I was a Private Pilot student some 20+ years ago and I was surprised to read this so I investigated. It&#x27;s still 40 hours for PP but 30 for Recreational. That really surprised me.<p>I stopped my training when I had just short of 40 hours. The only required procedure I hadn&#x27;t completed yet was the night flight time. But no way would I have felt comfortable flying passengers at 30 hours. Hell, it was around that time that I ran into problems both with an engine refusing to shut off on the ground (student using the airplane after me didn&#x27;t read my notation in the log and broke the throttle cable trying to shut the engine off), and on another airplane, the engine hesitating when I throttled back up during a stall recovery.<p>Minor details, but it&#x27;s coming across stuff like this and learning to deal with it that makes the extra flying hours valuable.<p>Like the GP, I&#x27;m generally against regulation, but I agree that the FAA seems too lax in this case.