At last, the truth...

[Jay Honeck]

Most of our guests at the hotel are not pilots. It's simply a matter of
numbers -- there are a LOT more non-pilots than there are pilots, and they
need hotel rooms, too. Many of our guests are "wannabes" or aviation
enthusiasts, however. Although we have found many people who are afraid of
flying, we have yet to meet someone who doesn't like airplanes -- and those
people are our "bread & butter."

An amazing number of guests tell me that they have taken flight lessons, but
quit flying for one reason or another. I have never been able to understand
this phenomenon, since -- after the first lesson -- I was hopelessly hooked.
I would have done anything to finish getting my ticket (and did go so far as
selling my blood plasma for flight money) -- so the concept of quitting just
never made sense to me. I always inquire about their reasons for quitting,
and I often hear the same old explanations (money, time, kids, wives,
etc.) -- but I often sensed that there was more to the story than they were
telling.

I've often suspected that these near-pilots had lived through some
life-changing event, or had been badly scared during flight training. I
simply couldn't fathom what else could cause someone to simply jump off the
horse and walk away from it, forever -- but I had never been able to coax
the story out of any of these "almost-pilots." The macho, gung-ho attitude
that seems to envelope aviation seemed to preclude ever finding anyone who
could admit (perhaps even to themselves) what had happened to them.

Until a few days ago. As many of our guests do, this fellow was hanging
around the lobby, studying all the gizmos, gadgets, books, models and
memorabilia that have spread like lichen all over the place in the last
three years. As is my wont, I struck up a conversation with the guy, and we
casually discussed aviation and airplanes for a few minutes.

It soon became obvious that this guy knew way more about flying than our
average "wannabe" guest. Sure enough, upon inquiring, he admitted taking 18
hours of instruction, and he had several hours of post-solo flight time
under his belt -- before he quit.

Maybe it was the relaxed nature of the setting, or perhaps it was the fact
that he was on vacation and simply let his guard down, but when I asked him
why he had quit (as I ask EVERYONE who tells me they had stopped flying), he
actually told me truthfully and sincerely what had happened.

It seems he had just soloed a week earlier, and was out practicing touch and
goes on his own. There was a bit of a cross wind -- nothing bad -- which
apparently increased while he was working the pattern. On his last
take-off, when he rotated the cross wind kicked up and carried him out over
the adjacent bean field, and in his confusion he found himself sinking
toward the beans.

In a panic, he luckily overcame the urge to simply pull the yoke back into
his belly, and pushed the nose over. Doing so gained some speed, and he
climbed out normally. He then came around and landed with some difficulty,
but without incident.

This seemingly innocent incident scared him so badly that he walked into the
FBO, sat down with his instructor, and told him he was through.

His instructor asked him what happened, told him that what he had
experienced was easily countered with good technique, told him he had done
well and acted properly, and immediately booked him for a few more dual
lessons.

To no avail. This guy was so taken aback by his brush with disaster that he
just couldn't get into flying anymore. He did fly a couple of more times
with his instructor, but he could never get back in the saddle. He quit
altogether.

That was over ten years ago. When I encouraged him to try again, and told
him that it was never too late to get back into flying, he wistfully but
firmly replied that it would never happen.

At last -- I've *finally* found someone who could explain what had happened
to foil their dreams of flight. I've never, ever been able to understand
this all-to-common occurrence -- and there are other good reasons to quit
flying, for sure -- but I have often wondered if this kind of scare during
training isn't happening more often than we know about?

(And before you dismiss a drifting take-off as being non-life-threatening,
see: http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id=CHI05FA080&rpt=p This is an
accident that happened in nearby West Union, Iowa, earlier this summer, when
a low-time pilot in a Cherokee 235 drifted off the runway centerline,
bounced in the weeds, flipped the plane, and killed himself and his two
passengers.)

It was with a heavy heart and a feeling of dismay that I bid our guest
farewell. Perhaps it was for the best that he quit flying, but I couldn't
help but think that he had given up too soon, and that with a little extra
guidance he could have made a good pilot.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jose]

Jay, there are many things that other people are extremely avid about,
that they got hooked on after doing it once, that I have a mild interest
in. Fishing, boating, golf, skydiving, mountain climbing... all these
can suck up a lot of time, and some can suck up a lot of money. If
anybody asked me why I quit or didn't even start, my excuse would be as
lame to them as the "same old explanations" seem to you with regards to
flying. One can't do everything, and people have to prioritize.
Sometimes it's temporary (I stopped flying for about ten years for one
of the "lame" reasons referred to) and sometimes temporary becomes
permanent due to non-dramatic circumstances.

There's no mystery to me as to why not everyone loves aviation like we
do (or why some people love golf like I don't!).

> Maybe it was the relaxed nature of the setting, or perhaps it was the fact
> that he was on vacation and simply let his guard down, but when I asked him
> why he had quit (as I ask EVERYONE who tells me they had stopped flying), he
> actually told me truthfully and sincerely what had happened.

One person had a story to tell. You heard it primarily =because= he had
a story to tell. Those that truly quit for the "lame" reasons have no
story to tell, but their excuse is no less real, and no less truthful.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jay Honeck]

> There's no mystery to me as to why not everyone loves aviation like we do
> (or why some people love golf like I don't!).

Right. But these "near-pilots" DID love aviation like we do -- and
something spooked them to the point where they walked away.

If we are to replace all the World War II and Korean War-era pilots who are
dying in droves, we've got to get people into aviation, NOW. I address
this "scared straight" issue as just another small piece of the "Why is GA
dying?" puzzle, and hope that we (as pilots) can come up with better ways to
train newbies so that this kind of thing won't happen so often.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Peter Duniho]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
news:3gULe.251379$x96.181434@attbi_s72...
> [...]
> It was with a heavy heart and a feeling of dismay that I bid our guest
> farewell. Perhaps it was for the best that he quit flying, but I couldn't
> help but think that he had given up too soon, and that with a little extra
> guidance he could have made a good pilot.

He probably would have. I don't think many students, having just soloed,
would have done as well as he did during the bean field incident.

That said, not every ex-pilot's situation is the same, and just because you
can't imagine quitting flying over something more mundane, that doesn't mean
other pilots wouldn't either. We are NOT all cut from the same cloth, as
numerous off-topic discussions in this newsgroup ought to demonstrate quite
well.

Speaking from my own personal experience, flying is something I've always
wanted to do. Ever since I was a little kid, but it never occurred to me
until after college it was something I *could* do. Then I dove right in.

I still love flying. But my life is different these days. I've got a plane
I can hardly find time to use. I never did fit my lifestyle around it the
way I wanted to (it's an amphib, that hardly sees the water these days). On
top of that, other than the majority of the 600,000 or so pilots in the US,
the rest of the country is doing everything it can to simply end general
aviation. (And I find it sad that even some of that group of licensed
pilots are helping this "cause" to end aviation).

I'm normally capable of being a pretty stubborn guy, but especially as I get
older, I find I am less able to be stubborn about as wide a range of things
at one time, and I do have plenty else in my life to be stubborn about.
Quite frankly, between my own personal circumstance and what I view as a
trend toward making aviation just not worth the trouble, I have had thoughts
about just giving the whole thing up.

I relate all this simply to point out the wide variety of individual
situations that may lead to a person quitting flying. Granted, I haven't
done it yet...but I sure feel closer to doing so than I ever have, and
that's counting when I had my medical issues a few years ago (when major
surgery was the only way for me to get my medical back). Nothing's scared
me, and I feel I'm every bit a pilot as anyone else I know. But it's just
hard to see how flying fits well into my life right now.

If this "conversation" is anything like any of the others we've had in the
past, you won't understand what I'm feeling or thinking here either.

I think it's highly unlikely that your "sense" of a hidden, "life-changing
event" is accurate in most cases. I suspect that most people tell you what
they believe to be the actual reasons for giving up flying. It's just how
life is...not everyone feels exactly the way you do about flying, even
though they may be very good pilots themselves. Just because you can't
relate to their reasons, that doesn't mean their reasons aren't just as they
say.

Pete

[Matt Whiting]

Jay Honeck wrote:

> Most of our guests at the hotel are not pilots. It's simply a matter of
> numbers -- there are a LOT more non-pilots than there are pilots, and they
> need hotel rooms, too. Many of our guests are "wannabes" or aviation
> enthusiasts, however. Although we have found many people who are afraid of
> flying, we have yet to meet someone who doesn't like airplanes -- and those
> people are our "bread & butter."
>
> An amazing number of guests tell me that they have taken flight lessons, but
> quit flying for one reason or another. I have never been able to understand
> this phenomenon, since -- after the first lesson -- I was hopelessly hooked.
> I would have done anything to finish getting my ticket (and did go so far as
> selling my blood plasma for flight money) -- so the concept of quitting just
> never made sense to me. I always inquire about their reasons for quitting,
> and I often hear the same old explanations (money, time, kids, wives,
> etc.) -- but I often sensed that there was more to the story than they were
> telling.
>
> I've often suspected that these near-pilots had lived through some
> life-changing event, or had been badly scared during flight training. I
> simply couldn't fathom what else could cause someone to simply jump off the
> horse and walk away from it, forever -- but I had never been able to coax
> the story out of any of these "almost-pilots." The macho, gung-ho attitude
> that seems to envelope aviation seemed to preclude ever finding anyone who
> could admit (perhaps even to themselves) what had happened to them.

Like you, I suspect that your guests experience likely is the
predominant reason that people walk away permanently from aviation,
however, there are reasons that some people walk away temporarily. I've
done it twice in my 26 years of flying, both times for about 4 years.
The first was in college and the second after my company nearly went
bankrupt after the telecomm bust.

The main reason was lack of both funds and time. You will say that "you
can always find a way", and that is true to an extent. However, some of
us are perfectionists and when we can't fly enough to maintain
proficiency (we being perfectionists, proficiency can be a pretty high
standard), we'd rather walk away. That, I believe anway, was my driving
motivation. When I couldn't afford to fly at least a couple of hours a
month, I gave it up completely for a time. I maintained my medical, but
didn't fly as PIC.

I'm sure there are folks with other good reasons, but that is mine.
Fortunately, close calls don't bother me much whether in an airplane or
on a motorcycle or elsewhere, but I do believe, as do you, that close
calls are the reason that most would be pilots get derailed.


Matt

[Stefan]

Jay Honeck wrote:

> Right. But these "near-pilots" DID love aviation like we do -- and
> something spooked them to the point where they walked away.

Not necessairily. I've looked into many things, and after a while said:
ok, it was interesting, it was fun, but now that's it, let's go for
something new. Right now I'm hooked to soaring and really like it, but
who knows how I'll feel in 10 years?

Stefan

[Jay Honeck]

>> Right. But these "near-pilots" DID love aviation like we do -- and
>> something spooked them to the point where they walked away.
>
> Not necessairily. I've looked into many things, and after a while said:
> ok, it was interesting, it was fun, but now that's it, let's go for
> something new. Right now I'm hooked to soaring and really like it, but who
> knows how I'll feel in 10 years?

Stefan -- soaring IS flying, in its purest form!

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Happy Dog]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in

> It seems he had just soloed a week earlier, and was out practicing touch
> and goes on his own. There was a bit of a cross wind -- nothing bad --
> which apparently increased while he was working the pattern. On his last
> take-off, when he rotated the cross wind kicked up and carried him out
> over the adjacent bean field, and in his confusion he found himself
> sinking toward the beans.
>
> In a panic, he luckily overcame the urge to simply pull the yoke back
> into his belly, and pushed the nose over. Doing so gained some speed,
> and he climbed out normally. He then came around and landed with some
> difficulty, but without incident.
>
> This seemingly innocent incident scared him so badly that he walked into
> the FBO, sat down with his instructor, and told him he was through.

Pussy. That's not even an interesting scare.
>
> His instructor asked him what happened, told him that what he had
> experienced was easily countered with good technique, told him he had done
> well and acted properly, and immediately booked him for a few more dual
> lessons.
>
> To no avail. This guy was so taken aback by his brush with disaster that
> he just couldn't get into flying anymore. He did fly a couple of more
> times with his instructor, but he could never get back in the saddle. He
> quit altogether.
>
> That was over ten years ago. When I encouraged him to try again, and told
> him that it was never too late to get back into flying, he wistfully but
> firmly replied that it would never happen.
>
> At last -- I've *finally* found someone who could explain what had
> happened to foil their dreams of flight. I've never, ever been able to
> understand this all-to-common occurrence -- and there are other good
> reasons to quit flying, for sure -- but I have often wondered if this kind
> of scare during training isn't happening more often than we know about?

