Comment by HWR_14
9 hours ago
> Folks that aren't committed just don't make progress: hang around, season after season, still flying with instructors, until they finally give up or just occasionally grind it out.
They take more calendar time, but do they take more instruction? Because if they make the same progress per session, I don't see why you would think it inferior to spread it out over several years.
If you don't go often enough you definitely won't make the same progress per session. You'll spend most of each session trying to remaster what you lost from the last one.
For powered flying, one a week is already on the low end... most instructors would recommend 2-3x/week.
Flying skills are very perishable, especially when first learning. This is why there are several different rules about recency of experience before you can do things like carry passengers, recurrent training requirements, etc.
I didn't realize the skills were so perishable, but once you point it out it seems obvious. Since you also mentioned powered flying, and since I imagine there are a lot of transferable skills, do people commonly learn both?