I totally agree with Unstable, even if I didn't make it totally clear in my earlier post. I feel that using the co-pilot makes a pilot to reliant on the equipment to recover a plane in an emergency and never develops the skills needed to do it. And I have to disagree with goliath on the length of time needed to learn at an AMA sanctioned flying field. A lot of how long it takes to learn to fly really depends on the skills, determination, willingness to listen to instruction, and a few other things of the student. As an instructor at our field I've ran the whole range of students learning. I've had students that took almost a year to learn, and I've had students that soloed in two weekends. And there were no corners cut on any student I've trained. They know how to safely assemble/build a plane, field rules, frequency rules, flight safety, how to recover a plane that has gotten away from them, dead stick landing, and finally soloing.

my second set of pennies thrown in here.