Who knows? Did anything like that ever happen to you or anyone else you
know? Did you or they quit? Those are binary questions.

moo

[Jay Honeck]

> I'm normally capable of being a pretty stubborn guy, but especially as I
> get older, I find I am less able to be stubborn about as wide a range of
> things at one time, and I do have plenty else in my life to be stubborn
> about.

You, Pete? No way!

:-)

> Quite frankly, between my own personal circumstance and what I view as a
> trend toward making aviation just not worth the trouble, I have had
> thoughts about just giving the whole thing up.

I hope it doesn't come to that.

> Speaking from my own personal experience, flying is something I've always
> wanted to do. Ever since I was a little kid, but it never occurred to me
> until after college it was something I *could* do. Then I dove right in.

Heck, you figured it out 14 years faster than I did. I kick myself daily
for not realizing what was possible until I was 35.

> If this "conversation" is anything like any of the others we've had in the
> past, you won't understand what I'm feeling or thinking here either.

No, what you say makes perfect sense.

> I think it's highly unlikely that your "sense" of a hidden, "life-changing
> event" is accurate in most cases. I suspect that most people tell you
> what they believe to be the actual reasons for giving up flying.

I don't know. But I guess if a pilot is able to "give up" flying *without*
some sort of a life-changing scary experience, then, perhaps, they were
never really that hooked on it in the first place? This is another concept
I cannot understand -- how can someone fly without becoming hooked on the
magic of flight? -- so perhaps I'll never be able to fathom these folks.

Flying is *not* golf, nor boating, nor motorcycling, nor anything else.
Quite simply, there is nothing else like it; so quitting -- for me --
someday, is going to be ugly, and entirely involuntary.

To simply relinquish the ability to fly of my own free will is unthinkable,
and -- since it's hard to B.S. a B.S.-er -- I always search for deeper
reasons when someone tells me they quit flying because of "the wife" or "the
job".
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Stefan]

Jay Honeck wrote:

> Stefan -- soaring IS flying, in its purest form!

I've never said something else. Actually, I consider flying straight and
level using an engine pretty boring. But that's another tread.

Stefan

[Ash Wyllie]

Jay Honeck opined

<snip>

>His instructor asked him what happened, told him that what he had
>experienced was easily countered with good technique, told him he had done
>well and acted properly, and immediately booked him for a few more dual
>lessons.

>To no avail. This guy was so taken aback by his brush with disaster that he
>just couldn't get into flying anymore. He did fly a couple of more times
>with his instructor, but he could never get back in the saddle. He quit
>altogether.

Sometimes there is such a thing as too much imagination.



-ash
Cthulhu in 2005!
Why wait for nature?

[ls]

Jay Honeck wrote:

> At last -- I've *finally* found someone who could explain what had happened
> to foil their dreams of flight. I've never, ever been able to understand
> this all-to-common occurrence -- and there are other good reasons to quit
> flying, for sure -- but I have often wondered if this kind of scare during
> training isn't happening more often than we know about?
>
> (And before you dismiss a drifting take-off as being non-life-threatening,
> see: http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id=CHI05FA080&rpt=p This is an
> accident that happened in nearby West Union, Iowa, earlier this summer, when
> a low-time pilot in a Cherokee 235 drifted off the runway centerline,
> bounced in the weeds, flipped the plane, and killed himself and his two
> passengers.)
>
> It was with a heavy heart and a feeling of dismay that I bid our guest
> farewell. Perhaps it was for the best that he quit flying, but I couldn't
> help but think that he had given up too soon, and that with a little extra
> guidance he could have made a good pilot.

At my previous job (may it R.I.P.), I got an honest account from a
similar fellow - he'd gotten to the point of solo and quit for good
shortly thereafter.

He had stumbled into a cloud somehow and was in it for what he estimated
was a good 20 seconds or so. He apparently popped out the other side
nearly inverted. He recovered and landed safely, but, according to him,
that incident drained all of his desire to fly. He never got that
interest back.

I've had a few near misses myself, mostly connected with transitioning
to a new a/c type and not getting the proper training or doing something
incorrect with too little time in type. The shock was very definite in
each case and cooled me off a good bit for a while.

I've always climbed back into the plane in the end, though, for reasons
unclear to me.

I think that here are folks who simply just don't care much for flying
and would rather not. They kick the tires to see what it's like, try it
out, and then decide it's not for them.

I'm like that about many things myself - boating, motocycling, dating -
and my reaction is similar. Try it out for a while, yeah it's ok, but
nah..... Just doesn't do it for me, I'm done now.......

Doesn't mean these folks are dispassionate, I think that flying just
isn't for them.....

LS
N646F

[Jose]

> But these "near-pilots" DID love aviation like we do

Well, empirically this is not supported.

> and something spooked them to the point where they walked away.

This is a hypothesis, supported by one anecdote.

> If we are to replace all the World War II and Korean War-era pilots who are
> dying in droves, we've got to get people into aviation, NOW.

Be careful that the desire to believe something doesn't interfere with a
dispassionate evaluation of whether or not it is in fact true.

> hope that we (as pilots) can come up with better ways to
> train newbies...

Always a good thing.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Craig]

ls wrote:
> At my previous job (may it R.I.P.), I got an honest account from a
> similar fellow - he'd gotten to the point of solo and quit for good
> shortly thereafter.
>
> He had stumbled into a cloud somehow and was in it for what he estimated
> was a good 20 seconds or so. He apparently popped out the other side
> nearly inverted. He recovered and landed safely, but, according to him,
> that incident drained all of his desire to fly. He never got that
> interest back.
>

This reminded me of the following audio clip of a VFR only pilot who
inadvertently ended up in cloud. It worked out OK for him and he was
back flying again later the same day. Now I'm not a pliot, but after
hearing the clip I think you'll agree that's pretty incredible.

<warning, this clip is not for the faint hearted>

http://www.naats.org/docs/flightassist.mp3

[Jose]

> Flying is *not* golf, nor boating, nor motorcycling, nor anything else.
> Quite simply, there is nothing else like it; so quitting -- for me --
> someday, is going to be ugly, and entirely involuntary.

You have it backwards. Motorcycling is *not* golf, nor flying, nor
boating... but I bet you just don't "get it" when it comes to two-wheelers.

What (except "my God is bigger than your God") is the difference?

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Larry Dighera]

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 03:48:15 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
> wrote in
<3gULe.251379$x96.181434@attbi_s72>::

>I have often wondered if this kind of scare during
>training isn't happening more often than we know about?

When I began flight training in 1970, two of my friends also started
taking lessons. Neither of them completed their training and obtained
their certificates. They were both happy to go aloft with me as PIC
for many years afterward, and it was a rewarding experience for all of
us.

I never asked them why they quit, but my intuition suggested that
there were two factors in their failure to obtain an airmans
certificate:

1. They lacked faith in their personal ability to fly safely.
They were afraid they might misunderstand or forget something
important and get into a situation beyond their ability to assure a
successful outcome. It was largely an issue of lack of confidence and
aviation experience. This lack of self-confidence coupled with the
natural fear for their well-being was uncomfortable for them.

2. The cost of training and subsequent maintenance of currency
was beyond their means. This financial issue was the underlying cause
of their discontinuing training, and a good excuse not to overcome the
fear associated with number one above.

My means permitted me to comfortably train, and I'm the sort of
obsessive personality that completely immerse myself into demanding
tasks to assure their successful completion. So I would think that
while fear is an issue to some extent for virtually every student
airman, it is the lack of free time and discretionary funds that are
the prime inhibitory factors to obtaining an airmans certificate.

[Casey Wilson]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
news:3gULe.251379$x96.181434@attbi_s72...
> Most of our guests at the hotel are not pilots. It's simply a matter of
> numbers -- there are a LOT more non-pilots than there are pilots, and they
> need hotel rooms, too. Many of our guests are "wannabes" or aviation
> enthusiasts, however. Although we have found many people who are afraid
> of flying, we have yet to meet someone who doesn't like airplanes -- and
> those people are our "bread & butter."
>
> An amazing number of guests tell me that they have taken flight lessons,
> but quit flying for one reason or another. I have never been able to
> understand this phenomenon, since --

I'll give you two examples. When I was in primary flight training, an
aquaintance was also taking lessons -- we had the same CFI. He made his solo
flight about two weeks after me. It turned out to be his one and only solo.
On his first landing things got bollixed up and the C-150 ended up on
its nose. My friend walked away without a scratch, except perhaps for his
pride. Unlike your guest and his bean field, my guy never went back.
The second is my wife. I'd had my PP-ASEL for a year and we'd made
several flights, local and cross-country when I talked her into doing at
least a couple hours of dual. She thought at the time it was a good idea...
just in case she needed to take over and land, someday.
Well, she went on to solo, left part of her Tee-shirt hanging on the
FBO's wall, and was finished. She said she accomplished what she set out to
do. Still today, she is never reluctant to go for a ride, and she enjoys
following along on the sectional and tuning radios. She just doesn't have
the need.

[Jim Burns]

I haven't heard many CFI's comment on it lately, but locally I'm aware that
many of them contact fallen away students and pilots to inquire "what the
story is". I think one of the most disheartening things about being even a
part time CFI is to have students drift off without knowing why. Naturally
the first thing that comes into your mind is that it is in some way the
CFI's fault.

A few observations from teaching ground schools and a few students part
time:

- Young people, especially high school students, are extremely busy.
Unless they make flying a priority and unless their parents support them and
help them make it a priority, other things simply get in the way. School,
extracurricular activities, social life, part time jobs, and many other
things simply take time, and that leaves less time for flying.

- Successful people, that can afford to fly, are often just as busy.
These people typically have pretty fast paced high pressure jobs. These
same people usually make the commitment and arrange their schedules to
obtain their license, but I've watched several simply fade away for many
reasons. Scheduling conflicts, no time off, can't stay current, what ever.
The same things that pull them away from their family and social lives, pull
them away from flying.

- Some people are living a dream, and then they wake up, declare the dream
over because they've reached what ever level or goal that they had
consciously or subconsciously set for themselves, then simply go back to
living their life as it was before. Mission accomplished (in there minds)

- The reality of the expense hits them.
- The reality of the dedication required hits them and they are
unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary.

I'm sure that there are a million reasons, but these are just a few that
I've encountered.

I've talked to only a couple pilots that have scared themselves into
quitting. Some were good pilots that simply made a mistake. They took the
time to learn from their mistake and continued on briefly, however the
pressure from their family is what ultimately convinced them to quit.

Some acted more as a passenger rather than a pilot. They made a mistake but
were simply along for the ride. They didn't know what caused their problem.
They didn't take the time to learn more after it happened. Some of these
pilots, with some extra effort and training can make good safe pilots. This
takes more guts and more humility than some are willing to exhibit. It's
those that I'd rather have quit than continue to endanger themselves and
others.

I, like you, started flying and never looked back. Although I took nearly 9
years off, beginning when we built our house and then my kids were born, my
dream never died and when I was able I jumped back in with both feet. For
me, it's been a series of adventures. For me, the fun and enjoyment come
from continually learning and setting new goals. What's next? What rating
or certificate can I train for now? What kind of airplane do I want? Where
can I take the family? It never stops.

We're in the minority, you and I. Just as most of the others on these
newsgroups. Does that make us special? Does that make us crazy? I once
heard that a "fan" is someone that is a fanatic about something that most
other people don't care anything about. I think we're fanatics and that is
what makes us continue to wonder what happens to those who slip along the
wayside.

Ramble mode "off".

Jim

[Chris Colohan]

"Jay Honeck" > writes:
> Flying is *not* golf, nor boating, nor motorcycling, nor anything else.
> Quite simply, there is nothing else like it; so quitting -- for me --
> someday, is going to be ugly, and entirely involuntary.

Back when I was into rock climbing, I quite regularly met folks who
felt that way about the sport. It is all just what you are in to...

