What our 2187 First Solo results tell us about learning to fly

This year we ran four intakes of First Solo: Foundation Flight at Tasman Field, each with 16 students and four instructors. Of those 64 beginners, 58 passed their Private Spaceflight Licence check ride at the first attempt, a rate of 91 per cent. Five more passed on their second try, and one decided spaceflight was not for her, which is a perfectly good outcome too.

Numbers like these hide a lot. So here are three things the year taught us.

First, simulator time before real flying matters more than we thought. We moved the start of Sparrow flights from week four to week five and added ten simulator hours, bringing the total to 60. Students arrived at their first real sortie calmer and needed fewer flight hours to reach solo standard. Average time to first solo fell from 21 to 18 flight hours.

Second, background matters much less than people fear. Our cohorts included a marine biologist, two former cargo dispatchers, a chef and a seventeen-year-old who had never left Oceania. The strongest predictor of success was not maths ability or prior experience but how consistently a student reviewed their own flights. Those who wrote a short debrief after every sortie passed at a rate of 97 per cent.

Third, the Sparrow Trainer has earned its place. Halcyon's 11-metre training craft is simple, forgiving and cheap to run on methalox, and its single-pilot cockpit with an instructor seat behind is exactly right for building independence. Not one student this year experienced a serious technical fault in flight.

The tuition for First Solo remains 48,000 credits, including fuel, simulator time, aeromedical checks and the licence fee. Several employers, including launch services and salvage firms, sponsor places for young people with no flying background at all.

Our next intake begins on 10 November 2187. If you have ever wondered what it feels like to fly alone above the Earth, come to the open day and sit in a Sparrow. And yes, the bucket of cold water after your first solo is still compulsory.