I have a fair mix of experience. And I'm not an instructor.

I'm delighted that you and your family enjoyed your experience.

But being a pilot is not just about flying in clear blue skies in sight of the ground. Yes, that's great fun. But as soon as you move away from this scenario, flying becomes a lot tougher and demanding. A whole lot more.

Best Regards,
MB_Avro.

I watched several videos on youtube by a guy in the UK who goes by the name neutrinoghost (youtube name) he has some really good cross country videos in HD. Ive watched them a few times and the cross country looks really simple.
Same stuff Ive done for years in FSX. I know the real planes flys different but it looks very simple, check this video out and tell me if hes knows what hes doing..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFwBiTS5cKA

The guy said he was on his CPL qualifier, so he is already at an advanced stage of flight training to a higher qualification, I didn't watch the whole video but my impression is he is competent.

What do you see as being hardest for most students which requires them longer than the 40 hours minimum to get PPL?

I can't single out an aspect that is universally hard, perhaps landing takes time to master the finesse but it won't necessarily cause an overrun, the average hours to qualify is in the order of 10 extra on top of the minimum (50 for the US, 55 for Europe) only exceptional students are expected to qualify with the minimum hours, overrunning is an inevitability, most flying schools will explain this.

Biggest one is lack of money. If you cannot afford to fly at least once or twice a week when starting out you will take longer. Second is lack of aptitude. The military weeds out week brothers and sisters. There is no such thing when you go for a ppl. I have soloed 16 year olds within 6 or 7 hours and adults with more than 25 hours that never soloed. Most fulltime students make it within 60 hours. In the usa I would expect to pay around 13k at the moment. Save up, find a cfi that fits your schedule, get your written out of the way and do the flight traning in about 6 weeks, weather permitting. This way everything stays fresh and the chance of losing an intructor is minimal. I had 3 different cfi's before I soloed, no fun when starting out. Enjoy!

Yeah I used to be an instructor for the RAF flying scholarships, it was a total joy taking these fresh faced information sponges, they had to do an abridged syllabus of 30 hours and were expected to solo within 15 hours, most of them made it under 10.

It's frustrating to say it being an instructor (luckily it's a moonlighting job for me) but if you think money is going to be an issue then then is not for you, but as someone else mentioned there is always the sport pilot licence route, it's a bit limiting but it gets you into the air.

I did some instructing back in the 90,s I was FAA CFI, CFII an MEI, towards your goal of PPL forget any sim time but, if you look for an Instrument Rating, in those times there were rumors about accepting a few hours of Pc Flying for the total amount of 20 hours of SIM training... As I left the USA in 92 and stop instructing , I'm not sure what was done about that, but from my experience, 1400+ instructing hours, it sure helps a lot to have and understanding of the ADF, VOR and ILS instruments and procedures: I got a belgian student who got his IFR ticket in his vacation: just 14 days!!! had previously prepared ground test and was a fine pilot and had already a very advanced understanding of the IFR flight and instruments behaviour, as I said 20 hours of Sim + plus 20 hours flight lessons and got his ticket at the first try.. WAS I A SO GREAT INSTRUCTOR !LOL!

Look up the current Regulations!
 

While it's fun to hear about how we instructed "back in '88", please remember that the regulations governing flight, at least in the USA, are laws, not techniques! Just as you can get a ticket for going 60 in a 55 MPH zone while driving your car, you can also get a ticket for going over 250 knots below 10,000 feet in your Mustang. That's just an example of the simplest rules/regulations/laws, etc. I'm sure you get what I mean.

The upshot of this is that for those interested in flying in the USA, you can get all this information FREE at http://www.faa.gov/regulations_polic...a_regulations/
I recommend you check the link :"Read 14 CFR Part 91" on the right side of that page to see all the current fundamental rules in effect according to the FAA, (Not according this tired old retiree!)
To see more of the "Nuts and Bolts" of flying in the USA, pull up http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publi.../aim/index.htm
for the Aeronautical Information Manual (Used to be called the Airman's Information manual) so everyone still calls it the "AIM". This points out the proper way to get things done while driving your P-51D Mustang in good weather and bad.

We have lots of advice and stories to tell here on the CLoD site, but for the official straight skinny on actual flying, go to the FAA... you helped pay for it! I suspect CLoDders from other nations have similar sites sponsored by your own governments.

While I am at a slight loss to understand the hostile tone of the last post it is true that all the guidelines are available on respective national authorities websites, not sure how much more relevant to the discussion flying mustangs over 250kts below FL100 is compared to what has been discussed, I get the impression the OP has a grasp on the regulations already and he was just asking opinions from any resident fuddy-duddy instructors here........I guess it's less fun than trawling through the FAA website though.