Chris
--
Chris Colohan Email: PGP: finger
Web: www.colohan.com Phone: (412)268-4751

[[email protected]]

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 01:26:01 -0700, "Peter Duniho"
> wrote:

>I still love flying. But my life is different these days. I've got a plane
>I can hardly find time to use. I never did fit my lifestyle around it the
>way I wanted to (it's an amphib, that hardly sees the water these days). On
>top of that, other than the majority of the 600,000 or so pilots in the US,
>the rest of the country is doing everything it can to simply end general
>aviation. (And I find it sad that even some of that group of licensed
>pilots are helping this "cause" to end aviation).
>
>I'm normally capable of being a pretty stubborn guy, but especially as I get
>older, I find I am less able to be stubborn about as wide a range of things
>at one time, and I do have plenty else in my life to be stubborn about.
>Quite frankly, between my own personal circumstance and what I view as a
>trend toward making aviation just not worth the trouble, I have had thoughts
>about just giving the whole thing up.

I too have always wanted to fly. I knew I could handle an airplane
because I took lessons when I was 15 and a half from my father who was
a CFI, and really liked it and handled the airplane fine. But I
didn't get the chance to fly very often and eventually college came
along before I got my license and raising a family plus the lack of
"disposable income" prevented me from pursuing flying since then. Once
the kids left the house though, I began building a plans built
homebuilt and have been having fun doing that. I also managed to get
my PPL. But I don't fly very often and when I do it's just shooting
landings or putting about locally with the occasional enthralled
passenger or my game but unhappy wife.

I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth the time, effort and money. I've
got my first BFR coming up and the CFI was describing it like it was a
mini PPL flight test. Told me that since I don't do much cross
county, perhaps I'll be required to plan one. Well hell, I can do
that, but typically the kind of planning that goes into test type
cross countries isn't what I worry about when actually flying one.

I'm entertaining thoughts that maybe I should quit powered flight and
join the local gliding club. That's much more the kind of flying I'm
doing anyway, not leaving the area and flying when the weather's nice.
It would for sure cost less.

Corky Scott

[john smith]

Jay Honeck wrote:
> Right. But these "near-pilots" DID love aviation like we do -- and
> something spooked them to the point where they walked away.

Not love, a fling.
They lack the passion of flight that those of us who scare ourselves,
yet go right back to it, have.

[Peter Duniho]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
news:ag0Me.28191$084.26229@attbi_s22...
> [...]
> I don't know. But I guess if a pilot is able to "give up" flying
> *without* some sort of a life-changing scary experience, then, perhaps,
> they were never really that hooked on it in the first place?

But this is what I'm trying to explain to you. I know few pilots who love
flying more than I do. I know they are out there, but I still feel the
passion, and I'm sure it equals or betters that held by most. Yet, I am
still capable of contemplating quitting.

Granted, I haven't done it yet. And perhaps my passion WILL prevent me from
doing so. But I personally believe that even being able to contemplate it
suggests that I'm capable of it.

Of course, you could go with the tautological approach, and define "never
really that hooked on it in the first place" as meaning "is able to give up
flying without some sort of life-changing scary experience". But as with
all tautologies, that doesn't get you any closer to actually understanding
each pilot who gives it up.

> This is another concept I cannot understand -- how can someone fly without
> becoming hooked on the magic of flight? -- so perhaps I'll never be able
> to fathom these folks.

As Jose already pointed out, there are people who become equally hooked on
the magic of other pursuits. There is nothing unique about flying that
makes it somehow better than other hobbies, except of course to those of us
that *believe* it to be better than other hobbies.

> Flying is *not* golf, nor boating, nor motorcycling, nor anything else.

Golf is not flying, nor boating, nor motorcycling, nor anything else.

Boating is not golf, nor flying, nor motorcycline, nor anything else.

Motorcycling is not golf, nor boating, nor flying, nor anything else.

The above is equally valid for the infinite number of other things that
people develop a passion for. The fact is, each person has their own unique
outlook on what makes life all worthwhile. For any given pursuit, there's a
person out there that feels that pursuit is what gives them breath, that
that pursuit is the pinnacle of human achievement and demonstrates the very
best of humanity in a single activity. And for most of those people, they
view aviation as just another hobby, nothing special or magical at all.

It's not at all hard for me to imagine a person who tried out flying, and
perhaps even found it enjoyable enough to keep at it for awhile, but who
eventually decided there were other, more important things they needed or
wanted to do.

> [...]
> To simply relinquish the ability to fly of my own free will is
> unthinkable, and -- since it's hard to B.S. a B.S.-er -- I always search
> for deeper reasons when someone tells me they quit flying because of "the
> wife" or "the job".

People imagine in others their own worst qualities. When you're a
"B.S.-er", it's hard to imagine that there are lots of people out there who
don't B.S. at all.

Pete

[Happy Dog]

"Peter Duniho" > wrote in message

> It's not at all hard for me to imagine a person who tried out flying, and
> perhaps even found it enjoyable enough to keep at it for awhile, but who
> eventually decided there were other, more important things they needed or
> wanted to do.

Most likely. But I see a lot of people who have an epiphany after they solo
and they realize the extent of training they must still do before their
qualifications are satisfactory to meet the expectations they had when they
signed up. Most people I talk to say they want to fly so they can travel.
In reality, that's a demanding, and expensive, proposition.

moo

[Longworth]

Jay,

I had only come across half a dozen or so of folks who no longer
flew. Here are the reasons which they gave me: a) been there, done
that - now into other things (2) b) got scared (2) one after getting
lost in a solo cross country trip, one right after the introductory
flight lesson - the instructor went through the whole routine including
slow flight, stalls and steep turns!! c) no money/no time (3) d) no
time (1).

Learning to fly requires a tremendous amount of time and effort.
It's a good thing that sport pilot category came along. Even for
licenced pilot who wants to fly often, it's not easy or convenient to
rent a plane. After Rick got his licence, he did not fly for over 6
months because the only local FBO (at that time) required a checkout in
an expensive, difficult to learn newer 172 which broke down quite
often and the only two 'qualifed' instructors were hard to book. He
even had to take a ground school GPS. To get proficient, we had to
drive 1.5hrs to another FBO so that Rick could continue to fly. We also
had to pay renter's insurance.

Flying is still not easy accessible or affordable to many people.
It requires a tremendous amount of commitment to stay active in
aviation. The same goes to any other serious hobbies. Rick and I
used to go scuba diving at least 4 times a year including a liveaboard
trip. We are down to 2 trips a year since owing the plane. Before
each trip, we have to go to the local YMCA's pool to practice and
check out our gear. We go rowing/sculling 4 times a week and would
feel out-of-synch or out-of-shape without rowing for a week. There are
just too many things to do and so little time. Like Jose said, one
can't do everything and people have to prioritize. It would have been
nice if we had learned to fly years ago, but we were busy with
schooling and raising our kid. Later on, we had to cope with the
health problems of our parents. Rick's parents passed away 4 years
ago. If my parents were seriously ill the last few years, there was
no ways that we could pickup any new hobbies let alone something as
intensive as learning to fly.

Hai Longworth

[Jay Honeck]

> Golf is not flying, nor boating, nor motorcycling, nor anything else.
<SNIP>
> The above is equally valid for the infinite number of other things that
> people develop a passion for. The fact is, each person has their own unique
> outlook on what makes life all worthwhile. For any given pursuit, there's a
> person out there that feels that pursuit is what gives them breath, that
> that pursuit is the pinnacle of human achievement and demonstrates the very
> best of humanity in a single activity.

Ohmigod, did you really come *that* close to saying that there are
people who define "golf" as the "pinnacle of human achievement"?
Whew!

:-)


> People imagine in others their own worst qualities. When you're a
> "B.S.-er", it's hard to imagine that there are lots of people out there who
> don't B.S. at all.

You've almost got that right, Pete, but not quite. When you're a good
B.S.er, you *know* that there are no people devoid of B.S.

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jay Honeck]

> Learning to fly requires a tremendous amount of time and effort.
> It's a good thing that sport pilot category came along.

Amen. I have high hopes that sport pilot will save G.A. -- but the
jury is still out on that.

> Even for
> licenced pilot who wants to fly often, it's not easy or convenient to
> rent a plane.

That is very "area-dependent." In our hometown (Racine, WI) renting a
plane was always easy, relatively inexpensive, and almost always
available.

Here in Iowa City we went through a terrible period a few years ago
when there was only ONE plane for rent on the field, which made Mary
getting her ticket real fun. (Imagine having just one plane for rent
in a university town with an area population of over 100K.)

Now, with two full-time flight schools going strong, you can't spit
without hitting an available rental plane here.

> Flying is still not easy accessible or affordable to many people.

On the issue of accessibility I will agree with you. We still make
getting into aviation too hard, whether it's because the airport is a
cold and sterile place, or because pilots themselves like to make
flying sound like a death-defying act.

Affordable? Well, you've got to define what you mean by "many people."
There are literally thousands of people living near every airport in
America who could afford to fly, but choose not to. We will need to do
a better job of recruiting these people into aviation, sooner than
later, if we want to have places to land in the future.

Can a single mom (or dad) working at a Kwikee Mart fly their own plane?
Nope. But can the mid-level manager at your local bank, or the
innkeeper at your small local motel? You bet.

And we've got to spread that word! Flying is NOT a hobby that carries
with it a crippling expense that can only be borne by the super rich.
Heck, you can buy an Ercoupe for the price of a Harley-Davidson, and
fly the pants off of it for just a couple of thousand bucks a year --
but few outside of the pilot community seem to know that fact.

> It requires a tremendous amount of commitment to stay active in
> aviation.

When it's something you love, it's not seen as a commitment (although,
of course it is). I don't fly regularly because I want to -- I fly
regularly because I *need* to.

Just ask Mary what I'm like when I haven't had my "fix" for a week or
two!

:-)

> There are
> just too many things to do and so little time. Like Jose said, one
> can't do everything and people have to prioritize. It would have been
> nice if we had learned to fly years ago, but we were busy with
> schooling and raising our kid. Later on, we had to cope with the
> health problems of our parents. Rick's parents passed away 4 years
> ago. If my parents were seriously ill the last few years, there was
> no ways that we could pickup any new hobbies let alone something as
> intensive as learning to fly.

Well, I can show you the view from the other end of the telescope.
When my mom was ill and dying, back in 1999, I would quite literally
have been unable to be with her without our airplane. As a small
business owner, it would have been completely impossible for me to
drive 5.5 hours each way, week after week. And I *had* to be able to
fly home at a moment's notice, to put out fires.

GA allowed me to spend irreplaceable time with my mom during her hour
of need, *and* take care of business -- something no other form of
transportation could have done.

What we need to do is share more of these kinds of stories with the
non-flying public. People have the mistaken impression that GA is
nothing but a bunch of rich flyboys out playing with their toys, and
this is mostly because we've all done such a terrible job of
communicating the real utility of our airplanes.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jose]

> When you're a good
> B.S.er, you *know* that there are no people devoid of B.S.

Oh, that's just BS.

(sorry, couldn't resist :)

There's one other thing to consider - one of the reasons people have for
flying is going places. You, who own the perfect plane for your
situation (family of four), can do this. Most pilots don't own =any=
kind of plane, nor do they belong to a club or partnership. They rent.

Find me a place that will rent a plane for a week at Block Island (a one
hour trip from here) and be happy with the two hours of tach time they
will be able to bill. More likely, there is a four hour per day
minimum. At a hundred dollars an hour, this brings the tab to almost
three thousand dollars for two hours of flying. A plane doesn't begin
to become useful for travel until one is at least a club member (of the
right club). There is a lot of overhead to flying, and I don't think
you realize how much that really means, since you've already done the
overhead.

Pretend for a moment that you didn't own a plane, and could not (for any
number of reasons), so that each flight was governed by the four hour
per day minimum, and whenever you wanted to schedule it, you rolled a
die every day to see if somebody else already booked it. Figure on it
being available for a week long flight maybe once or twice a year,
booked a month in advance. Figure also that you worked 9-5 M-F as an
employee, with one two-week vacation.

What would your flying be like?

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jay Honeck]

> Pretend for a moment that you didn't own a plane, and could not (for any
> number of reasons), so that each flight was governed by the four hour
> per day minimum, and whenever you wanted to schedule it, you rolled a
> die every day to see if somebody else already booked it. Figure on it
> being available for a week long flight maybe once or twice a year,
> booked a month in advance. Figure also that you worked 9-5 M-F as an
> employee, with one two-week vacation.
>
> What would your flying be like?

Crikey, been there, done that. Renting SUCKS.

Which is what usually pushes people into the (often financially
unjustifiable) realm of ownership.

Although a good many people see partnership or flying clubs as a
logical half-step toward outright ownership.

