chances are, unless you have been unlucky or got badly divorced, you will have
)So no wonder most of the “airport regulars” are 60+ 
One certainly learns a lot slower but then you have more time and money to throw at it, so you can fly more often.
I reckon that if you train 100 60 year olds and 100 20 year olds, in 10 years’ time maybe 5 of the first group will still be flying, and maybe 1 from the second group.
Well said @Peter. I detest schools and instructors who go on about how it is going to take you a lot longer to learn to fly or other discouraging words. For me I just went and got a better instructor, someone capable of identifying the difficulties I was having and how to solve them. When I got a bit down and thought I couldn’t do something 360° turns with 45° and 60° of bank being prime examples they demonstrated, patiently explained and never discouraged. Yes, they were honest, I never once felt that I was throwing good money after bad. It was my time and my money, and if the instructor or school couldn’t cope with that, then I was better off elsewhere. The instructors that got me through my PPL my MEP, IR with PBN were all able to do that, they were superb teachers and mentors. Flying schools and instructors need to get real if they and GA want to survive in the future. There are lots of other pastimes to spend our money on these days.
