So I have about 18 hours of flight time and when I went up earlier today with my instructor, a couple of hours before I was supposed to complete a pre-solo check-ride (my flight school requires it). The landings were bad but not completely horrible (the plane was able to be used again), however, they were far from solo quality. His biggest complaint was the lack of rudder usage. However, the flight before he said my rudder usage was excellent. Does anyone have any tips for using rudder on landing? Any exercises or tips to help build rudder usage? And a completely random question but, how many hours is average for soloing?