In any event, you're right -- for family flying of any duration,
renting a plane is difficult at best.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[George Patterson]

Jay Honeck wrote:
>
> This is another concept
> I cannot understand -- how can someone fly without becoming hooked on the
> magic of flight? --

That has become very obvious. Few people I know feel that way.

> so perhaps I'll never be able to fathom these folks.

I'd say you never will.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

[Jose]

> Crikey, been there, done that. Renting SUCKS.
>
> Which is what usually pushes people into the (often financially
> unjustifiable) realm of ownership.

Or perhaps, justifiably, out of aviation. No scare needed.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[john smith]

The beauty of getting too old to fly and not pass the physical means
that I will be in my prime for competitive target shooting.
No other sport favors a person with a slow pulse, little to no movement,
and corrective lenses (telescopic sights)!

[W P Dixon]

The renting and getting the training is the expensive part from what I have
seen. I was bewildered that rental insurance was as cheap as my car
insurance! So I was real happy with that.
Someone without alot of money can do it and can own their own
plane,...it just takes some work. There are several homebuilt designs that
don't cost a bundle to build. And of course the more you can do yourself the
cheaper it will be. So a person may not be able to invest alot of money into
a airplane. With alot smaller amount of cash and much more time, if a
person wants to they will have an airplane ;)
Guess it all depends on how bad you want something! Of course if you
make 6 or 7 bucks an hour and have a few mouths to feed, it will be very
very difficult . Which is probably close to what innkeepers make here in
small motels unless they are the owners ;)

Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech

[Dan Luke]

"Jay Honeck" wrote:

> This seemingly innocent incident scared him so badly that he walked into
> the FBO, sat down with his instructor, and told him he was through.

New pilot anxiety is pretty common, I suspect. I felt it to a lesser extent
myself for the first couple of hundred hours I flew, and only my extreme
addiction to flying kept me going long enough to get over it. Posters in
r.a.student mention it fairly often, too.

An airplane nut I know quit training without any scary incident to nudge him
out of the cockpit. He said he was filled with dread every time he walked
into the FBO for a lesson; nothing he could put his finger on, just general
fear. Another acquaintence completed his training all the way through the
instrument rating but now never flies. He says the fear he feels takes all
the fun out of it for him; the only reason he finished is that he prides
himself on never quitting anything he starts.

--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM

[Dan Luke]

"Peter Duniho" wrote:
> Quite frankly, between my own personal circumstance and what I view as a
> trend toward making aviation just not worth the trouble, I have had
> thoughts about just giving the whole thing up.

Pete...PETE!

Get a grip, boy! You're talkin' crazy!

[Andrew Sarangan]

The pursuit of flying is a balancing act between at least a dozen
variables; fun, travel, expense, risk, time, spouse, family, medical
etc... Some folks are fortunate to have all variables lined up in
their favor. Others may not be so fortunate. What weight you attach to
each of these variable depends on the individual. Some may quit flying
at the slightest exposure of risk. Others may continue flying even
after a near-fatal accident. Some may quit when the money runs out.
Others may sell their house to continue flying. Some may quit because
their spouse doesn't approve. Others may get a divorce. It is all a
matter of priorities, and there is no right or wrong answer.

I suspect that the person in question did not quit simply because of
the crosswind incident. He must have already had other reasons (even
subconsciously), and the crosswind incident is the one that broke the
camel's back.

Why is GA dying? It is because none of the above variables have moved
in a favorable direction in the past decade. As long as we continue to
put people in Washington who are ignorant about GA, this trend will
continue.

[Longworth]

Jay,

Flying is relative expensive in comparison to other hobbies. In
my area, plane rental costs $100-$120/hr. The typical instructor fee is
$40/hr. To learn to fly efficiently, one needs to fly 2 or 3 hrs/week
or 10hrs/month. This means $1500/month. The sport pilot rating will
certainly bring the cost down but it will probably cost few thousand
grands to get the rating. To stay proficient, one should fly at least
once a week. This means at least $600/month.

One does not have to be super rich to fly but one needs to have
some disposable income AND the desire (supported by the family) to
spend a big chunk of it in aviation. One can buy a Ercoupe or a
C150/C152 for less than cost of a new economy car but by the time you
add up the tie-down fee, insurance cost, annual/maintemance cost etc.
and av gas at $3.50-$4/gal, one can easily spend $10K a year.

People are very cost concious when it comes to something that they
do not consider essential to their life. Heck, I just forced Rick to
forego watching CNN & Discovery channel by switching from Family to
Basic Broadcast Cable TV. We saved $35/month. I also disconnected
the second phone line to save $20/month. The total saving will get
pay for av gas for one weekend trip ;-). I was trying to recruit new
members to my rowing club and had a hard time convincing people who had
5-figure salary to spend $300/yr on this great outdoor sport. Then
again, people think that we are so cheap in not having broadband
internet connection and not having a cellphone! I finally broke down
and order a prepaid cellphone for this long trip. The plan we chose
was with Page Plus Cellular (through Verizon) for a monthly cost of
$3/month. I have a $20 prepaid AT&T phone card in my wallet which
still has several hundred minutes after one year.

About the utility of flying, yes, we do visit our friends and
relatives more often ever since owning a plane. However, timewise and
costwise, most of the time it is cheaper and sometimes faster to fly
commercial. We will be flying to Denver to visit our daughter this
weekend. The 3000nm round trip will take probably close to 30hrs. My
estimate operating expense for our C177 is $50/hr. So this will come to
$1500. Last year when we flew to Denver through AA, the round trip
tickets was $170/person. Adding the outrageously expensive parking
cost $19/day at HPN, the total cost was less than $500!

The utility of small plane makes sense when it comes to shorter or
trips with multiple hops. In our last trip,in five days, we visited
4 families in Grand Rapids/Muskegon, MI then flew to Chicago to visit a
sister family and a friend then flew back to Muskegon before flying to
visit my brother's family in Troy on the way back to NY.

It's hard to justify owning a plane or spending $50 just to punch
hole in the sky for an hour. We just have to get people to get hooked
on aviation and they will come up with their own justification. This
is why we try to convince everyone that we know to go up with us for a
fun ride.


Hai Longworth

[Andrew Gideon]

Happy Dog wrote:

> Who knows?Â*Â*DidÂ*anythingÂ*likeÂ*thatÂ*everÂ*happen *toÂ*youÂ*orÂ*anyoneÂ*elseÂ*you
> know?Â*Â*DidÂ*youÂ*orÂ*theyÂ*quit?Â*Â*ThoseÂ*areÂ* binaryÂ*questions.

That's an interesting question. I'd a small scare during my PPL training.
It, combined with the love I have of preflighting in the winter, kept me
away from the airport for five months.

But I returned (when it warmed up {8^).

I wonder if the difference is two-fold: Some don't get scared (perhaps until
the hook is set {8^), and others get scared but get back into the seat.

On the other side of it, I can definitely see the "life circumstances" part.
I used to fly at least once a week, even if it was just to poke some holes.
Now, I'm at about once a month. This is from a combination of work and
family (I've a two-month-old at home).

On the upside, I'm in a club. Were I an owner, I'd be seriously concerned.
As a part owner, I trust fellow members to help me make up the slack
<grin>.

I'd my first son up a few times before the new pregnancy kept my wife out of
the plane (and I'm not yet brave enough to fly w/son and w/o wife {8^). I
expect, when son #2 is suffficiently old, we'll be back to our local trips
(Cape May, Boston, Nantucket, etc.). As they get older, I hope to be
heading further out.

In the meantime, son #1 and I still "play airplane". During these games,
he'll often wear his headset "for the noise".

- Andrew

[Scott Migaldi]

> "Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
> news:3gULe.251379$x96.181434@attbi_s72...
>
>>Most of our guests at the hotel are not pilots. It's simply a matter of
>>numbers -- there are a LOT more non-pilots than there are pilots, and they
>>need hotel rooms, too. Many of our guests are "wannabes" or aviation
>>enthusiasts, however. Although we have found many people who are afraid
>>of flying, we have yet to meet someone who doesn't like airplanes -- and
>>those people are our "bread & butter."
>>
>>An amazing number of guests tell me that they have taken flight lessons,
>>but quit flying for one reason or another. I have never been able to
>>understand this phenomenon, since --
>
>

I worked for a guy who took a few lessons and then quit. He was proud to
tell everyone how easy it was to fly and also once you do the take and
landing the rest is pretty boring. He liked saying this in front of me
and another pilot. I think it made him feel superior. It was probably
masking a fear he had or perhaps we was truly really bored with flying.

I think another reason that people give it up is that after the first
few lessons it looks like all you are doing is the same thing over and
over without ever seemingly making any progress. The real reason a lot
of people fly is to see stuff from the air and here they are trapped
doing stalls, slow flight, engine out, etc. I wonder if it might be more
useful that the dual XC be moved earlier in the syllabuss to keep people
interested.

Scott

--
--------------------
Scott F. Migaldi
CP-ASEL-IA
N8116B

PADI MI-150972
Join the PADI Instructor Yahoo Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PADI-Instructors/

--------------------

[George Patterson]

Jose wrote:
>
> Pretend for a moment that you didn't own a plane, and could not (for any
> number of reasons), so that each flight was governed by the four hour
> per day minimum, and whenever you wanted to schedule it, you rolled a
> die every day to see if somebody else already booked it. Figure on it
> being available for a week long flight maybe once or twice a year,
> booked a month in advance. Figure also that you worked 9-5 M-F as an
> employee, with one two-week vacation.

Or just pretend that you manage to buy a Warrior-class aircraft. You've got that
9-5. So does your wife. You scheduled a week's vacation two months ago; it
starts August 20. If you aren't back at work on August 29, either you or your
wife (or both) may lose your job. Do you gamble your job, house, plane, etc. on
the weather, or do you start packing the car?

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

[Happy Dog]

"Andrew Gideon" > wrote in

>> Who knows? Did anything like that ever happen to you or anyone else you
>> know? Did you or they quit? Those are binary questions.
>
> That's an interesting question. I'd a small scare during my PPL training.
> It, combined with the love I have of preflighting in the winter, kept me
> away from the airport for five months.

It looks like this is more common than I thought. I suspected that the
scare claim was just an excuse for some more mundane reason. Anyone else
have this experience?

mo

[R.L.]

Did the same thing 20 years ago. At the time I was going through a divorce,
going to grad school, working full time and chasing skirts. That left
little time for the learning part of flying. One day, during my 7th flight
hour in a C 150II, I did my first power-on stall. Dropped like a rock, saw
terra firma in the windshield, let go of the yoke, recovered, felt moisture
in my pants, and told the instructor: "lets land NOW!"

Didn't go back because the stall maneuver scared the living **** out of me
and I figured I didn't have the spare time to devote to learning to fly
that was required. The only other activity that I had time for back then was
getting laid: it required no instruction or study, but it WAS expensive!

Now I'm older, I have more control of my time and I'm married. I'm spending
alot of time learning to fly and, ironically, I may get divorced because of
it. But I'm pressing on. Now if a maneuver scares me, I do it five times
again. It helps to be older and not have children so that you don't worry
about screwing up their lives if you make a mistake and you can push your
personal envelope with less trepidation because you've lived a decent
portion of life by the time you get to my age.







