>>1448649Oddly, I'd probably agree with them in principle. Learning to ride a bicycle does require a learning curve - balance, coordination, practice, braking, knowing a little maintenance and the "what-to-do-if".
The question I'd ask them is "hey, anon, when learning to ride a bicycle, how many times did you crash/fall off/dump it when you hit a bump/run into stuff?"
Yeah, see, in a plane you have to work through the learning curve without doing any of that, because you are likely to have a little more than a scraped knee to contend with.
I could teach my ten-year old how to do good basic turns and straight and level flight in less than an hour; I could teach her to take off safely in about the same; I could probably teach her to land safely with a few hours practice time. But a lot more goes into flying than those basics. Learning how to do a good pre-flight inspection, monitor fuel consumption, deal with wind, avoid a stall when you don't want one (most of the time) or induce a controlled stall when you do want one (landing), what to do if any one of a dozen or more odd situations arise, how to learn the weather issues that impact flying, navigating, dealing with other traffic, all of that is crucial to keeping out of the one mistake that will almost certainly kill you.
Just because you can walk a balance beam on a playground doesn't mean you're ready to take on tightrope walking between skyscrapers.
