Looked around and couldn’t find any threads regarding how many hours you had before your first solo and how many hours you had when you passed with your private pilot certificate. I know the minimums and the national averages but just seeing what others first solo and certificate completion was around. P.S I am at about 6 hours total and have just over four months to finish my private pilot! Time to get to work 
Solo: 15 hours @ age 16
PPL: 55 hours @ age 17
(Conducted training outside of ATP)
I’m in ATP from zero time and I’m almost to the solo stage.
The way it’s structured here based on the program outline:
47 hours before soloing
78 hours going into PPL checkride.
I started my airplane add-on training after already receiving my Private in helicopters. I didn’t fly or study aviation for over three years, so it really felt like I was starting from zero when I returned to it. Took me 19 hours to solo and about 65 to get my Private. I did have a few long-ish breaks in training due to Ohio weather, and went up with my instructor for non-course related flying a few times, so my hours may be a little higher than would have been necessary otherwise. If the weather cooperates and you fly regularly, I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to get your certificate closer to the minimums, this is certainly a good time of year to start! Have fun!
Woah! That seems very high I had no idea it was structured to where you have to meet certain hour requirements before you can solo, and check ride. I feel that lots of people could solo before 47 hours and even check ride before 78.
Yeah it seems high but there are multiple evals along the way so you are constantly working towards one of those. I actually quite like having that many hours in the Private stage as it allows for a lot of flying and instruction for the foundations of the rest of your career as well as being a major help in meeting the Commercial hour minimums for later on.
Rory,
Absolutely people could solo sooner or pass their checkride sooner, but ATP is in the business of turning out commercial pilots, not private pilots. The increased hours for taking the checkride are to help meet flight time requirements for the commercial certificate. The increased time for solo is simply a safety precaution as there is really no need to be flying solo before it is necessary. You will only fly the minimum solo time necessary to meet requirements as it is simply not as safe as flying with another pilot.
Chris
Just wanted to chime in, now that I am able to! I successfully completed my first solo today with right above 15 hours :)! Time for my first cross country on Monday! KVPC to AHN
I have three months to get to 40 hours (well, more) and complete my PPL! Wish me luck.
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Couldn’t agree more. I soloed at 85 hours and got my PPL at 100 (per ATP’s program). Big catch is - I also got my instrument at 100 hours on that same day. So by the time I had soloed, I was completely IFR proficient. Safer for me and much less of a liability for the company.
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Rory,
That is fantastic! Congratulations!
Chris
Wow! Although not the same track I am on, I find that pretty awesome. Were you not itching wanting to get up their on your own! Jordan, I see you are a graduate. Where are you now? Building time or moved onto career?
I’m in the right seat at Southwest now. And yes I was itching! But I soloed less than 2 months after starting so we had just squeezed a lot in. Program has changed a few times but I was back in the day of the 5 month zero to hero (2013).
Jordan,
Congratulations! How old are you? I am still a few years away from the airlines and a good few years away from a major but hope to see you in the air one day Did you fly at a regional airline before southwest?
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I just turned 29, and I worked for SkyWest before. Only came over here 7 months ago. Hope to see you out there one day too!
Well, been a couple months
Just wanted to shed some light in case anybody is interested. I passed my written exam yesterday with an 83% so room to improve but didn’t scrape by. I leave in 3 days to move in down at Middle Georgia State University. I will start my instrument ground classes immediately and start instrument flying after my check ride. Unfortunately, all the DPE around here have a backlog so hopefully I can take my ride end of September at the latest!
I would really work on trying to improve your future written exam scores. An 83% shows a lot of room for improvement.
Good luck with the instrument training.
I passed my written with a 78 for my IRA after having passed my FII right before with a 92. It’s not the end of the world! Just gotta strive for improvement. I’ve found I’m also just a bad test taker but like when talking about the knowledge I can explain it really well