"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
news:3gULe.251379$x96.181434@attbi_s72...
> Most of our guests at the hotel are not pilots. It's simply a matter of
> numbers -- there are a LOT more non-pilots than there are pilots, and they
> need hotel rooms, too. Many of our guests are "wannabes" or aviation
> enthusiasts, however. Although we have found many people who are afraid
of
> flying, we have yet to meet someone who doesn't like airplanes -- and
those
> people are our "bread & butter."
>
> An amazing number of guests tell me that they have taken flight lessons,
but
> quit flying for one reason or another. I have never been able to
understand
> this phenomenon, since -- after the first lesson -- I was hopelessly
hooked.
> I would have done anything to finish getting my ticket (and did go so far
as
> selling my blood plasma for flight money) -- so the concept of quitting
just
> never made sense to me. I always inquire about their reasons for
quitting,
> and I often hear the same old explanations (money, time, kids, wives,
> etc.) -- but I often sensed that there was more to the story than they
were
> telling.
>
> I've often suspected that these near-pilots had lived through some
> life-changing event, or had been badly scared during flight training. I
> simply couldn't fathom what else could cause someone to simply jump off
the
> horse and walk away from it, forever -- but I had never been able to coax
> the story out of any of these "almost-pilots." The macho, gung-ho
attitude
> that seems to envelope aviation seemed to preclude ever finding anyone who
> could admit (perhaps even to themselves) what had happened to them.
>
> Until a few days ago. As many of our guests do, this fellow was hanging
> around the lobby, studying all the gizmos, gadgets, books, models and
> memorabilia that have spread like lichen all over the place in the last
> three years. As is my wont, I struck up a conversation with the guy, and
we
> casually discussed aviation and airplanes for a few minutes.
>
> It soon became obvious that this guy knew way more about flying than our
> average "wannabe" guest. Sure enough, upon inquiring, he admitted taking
18
> hours of instruction, and he had several hours of post-solo flight time
> under his belt -- before he quit.
>
> Maybe it was the relaxed nature of the setting, or perhaps it was the fact
> that he was on vacation and simply let his guard down, but when I asked
him
> why he had quit (as I ask EVERYONE who tells me they had stopped flying),
he
> actually told me truthfully and sincerely what had happened.
>
> It seems he had just soloed a week earlier, and was out practicing touch
and
> goes on his own. There was a bit of a cross wind -- nothing bad -- which
> apparently increased while he was working the pattern. On his last
> take-off, when he rotated the cross wind kicked up and carried him out
over
> the adjacent bean field, and in his confusion he found himself sinking
> toward the beans.
>
> In a panic, he luckily overcame the urge to simply pull the yoke back
into
> his belly, and pushed the nose over. Doing so gained some speed, and he
> climbed out normally. He then came around and landed with some
difficulty,
> but without incident.
>
> This seemingly innocent incident scared him so badly that he walked into
the
> FBO, sat down with his instructor, and told him he was through.
>
> His instructor asked him what happened, told him that what he had
> experienced was easily countered with good technique, told him he had done
> well and acted properly, and immediately booked him for a few more dual
> lessons.
>
> To no avail. This guy was so taken aback by his brush with disaster that
he
> just couldn't get into flying anymore. He did fly a couple of more times
> with his instructor, but he could never get back in the saddle. He quit
> altogether.
>
> That was over ten years ago. When I encouraged him to try again, and told
> him that it was never too late to get back into flying, he wistfully but
> firmly replied that it would never happen.
>
> At last -- I've *finally* found someone who could explain what had
happened
> to foil their dreams of flight. I've never, ever been able to understand
> this all-to-common occurrence -- and there are other good reasons to quit
> flying, for sure -- but I have often wondered if this kind of scare during
> training isn't happening more often than we know about?
>
> (And before you dismiss a drifting take-off as being non-life-threatening,
> see: http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id=CHI05FA080&rpt=p This is an
> accident that happened in nearby West Union, Iowa, earlier this summer,
when
> a low-time pilot in a Cherokee 235 drifted off the runway centerline,
> bounced in the weeds, flipped the plane, and killed himself and his two
> passengers.)
>
> It was with a heavy heart and a feeling of dismay that I bid our guest
> farewell. Perhaps it was for the best that he quit flying, but I couldn't
> help but think that he had given up too soon, and that with a little extra
> guidance he could have made a good pilot.
> --
> Jay Honeck
> Iowa City, IA
> Pathfinder N56993
> www.AlexisParkInn.com
> "Your Aviation Destination"
>
>

[Michael 182]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
news:%SULe.254010$_o.767@attbi_s71...
> I address this "scared straight" issue as just another small piece of
> the "Why is GA dying?" puzzle

This assumes, of course, that GA is dying. I don't really believe that. It
is morphing, as do all pursuits.

Ask surfers about their passion, and they'll tell you it has become too damn
crowded over the past year or two.

Ask bicyclists and they'll complain about the increase in traffic, but will
also comment on the new found (and probably short-lived) visibility
resulting from Lance.

Ask rock climbers and they'll tell you about new technology and the impact
of rock-climbing gyms.

GA is under pressure because of the misguided focus of anti-terror issues,
regulatory issues, (resulting in economic issues), etc. It will continue to
change, in some cases for the better (see the recent success of Cirrus and
the development of the GA glass cockpit), in some cases for the worse. But
the very small incremental change in pilot population that results from "Be
a pilot" programs really won't have much effect. Pilots have a small and
decreasing voice. That's just part of the landscape. But it is a vast
overstatement to say that GA is dying.

[Icebound]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
news:3gULe.251379$x96.181434@attbi_s72...
> ...snip...
> An amazing number of guests tell me that they have taken flight lessons,
> but quit flying for one reason or another. I have never been able to
> understand this phenomenon, since -- after the first lesson -- I was
> hopelessly hooked.

1. For most people, you have to hook at least *two* people.

If I spend two or three grand on *my* golf, that may not be a big deal, but
if I spend ten or twenty grand a year on *my* flying, that won't leave a
whole lot for *her*, ... so it is going to be ten or twenty grand, it
better be on *our* flying. Otherwise, its going to have to be those same
ten or twenty grand on *our* boat (not bad), or *our* cruises (gag) or *our*
trips to her Mother's (barf).

> I would have done anything to finish getting my ticket (and did go so far
> as selling my blood plasma for flight money) -- so the concept of quitting
> just never made sense to me. I always inquire about their reasons for
> quitting, and I often hear the same old explanations (money, time, kids,
> wives, etc.) -- but I often sensed that there was more to the story than
> they were telling.
>
> I've often suspected that these near-pilots had lived through some
> life-changing event,

2. For many, that life-changing event may be as simple as discovering how
much work piloting really was... not just the learning regimen, but the
actual physical and mental requirements of safely getting and keeping the
craft in the air and back down onto the ground. For some people's mental
makeup, the required piloting effort leaves little room left over for the
"enjoyment" part of flight.



....snip...

> Until a few days ago. ...snip...

> It seems he had just soloed a week earlier, and was out practicing touch
> and goes on his own. There was a bit of a cross wind -- nothing bad --
> which apparently increased while he was working the pattern. On his last
> take-off, when he rotated the cross wind kicked up and carried him out
> over the adjacent bean field, and in his confusion he found himself
> sinking toward the beans.
>
> In a panic, he luckily overcame the urge to simply pull the yoke back
> into his belly, and pushed the nose over. Doing so gained some speed,
> and he climbed out normally. He then came around and landed with some
> difficulty, but without incident.
>
> This seemingly innocent incident scared him so badly that he walked into
> the FBO, sat down with his instructor, and told him he was through.
>
> His instructor asked him what happened, told him that what he had
> experienced was easily countered with good technique, told him he had done
> well and acted properly, and immediately booked him for a few more dual
> lessons.
>
> To no avail. This guy was so taken aback by his brush with disaster that
> he just couldn't get into flying anymore.


3. This is fear of failure, not so much fear of flying. People have
near-brushes with death in a car all the time, and they go back driving....

But, as has been argued in these forums many times, we are okay with it
because a non-flight accident is *probably* going to be "someone else's"
fault. A flight accident is *probably* going to be "our" fault...

Perhaps some can't stand that thought?


I will share my own feelings. I am hooked on flying.

I am pretty sure that I am okay with item 3. I am not bad on item 2, though
not as good as I had hoped I might be. But right now I have absolutely no
chance with item 1.

Can 1 and 2 conspire to make me walk away from piloting? Unfortunately:
perhaps.... but I am trying very hard to avoid it. So far: successfully.

[Sylvain]

Icebound wrote:
> If I spend two or three grand on *my* golf, that may not be a big
deal, but
> if I spend ten or twenty grand a year on *my* flying, that won't leave a
> whole lot for *her*, ... so it is going to be ten or twenty grand, it
> better be on *our* flying. Otherwise, its going to have to be those same
> ten or twenty grand on *our* boat (not bad), or *our* cruises (gag) or *our*
> trips to her Mother's (barf).

guys, you do realize that getting married, having kids,
etc. is actually *optional* ?

:-)

--Sylvain

[Andrew Gideon]

Sylvain wrote:

> guys,Â*Â*youÂ*doÂ*realizeÂ*thatÂ*gettingÂ*married, Â*Â*havingÂ*kids,
> etc. is actually optional ?
>

No more than flying is.

- Andrew

[Michael]

I was a skydiver before I was a pilot. Every time I met an
ex-skydiver, I asked why he quit. I couldn't imagine quitting. Like
you, I always figured there was an answer - a story. Only sometimes
there is no story. I'm an ex-skydiver now. I never really intended to
quit - but it's been years since I made a jump.

Sure, I've had one surgery on my right ankle and two on my left, and
when I offer that as a reason people nod - but I was making demo jumps
into a racetrack and closing 13th on a 16-way diamond while recovering
from the last of those surgeries. I know people a lot more injured
than I am who are still jumping. The truth is that I had done enough,
and made enough jumps, that the incremental value of one more never
seemed to be worth it. I miss it - but not badly enough to take the
time out to do it.

I miss flying my glider too. In fact, I miss flying gliders in
general. I never intentionally quit doing that either - but I've flown
maybe three hours in the last two years. I miss it - but not badly
enough to take the time out to do it any more often. I only flew a
trike once, but I wish I could do that more often. I flew and landed a
taildragger for the first time in over a year this weekend, and I
realized I missed that too. And I still think about that gyroplane I
flew - and about the floatplane I didn't. So much to do, so little
time. I finally found time to get my SCUBA ticket and go spearfishing
and see the wrecks. I still haven't found time for a motorcycle. I
just CAN'T do everything. I keep thinking about getting that balloon
rating, but I can't find the time. Maybe I could have found the time
for the motorcycle or the balloon - but something else would have to
go. I fly A LOT - over 180 hours so far this year, and it's still
August - but most of that is Angel Flights, business trips, vacation
trips (where the primary purpose of the flight is to get to a
destination rather than just enjoy the scenery), and instruction. I
totaled up all my hours spent just flying around, getting hundred
dollar burgers and such - and I came up in single digits. What do I
give up?

I'll tell you what I've given up. I've been fishing maybe half a dozen
times this century, and hunting only once. I really enjoy both when I
do, but there is never enough time. I haven't been camping anywhere
other than an airport in a decade, and I used to love spending time in
the woods. I don't own a boat anymore - and I used to love spending
time on the river. Still do, when I get the chance.

I'm single. My girlfriend also flies and scuba dives. I very rarely
work weekends, and rarely work late enough in the evenings that I can't
go flying or work on my airplane. I have WAY more free time than most
people, WAY fewer responsibilities, and probably quite a bit more
disposable income. And there's still not near enough time to do all
the things I want to do. What about the people who are married and
have kids? Honestly, I don't know how they do it. Mostly they don't.

Owning an airplane is expensive. Flying and maintaining it is
time-consuming. Most pilots I know are married to women who don't much
care to fly. Going camping and fishing with the kids. Working around
the house. Buying jewelry (most women won't consider an air
compressor, welding rig, or rivet gun acceptable birthday presents).
Money, time, wives, kids - those are the real story. What you ran into
is the exception.

Michael

[Jay Honeck]

>>> Who knows? Did anything like that ever happen to you or anyone else you
>>> know? Did you or they quit? Those are binary questions.
>>
>> That's an interesting question. I'd a small scare during my PPL
>> training.
>> It, combined with the love I have of preflighting in the winter, kept me
>> away from the airport for five months.
>
> It looks like this is more common than I thought. I suspected that the
> scare claim was just an excuse for some more mundane reason. Anyone else
> have this experience?

I've never seriously scared myself (although I've been plenty worried a few
times), but my mentor in flight quit flying not long after an engine-out
landing in a corn field.

Of course, it didn't help that he was fired from his job about then, too.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jay Honeck]

> You have it backwards. Motorcycling is *not* golf, nor flying, nor
> boating... but I bet you just don't "get it" when it comes to
> two-wheelers.

What, you're saying *motorcycling* is the be-all and end-all activity?

I've ridden for 20 years, and (IMHO) it is VERY similar to flying. I love
it dearly, but it is essentially just 2/3s of what flying is -- minus the
third dimension.

Until you can pull back on the handlebars and have the cycle go up, there
will be no comparison.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Gene Seibel]

We are extremely complex creatures. An environmental factor here, an
unbalanced chemical there, a gene here and a personal encouter there -
all multiplied by thousaands throughout our lifetime makes each of us
unique. Trying to put a finger on a why is in my opinion an exercise in
futility. Find one piece of the puzzle and there are a million more to
go. But like you, Jay, when I get in that plane and take off on a dream
flight, it boggles my mind how so many can "not get it".
--
Gene Seibel
Hangar 131 - http://pad39a.com/gene/plane.html
Because I fly, I envy no one.

[Jay Honeck]

> GA is under pressure because of the misguided focus of anti-terror issues,
> regulatory issues, (resulting in economic issues), etc. It will continue
> to change, in some cases for the better (see the recent success of Cirrus
> and the development of the GA glass cockpit), in some cases for the worse.
> But the very small incremental change in pilot population that results
> from "Be a pilot" programs really won't have much effect. Pilots have a
> small and decreasing voice. That's just part of the landscape. But it is a
> vast overstatement to say that GA is dying.

The pressure exerted on GA by anti-terror or regulatory issues is
insignificant compared to the damage being done to it by Father Time.

The pilot community is very old, and getting older by the minute. Already
most of the WWII generation has hung it up, and the Korean War generation
ain't far behind. Why do you think formerly busy little airports all over
the country are now nearly deserted? The guys who used to fly there are
"flying" walkers and wheel chairs nowadays.

Take a look at the "Gone West" page in EAA's Sport Aviation magazine every
month. It's astounding the number of members EAA is losing each month due
to natural attrition -- and there simply are not enough student pilot
start-ups to make up for the tens of thousands of post-war pilots who are
pushing up daisies.

GA is dying -- literally -- right before our eyes. And we are going to have
to get a whole bunch of young people interested in flying to keep this ball
rolling.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jay Honeck]

> Money, time, wives, kids - those are the real story. What you ran into
> is the exception.

It's funny -- you described my life almost perfectly (I.E.: Kids, business,
wife, billion-hour work-weeks, no time) -- yet we fly a couple of times per
week. (Amazingly, despite everything, I've flown around 50 hours in the
last 11 weeks, which is some kind of a record for me.)

It's all about priorities. Would I like to spend more time camping? Would
owning a boat be kinda fun? Would I enjoy a new motorcycle (mine is 19
years old)?

Yep. But flying is *life*, man -- everything else is just a hobby.

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jose]

> It's funny -- you described my life almost perfectly (I.E.: Kids, business,
> wife, billion-hour work-weeks, no time) -- yet we fly a couple of times per
> week.

How much would you have flown if your wife didn't go up with you?

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jay Honeck]

>> It's funny -- you described my life almost perfectly (I.E.: Kids,
>> business, wife, billion-hour work-weeks, no time) -- yet we fly a couple
>> of times per week.
>
> How much would you have flown if your wife didn't go up with you?

Which begs the question: How can you be married to someone with whom you
can't share the passion for flight?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jose]

> Which begs the question: How can you be married to someone with whom you
> can't share the passion for flight?

This of course reminds me of the oldie... "I had to choose between my
wife and my airplane. Gee, I'm going to miss her."

As to your question, very easily. Did you get married before you
learned to fly? What happens if you get bitten =afterwards=? How
powerful is love? Maybe she'll fly too (it's been known to happen)...

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Peter Duniho]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
news:qudMe.253023$x96.6077@attbi_s72...
> Which begs the question: How can you be married to someone with whom you
> can't share the passion for flight?

Why does it beg the question? Lots of people have spouses who don't share
every one of their passions (including the passion of flying), and they have
long and happy marriages too.

As usual, you continue to make the mistake of thinking that everyone is just
like you, and should live their lives just like you live yours. IMHO, this
is what's wrong with your political outlook, and it's what's wrong with your
opinions about who is or is not a pilot and why.

It's true, there's a lot of similarities from one human being to another.
But there are numerous differences as well, some quite dramatic. And they
are simply differences; not good, not bad, just different.

Pete

[David Dyer-Bennet]

"Jay Honeck" > writes:

> > There's no mystery to me as to why not everyone loves aviation like we do
> > (or why some people love golf like I don't!).
>
> Right. But these "near-pilots" DID love aviation like we do -- and
> something spooked them to the point where they walked away.

Well...did he? Your specific example? As you said yourself, quitting
was essentially inconceivable to you, and you resorted to fairly
drastic means to pay for flying sometimes (you mentioned selling blood
plasma). You didn't report him saying anything suggesting his love of
flying was actually like yours.

> If we are to replace all the World War II and Korean War-era pilots who are
> dying in droves, we've got to get people into aviation, NOW. I address
> this "scared straight" issue as just another small piece of the "Why is GA
> dying?" puzzle, and hope that we (as pilots) can come up with better ways to
> train newbies so that this kind of thing won't happen so often.

Note how many of the people taught to fly for those wars kept on
flying, either professionally or for fun, afterwards. Not, I believe,
a very high percentage.

I've been interested in flying forever, but I've never done anything
about flight training. I used to ride my bicycle over to Stanton
airport (from Northfield) now and then to watch (and sometimes
photograph) glider and skydiving operations, and anything else that
was going on there, when I was a kid. I made sure to get pictures of
the VC-10 we flew to Entebbe in in 1964.

I've got lots of other interests (notably photography) to absorb my
time and energy. And, perhaps, I figured out early some things about
how useful general aviation was for transportation (not terribly at
the basic level), and how much money it would cost. So I've read (and
now and then posted) to aviation newsgroups for years, go to aviation
events locally, talk to pilot friends, and so forth, but never started
training. I classified it as something cool which, if it was your
overriding obsession, somebody in my income range could do. And I
didn't think it was my overriding obsession.

Maybe I would have found out it *was* going to be my overriding
obsession if I'd taken some lessons or something, maybe. I've liked
what little time I have in smaller planes, but I've actually never
been in a single-engine fixed-wing plane, and only two GA-size twins.

If I won the lottery, I'm not at all sure I'd start lessons. The
lottery would dispose of any money issues, but there are still time
issues. Plus my interest is towards planes that would take a lot of
flying to maintain competence, and the lottery would put me in the
position of being able to easily afford more plane than I could
quickly learn to fly safely.

So, I'm still here as a reasonably-friendly onlooker rather than a
pilot, and I enjoy that.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, >, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/> Much of which is still down

[N93332]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
news:qudMe.253023$x96.6077@attbi_s72...
>> How much would you have flown if your wife didn't go up with you?
>
> Which begs the question: How can you be married to someone with whom you
> can't share the passion for flight?

WANTED: Looking for a woman with a plane of any age -- woman must be over
18. Please send picture of plane.

[Skywise]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in news:JCcMe.31172$084.14248
@attbi_s22:

> > You have it backwards. Motorcycling is *not* golf, nor flying, nor
>> boating... but I bet you just don't "get it" when it comes to
>> two-wheelers.
>
> What, you're saying *motorcycling* is the be-all and end-all activity?
>
> I've ridden for 20 years, and (IMHO) it is VERY similar to flying. I love
> it dearly, but it is essentially just 2/3s of what flying is -- minus the
> third dimension.
>
> Until you can pull back on the handlebars and have the cycle go up, there
> will be no comparison.

I've always felt motorcycle riding was like flying at zero AGL.

When you're riding the streets and freeways around LA, it's like
combat at zero AGL. The enemy uses their vehicles as weapons and
your only defense is superior maneuverability.

Brian
--
http://www.skywise711.com - Lasers, Seismology, Astronomy, Skepticism

Seismic FAQ: http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQ.html
Blog: http://www.skywise711.com/Blog

Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?

[Morgans]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote

> I've ridden for 20 years, and (IMHO) it is VERY similar to flying. I love
> it dearly, but it is essentially just 2/3s of what flying is -- minus the
> third dimension.
>
> Until you can pull back on the handlebars and have the cycle go up, there
> will be no comparison.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !

Hey, wait a minute.... I think you may be on to something.

Let's see, some wings unfold out of the front wind fairing, a horizontal
pops out of the saddle bags... the prop could be folded along the back
fender, then opened and engaged....

I'll get back to you on this one... <VBG>
--
Jim in NC

[Dan Luke]

"Jay Honeck" wrote:
>>> It's funny -- you described my life almost perfectly (I.E.: Kids,
>>> business, wife, billion-hour work-weeks, no time) -- yet we fly a
>>> couple of times per week.
>>
>> How much would you have flown if your wife didn't go up with you?
>
> Which begs the question: How can you be married to someone with whom
> you can't share the passion for flight?

Light aircraft owner/pilots are very rare birds; those with spouses who
like to fly are vanishingly scarce.

You have hit on a prime reason why more families don't fly: most women
actively dislike the activity. The don''t like the noise, they don't
like the cramped quarters, they don't like wearing headsets, they don't
like all the tech-y stuff, and they resent the large bite it takes out
of discretionary funds. Most of all, it frightens them: they understand
that it is dangerous, and, since any personal gratification they get
from their partner's flying is minimal, their enthusiasm for it is
understandably nil.

Your situation is extremely unusual, Jay. You know this, of course, so
one might almost think you are simply bragging.

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

[Jay Honeck]

> When you're riding the streets and freeways around LA, it's like
> combat at zero AGL. The enemy uses their vehicles as weapons and
> your only defense is superior maneuverability.

Los Angeles is the only place I've ever ridden where I was actually spat
upon.

It's a pit; you can have it.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jay Honeck]

> As to your question, very easily. Did you get married before you learned
> to fly? What happens if you get bitten =afterwards=? How powerful is
> love? Maybe she'll fly too (it's been known to happen)...

No, we were married ten years before I was able to muster the wherewithal to
get my ticket. But Mary knew my love of aviation, and had attended Oshkosh
(and been just as enamored with it as I) with me 13 times by then.

She likes motorcycles (had her own bike, till the kids came along), rock and
roll, and good beer, too. AND she works 70 hour weeks at the inn,
essentially without pay.

Yes, I know -- I'm a very lucky guy!

:-)

But I know way too many guys at the airport who fly despite -- rather than
with -- their family. It's one of the saddest aspects of GA.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jay Honeck]

>> Right. But these "near-pilots" DID love aviation like we do -- and
>> something spooked them to the point where they walked away.
>
> Well...did he? Your specific example? As you said yourself, quitting
> was essentially inconceivable to you, and you resorted to fairly
> drastic means to pay for flying sometimes (you mentioned selling blood
> plasma). You didn't report him saying anything suggesting his love of
> flying was actually like yours.

Well, perhaps I'm reading more into it than I should, but:

- He chose to stay in an aviation themed hotel, right next to an airport...
(we're not the closest to the University, nor are we the cheapest)
- He was deep in study of our aviation memorabilia when I interrupted his
reverie...
- He avidly and animatedly talked about aircraft, displaying a breadth and
depth of knowledge far beyond our average "wannabe" guest...

I got the impression that aviation ran strong in his blood, but it was,
admittedly, a brief conversation. It did, however, stick in my craw, since
he was the first guy who has ever admitted to me that he was scared out of
the cockpit.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jay Honeck]

> As usual, you continue to make the mistake of thinking that everyone is
> just like you, and should live their lives just like you live yours.
> IMHO, this is what's wrong with your political outlook, and it's what's
> wrong with your opinions about who is or is not a pilot and why.

Well, Pete, I see a lot of misery and scary things in the world today -- and
(although I have my ups and downs) I am generally living a very enjoyable
life, and having a great time doing it. I would like to be able to share
my love of aviation, and Mary and I do everything possible to see that
people who stay at our inn get the chance to go for a ride in a small plane.
It's a money-losing proposition, but it's what we are all about.

The world could do a lot worse than to "live lives just like mine"...

I am also constantly searching for ways to expand GA for the entirely
selfish reason that if we don't grow it, it will continue to wither. I've
got maybe 20 good years of flying left in me, and I want to make sure that
I've got a place to keep my plane, and some airports to land at. If we
can figure out why so many people start -- and quit -- pilot training,
perhaps we can counter the downward trend somehow?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jose]

> The world could do a lot worse than to "live lives just like mine"...

.... but they would have to "be just like you" in order to enjoy "lives
just like yours". A lot of people very different from you enjoy lives
very different from yours, lives you could not countenance.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Dan Luke]

"Jay Honeck" wrote:
>
> But I know way too many guys at the airport who fly despite -- rather than
> with -- their family. It's one of the saddest aspects of GA.

That describes *all* the local pilots I know. There are a couple of
"regulars" that I see at the airport most weekends and a few semi-regulars I
see once in a while. I've never seen any of their wives.

--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM

[Jay Honeck]

>> The world could do a lot worse than to "live lives just like mine"...
>
> ... but they would have to "be just like you" in order to enjoy "lives
> just like yours". A lot of people very different from you enjoy lives
> very different from yours, lives you could not countenance.

Well, so long as they aren't hurting others, I say let 'em enjoy life...

We only get one chance at this life, as far as I can tell, so we might as
well have a good time while we're here!

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jose]

> Well, so long as they aren't hurting others, I say let 'em enjoy life...

Right. And that life doesn't include flying.

It's not that flying is "no fun", it'a that it's "no fun for them" - the
activity is not a good match for the individual. And we are all
individuals. It's not like flying is so wondeful in and of itself that
everyone should love it (and it's incomprehensible why people don't) but
rather, that, just like with women, the one I love may not be a good
match for you, and v.v.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[[email protected]]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote:
> [snip] If we can figure out why so many people start --
> and quit -- pilot training, perhaps we can counter the
> downward trend somehow?

Jay, your hotel and other efforts to keep and promote interest are
commendable and more advantageous to GA than trying to encourage
everyone who quits pilot training to keep going. IMO, *some* people who
were encouraged to keep going when they should have stopped end up doing
more harm to GA than those who know themselves well enough to decide
it's not for them.

Having worked at a flight school, IMO not everyone who begins flight
training *should* see it through. SOMETIMES, it is a blessing when a
customer announces that they have decided to quit. CFIs/Flight schools
face a dilemma when a customer shows up for all their lessons but isn't
doing the studying (despite painful ground sessions), isn't making any
progress, or isn't safe regardless of how hard the CFI has worked to
instill that. What do they do in that case? They (1) refer the customer
to another CFI or to another school (pass the buck); (2) they just keep
on keepin' on, milking the customer of thousands of dollars and building
a logbook with tons of dual and no license; or the most difficult, (3)
THEY suggest that the customer consider that perhaps they have chosen
the wrong activity. We've all seen/known/heard of instances where a CFI
or the school SHOULD have taken that stand but didn't.

So JMO, but while it's a shame when an eager, motivated student who got
hooked up with the wrong CFI or school quits, I think some who quit have
made the right decision and that it should be left at that.

Pilot training probably has more unique elements than most other
activities for which people take lessons and test for licenses; BUT one
common element in *all* forms of training is that there will always be
some people who quit.

[[email protected]]

On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 03:57:10 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
> wrote:

>Which begs the question: How can you be married to someone with whom you
>can't share the passion for flight?

My wife becomes, or can become physically ill in several ways when
flying. Is it no surprise flying isn't her favorite thing to do? Yet
she encouraged me to get my license knowing that she would not be able
to participate much. She also hasn't discouraged my efforts at
building an airplane and in return I tried hard not to ignor the
family while building.

But since she really doesn't want to go places in a small airplane and
barely tolerates flying in the big busses, I'm wondering why I'm
building now.

The weather prevents flying on numerous days around here and even when
it's benign, it's often so hazy that flying isn't much fun. Getting
instrument rated is out of the question because it's too expensive and
I would have to rent that much more to stay current, all to fly in
weather that's no fun flying in anyway, or at least no fun for the
passengers.

So perhaps the sport ticket is the way to go, at least for me anyway.
I'd like to finish the homebuilt, but the cost of finishing it is
beginning to look daunting.

Corky Scott

[RNR]

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 12:54:30 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
> wrote:

snipped...
>
>I don't know. But I guess if a pilot is able to "give up" flying *without*
>some sort of a life-changing scary experience, then, perhaps, they were
>never really that hooked on it in the first place? This is another concept
>I cannot understand -- how can someone fly without becoming hooked on the
>magic of flight? -- so perhaps I'll never be able to fathom these folks.
>
>Flying is *not* golf, nor boating, nor motorcycling, nor anything else.
>Quite simply, there is nothing else like it; so quitting -- for me --
>someday, is going to be ugly, and entirely involuntary.
>
>To simply relinquish the ability to fly of my own free will is unthinkable,
>and -- since it's hard to B.S. a B.S.-er -- I always search for deeper
>reasons when someone tells me they quit flying because of "the wife" or "the
>job".

Jay, the magic of flight is a very real thing for you (and me, and
most of the participants of this newsgroup). It is not, however, an
absolute truth that transcends all mankind. There are many good
honest folks who's "magic" is found in golf, boating, motorcycling and
scuba diving (which adds the third dimension). Who are we to impose
our "magic" on their lives? Don't get me wrong. I understand your
feelings toward flight. I wanted to fly all of my life but didn't
achieve that goal until I was 50. I golfed, but I quit. The "magic"
wasn't there for me. I ride a motorcycle 10K miles annually, and I
love it. But not as much as flying. Nothing approaches flying... for
me. That being said, I have many friends who will never get an
airplane with me and that's OK. They have other fulfilling activities
in their lives, some of which I have no interest in doing.

I agree that we should do everything that we can to nurture interest
in aviation where ever we find it. To assume that something is wrong
with someone because they don't feel the same way about flying as you
do, and choose not to continue, is not fair to that person.
Rich Russell

[Newps]

Jay Honeck wrote:
>>There's no mystery to me as to why not everyone loves aviation like we do
>>(or why some people love golf like I don't!).
>
>
> Right. But these "near-pilots" DID love aviation like we do -- and
> something spooked them to the point where they walked away.

I used to play golf several times a week, had my handicap down to 5.
Then I lost interest so I quit. I played twice this summer. I have a
ham radio license, the highest one you can get, the extra class. I got
the first one in 1985. By summer 1988 I had worked nearly 190 countries
with a pretty modest setup at my folks house. Then I got married and I
pretty much haven't turned a radio on since and really don't miss it.
Although I just ordered up the new Vertex handheld that is an aviation
Nav/Comm and a 2 meter ham transceiver. I do have a 2 meter radio at my
computer here with an antenna up on the roof but I mostly set it up
because it has the aviation band on it. I occasionally plug in the
handheld and BS with some flying buddies on 122.75. I don't forsee
losing interest in flying but you never know. I sure would like a cabin
on a lake.

[Trent Moorehead]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
news:qudMe.253023$x96.6077@attbi_s72...
> Which begs the question: How can you be married to someone with whom you
> can't share the passion for flight?

Because if you marry the right person, you don't HAVE to have similar
interests to get along. One reason I love my wife so much is that she
supports my love of flying despite the fact that it's not her "thing".

Also, there are marriages where guys relish activities that don't include
the wife or family. It is their territory and a place to escape to. Golf
comes to mind...Did you ever see the episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond"
where Deborah wants to do more things with Ray? "We don't do anything
together", she would say. So she suggested that she take up golf so that
they could play together. Ray was too scared to tell her the truth, that
this was his "territorial escape", so he went along with it. They are at
each other's throats when they reach the clubhouse. It's hilarious!

I have to say that I have really enjoyed reading this thread. In another
thread I expressed my ambivalence toward aviation because of how it doesn't
seem to be as family friendly as other pursuits. I have been struggling with
this tug between my family and flying and it has been good to hear others
expressing similar struggles with flying.

Flying is a complex, demanding, expensive avocation. As such, it's bound to
have severe attrition due to these factors. My personal account: I am now
just getting back into flying after about a 6 month hiatus. My father died
in March and I am the executor of his will. Flying was not the thing to be
doing during this time. I am just getting to the point where it has appeal
again because while I was grieving and settling family issues and talking
with lawyers and digging through the house that my parents built and arguing
with my brother and grieving some more, the thought of doing something
demanding to relax didn't seem right.

People's lives will change and sometimes aviation doesn't fit anymore. It
can be sad for us pilots to watch this happen from the outside, but we have
to remember that it's THEIR decision and it's best for THEM. Who are we to
judge their feelings about aviation and their reasons for giving it up?
There are times when being judgemental is required, but in my opinion, this
isn't one of them.

I have a friend who got severely lost during a cross country during his
training. Scared him to death and he quit once he got back on the ground. He
emails me pictures of planes all the time. He goes to air shows more than I
do. For him, aviation is very interesting, but not something he wants to DO.
He is the exception I would guess, the person who left flying for one,
singular reason. I suspect that for most folks, aviation dies a slow death,
suffocated by outside circumstances.

How to keep people in the fold? Get to 'em early. Take kids flying if they
want to. Let kids get into the cockpit and make noises. I think that there
is a aura around lots of airports that keeps people away, especially the
young ones. We need to be casual and accomodating about our flying so that
it's not so threatening or unapproachable.

-Trent
PP-ASEL

[Andrew Gideon]

Jose wrote:

>> The world could do a lot worse than to "live lives just like mine"...
>
> ... but they would have to "be just like you" in order to enjoy "lives
> just like yours".

Well, yes and no.

I've read enough of Jay's writing to know that he and I are quite different,
and that we see a great deal of the world in quite distinct ways.

But I too was smitten by flight after being married for a number of years.
And sharing our passions is just something my wife and I do. So she
started lessons too, ceased only because of pregnancy. Now that that's
done, she'll shortly be back.

And even absent her own certificate, she loves flying with me (esp. if we're
doing something fun like lunching in Nantucket or walking on the beach in
Cape May or Ocean City ... ). And we're already talking about a "flying
vacation" when the youngest is sufficiently old.

Like Jay and his wife, we work together and work a fair number of hours
(esp. now, since we were down an employee for a few months and are only
just recovering).

So one doesn't need to be "just like" Jay to live a life like that. One
merely needs to set up a life, and a life partner, that works like that.

- Andrew

[Grumman-581]

Jay Honeck wrote:
> Which begs the question: How can you be married to someone with whom you
> can't share the passion for flight?

Opposites attract, perhaps... Grace recognizes the fact that I'm an
adrenaline junkie and is willing to indulge me in it as long as she
doesn't have to participate... Thus, my 4-seat aircraft usually has 3
seats unoccupied... Oh well, at least that means I don't have to stop
ever hour to two because of certain passengers who have bladder
capacities of a thimble... All in all, our relationship is definitely
not the Ozzie & Harriet type of one... The things that she likes to do,
I hate... The things that I like to do, she hates... I think that since
she couldn't find "Mr. Right", she decided to settle for "Mr. He'll
Do"...

[Andrew Gideon]

Dan Luke wrote:

> TheÂ*don'tÂ*likeÂ*theÂ*noise,Â*

My wife used to play in a rock band.

> theyÂ*don't
> like the cramped quarters,

My wife is small.

> they don't like wearing headsets,

My wife has a comfortable headset.

> they don't
> like all the tech-y stuff,

My wife has an MS in computer science.

> and they resent the large bite it takes out
> of discretionary funds.Â*Â*

My wife also has a degree from Wharton, so spending money isn't scary.

> MostÂ*ofÂ*all,Â*itÂ*frightensÂ*them:Â*theyÂ*unders tand
> that it is dangerous, and, since any personal gratification they get
> from their partner's flying is minimal,

My wife likes to travel quickly.

> their enthusiasm for it is
> understandably nil.
>
> Your situation is extremely unusual, Jay.Â*Â*YouÂ*knowÂ*this,Â*ofÂ*course,Â*so
> one might almost think you are simply bragging.

Thanks for the opportunity <grin>.

BTW, a fair number of women attend our MAPA meetings. Most are "in"
aviation in one way or another (ie. FBO owner, pilot, instructor, etc.). I
recall a presentation with one husband/wife pilot duo describing some
interesting mechanical problems they'd experienced, and a woman pilot
describing her flight across the US (with some incredible photographs).

Another presentation was a woman describing how to carry non-pilot
passengers. She'd started as a non-pilot passenger (with some pilot
friend), and ended up a CFI. I only wish she'd spent less time on how to
make passengers comfortable and more on how to hook them on flying <grin>.

It's a small sample, true, but I'd not go so far as to say that "wives don't
like flying". If nothing else, we should be asking what the husbands think
of their aviating spouses.

- Andrew

[Larry Dighera]

On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 06:06:28 -0700, wrote
in >::

>not everyone who begins flight training *should* see it through.

Right. As a percentage, how many would you guess fall into that
category?

[[email protected]]

"Trent Moorehead" > wrote:
> Flying is a complex, demanding, expensive avocation. As such, it's bound to
> have severe attrition due to these factors. My personal account: I am now
> just getting back into flying after about a 6 month hiatus. My father died
> in March and I am the executor of his will. Flying was not the thing to be
> doing during this time. I am just getting to the point where it has appeal
> again because while I was grieving and settling family issues and talking
> with lawyers and digging through the house that my parents built and arguing
> with my brother and grieving some more, the thought of doing something
> demanding to relax didn't seem right.

Interesting, because that's the exact reason why I *continued* flight
training!

I lost my mother, who I was VERY close to. Just before she died, she
said: "You'll never look back and regret having spent time on your loved
ones; don't get to where I am and regret NOT having spent time on
YOURSELF!" (a regret she had). That was the inspiration for me to take
the demo ride. All the things you listed -- grieving, settling family
issues, talking with lawyers, then losing my father as well and digging
through, cleaning, separating, fighting over, giving away, selling
their things (what a heartbreaking task is that??), arguing with family,
and grieving some more -- brought me down so low that there was NO
escaping it EXCEPT if I went flying! Because it *is* so demanding, there
was no room for any of that other monumentally depressing stuff to creep
in ... so, demanding as it was, it was relaxing and exhilarating
compared to the alternative. For me, the flying is what got me through
that horrible time.

[Trent Moorehead]

> wrote in message
...
> Interesting, because that's the exact reason why I *continued* flight
> training!
>
> I lost my mother, who I was VERY close to. Just before she died, she
> said: "You'll never look back and regret having spent time on your loved
> ones; don't get to where I am and regret NOT having spent time on
> YOURSELF!" (a regret she had). That was the inspiration for me to take
> the demo ride. All the things you listed -- grieving, settling family
> issues, talking with lawyers, then losing my father as well and digging
> through, cleaning, separating, fighting over, giving away, selling
> their things (what a heartbreaking task is that??), arguing with family,
> and grieving some more -- brought me down so low that there was NO
> escaping it EXCEPT if I went flying! Because it *is* so demanding, there
> was no room for any of that other monumentally depressing stuff to creep
> in ... so, demanding as it was, it was relaxing and exhilarating
> compared to the alternative. For me, the flying is what got me through
> that horrible time.

I also belong to the "lost both parents club". Sorry for your loss.

I have learned that people grieve in different ways and it's all good. It
only gets bad when people neglect to do so.

-Trent
PP-ASEL

[Peter Duniho]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
news:HGkMe.253868$x96.253793@attbi_s72...
> Well, Pete, I see a lot of misery and scary things in the world today --
> and (although I have my ups and downs) I am generally living a very
> enjoyable life, and having a great time doing it.

I am too. So what?

> I would like to be able to share my love of aviation, and Mary and I do
> everything possible to see that people who stay at our inn get the chance
> to go for a ride in a small plane.

That's wonderful, for the people who are actually interested. But why think
poorly of, or puzzle over, those who are not?

> It's a money-losing proposition, but it's what we are all about.

Again, that's wonderful. Sharing, of any sort, can be very fulfilling. I
still fail to see the relevance to this discussion.

> The world could do a lot worse than to "live lives just like mine"...

The world? Seems you have a bit of an ego complex going there.

Not everyone would be happy living the life you do. For many people, living
your life would be an absolute nightmare, while for others, it would simply
be drudgery. It's a very fortunate thing that you have found what you love,
and love what you have found, but you should not make the mistake of
thinking that what you love is the same as what everyone else does or would
love.

I do believe that everyone has the right and should hope to find something
that they find challenging, fulfilling, and pleasurable. Something that
makes their lives happy and worthwhile. But why should that thing be
aviation for every single person?

> [...] If we can figure out why so many people start -- and quit -- pilot
> training, perhaps we can counter the downward trend somehow?

I find your goal admirable. However, as long as you keep barking up the
wrong tree, you'll continue to fail to make any significant progress toward
that goal.

Pete

[Peter Duniho]

"Andrew Gideon" > wrote in message
online.com...
> [...]
> So one doesn't need to be "just like" Jay to live a life like that.

No, I think Jose has it right.

While there are similarities between your life and Jay's, I have no doubt
there are significant differences too. For you to enjoy EVERY aspect of
Jay's life in the same way that Jay does, you WOULD have to be *just like*
Jay.

> One merely needs to set up a life, and a life partner, that works like
> that.

Most people do not have the absolute degree of choice that is implied in
such a misleadingly simple statement. Life is not so simple, and for most
of us who still have a deeply abiding passion for aviation, there are other
unrelated aspects of our lives that are also important. One does not
"merely...set up a life, and a life partner". Those things are not 100%
subject to a person's whim, nor can they necessarily be centered completely
around aviation (or any other one pursuit).

For anyone who does get such an aviation-oriented life, and is still happy
with all other aspects, that's great. But it doesn't always work out that
way. I don't have to think very hard to recall friends who "picked" a
spouse based on a single criteria, only to discover that they were
incompatible in a number of other ways.

My wife is only marginally interested in aviation (and yes, I suppose that's
part of the reason it's hard for me to remain involved), but there are a
wide variety of other aspects of our lives that are aligned extremely well.
I wouldn't trade her for anything, but even if I were so inclined, I
certainly wouldn't trade her for someone else knowing only that that other
person had the same passion for aviation that I do. There are too many
other things that could go wrong.

Perhaps for the rare person for whom aviation is literally THE only thing
they care about, nothing else might matter. For the rest of us, we do care
about things other than aviation, and life is a great (and I mean that in
the best way) compromise.

Pete

[Andrew Gideon]

Peter Duniho wrote:

> For anyone who does get such an aviation-oriented life, and is still happy
> with all other aspects, that's great.Â*Â*ButÂ*itÂ*doesn'tÂ*alwaysÂ*workÂ*outÂ*tha t
> way.Â*Â*IÂ*don'tÂ*haveÂ*toÂ*thinkÂ*veryÂ*hardÂ*to *recallÂ*friendsÂ*whoÂ*"picked"Â*a
> spouse based on a single criteria, only to discover that they were
> incompatible in a number of other ways.

I didn't mean to imply "a single criteria". We work together, so obviously
we've other common interests. More, we're sufficiently compatible so that
we *can* work together.

To me, this is natural. While my Mother didn't have a "career" outside of
herding us during my youth, I'd a set of Grandparents that had a thriving
business together at that time.

Yet we get a great many comments from visitors to our office that would
appear to indicate otherwise. Many would never work with a spouse. Until
I became used to this, it left me puzzled.

So I'm not recommending a "single issue marriage". Rather, I'm recommending
an "all issue marriage".

I apologize for being unclear.

- Andrew

[Andrew Sarangan]

Check http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/trend.html for a quantitative
summary of trends. Private, commercial and instrument issuances are
down 12% since 2000. New aircraft shipments are down 10% since 2000.
Avgas sale is down almost 25% since 1999. OK, dying may be an
overstatement, but it is not looking rosy either. On the other hand,
this year's Airventure drew record crowds. I am not sure what to make
of that, but it is probably something similar to what happens in
spectator sports. Large number of people turn up to watch but very few
are able to participate.

[Peter Duniho]

"Andrew Gideon" > wrote in message
online.com...
> [...]
> So I'm not recommending a "single issue marriage". Rather, I'm
> recommending
> an "all issue marriage".

I still feel that an "all issue marriage" is not a practical expectation.
It's not that it never happens, but it's an exceedingly rare situation.

Entire books can be (and have been) written on the topic of a successful
marriage, and I won't try to cover that very off-topic ground here. Suffice
to say, there are some things that are VERY important to a successful
marriage, but sharing each other's personal interests 100% isn't one of
them.

Pete

[TaxSrv]

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote:
> On the other hand, this year's Airventure
> drew record crowds.

Using their claims of attendance, and ignoring the fact that
they're bogus, the highest they've ever claimed is 855,000
"attendance-days" in 1998; this year it's stated as "nearly
700,000."

Fred F.

[Gig 601XL Builder]

"Andrew Sarangan" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> Check http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/trend.html for a quantitative
> summary of trends. Private, commercial and instrument issuances are
> down 12% since 2000. New aircraft shipments are down 10% since 2000.
> Avgas sale is down almost 25% since 1999. OK, dying may be an
> overstatement, but it is not looking rosy either. On the other hand,
> this year's Airventure drew record crowds. I am not sure what to make
> of that, but it is probably something similar to what happens in
> spectator sports. Large number of people turn up to watch but very few
> are able to participate.
>

Interesting....

Total Student Issuances
59,989
59,311
-1%
-678

Private Issuances
23,826
23,331
-2%
-495




If you use these numbers you would get a pretty good feel for the number of
people who start and then don't get their license. If only 10% of the
drop-outs were retained that would be more than 3600 more private pilots.

[TaxSrv]

"Morgans" wrote:
>
> It is impossible to know about attendance for the whole
week,

It's not impossible. They use convention management
software which was a finalist in Microsoft's annual world
Windows competition, with awards handed out by Gates himself
at COMDEX. I'll assume that the simplest thing that
software does is tally up the number of daily tickets sold.
Then just add the freebie tickets given out, like to media
and exhibitors, for total attendance.

Fred F.

[Skywise]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in news:JpkMe.256396$_o.162106
@attbi_s71:

>> When you're riding the streets and freeways around LA, it's like
>> combat at zero AGL. The enemy uses their vehicles as weapons and
>> your only defense is superior maneuverability.
>
> Los Angeles is the only place I've ever ridden where I was actually spat
> upon.
>
> It's a pit; you can have it.

I don't want it either!!!! Actually, I live in Orange County. Don't
know that it's much better, though.

I've had the occasional problem with the errant cigarette butt or
ice dumped from a drink, or sand blowing out of a dump truck. Worse
injury was getting a large bug in the lip at 90 mph. Cut the inside
where my lip got smashed against my teeth. Didn't swallow any bug
parts. I keep my mouth shut.

But anyway, my riding tactics have evolved to the point that such
things aren't much of a problem anymore. I just don't allow myself
to become a target. It requires taking proactive control of my
situation in traffic and breaking a few laws along the way, but my
'close encounters' have dropped to near zero.

Now if only I had wings.....

Brian
--
http://www.skywise711.com - Lasers, Seismology, Astronomy, Skepticism

Seismic FAQ: http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQ.html
Blog: http://www.skywise711.com/Blog

Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?

[Morgans]

"TaxSrv" > wrote in message
...
> "Andrew Sarangan" wrote:
> > On the other hand, this year's Airventure
> > drew record crowds.
>
> Using their claims of attendance, and ignoring the fact that
> they're bogus, the highest they've ever claimed is 855,000
> "attendance-days" in 1998; this year it's stated as "nearly
> 700,000."

It is impossible to know about attendance for the whole week, but every
person I talked to that has been there every day for decades, says that the
Saturday crowd was BY FAR the largest one day crowd they had EVER seen. I
agree.
--
Jim in NC

[RST Engineering]

I'll argue that from two observations. First, not once in the last 33 years
have I seen the parking lots at the dorms with a single open space after
about 9:30 in the evening. This year they were at least 1/3 empty every
night.

Second, the traffic to get onto the field in the morning was nowhere NEAR as
congested as any other year.

Either they have stopped driving to Oshkosh or there were fewer people; I
suspect the latter.

Jim



"Andrew Sarangan" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>

On the other hand,
> this year's Airventure drew record crowds.

[Tina Marie]

Andrew Gideon wrote:
> It's a small sample, true, but I'd not go so far as to say that "wives don't
> like flying". If nothing else, we should be asking what the husbands think
> of their aviating spouses.

I have only ever met one woman who flew when her husband/boyfriend didn't.
And she was having an affair with a guy with a Pitts.

Tina Marie
--
http://www.tripacerdriver.com "...One of the main causes
of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way
to indicate successful termination of their C programs." (Robert Firth)

[Gary Drescher]

"Andrew Sarangan" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> Check http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/trend.html for a quantitative
> summary of trends. Private, commercial and instrument issuances are
> down 12% since 2000. New aircraft shipments are down 10% since 2000.

On the other hand, there were more new private, commercial and (especially)
instrument pilots in 2004 than in 1997, and far more GA shipments in 2004
than in 1997. Yes, there was a spike in 2000 (just before the tech bubble
burst), but the overall trend seems more up than down.

> Avgas sale is down almost 25% since 1999.

Maybe more pilots have learned how to lean the mixture. :)

--Gary

[Matt Whiting]

Jay Honeck wrote:

> > You have it backwards. Motorcycling is *not* golf, nor flying, nor
>
>>boating... but I bet you just don't "get it" when it comes to
>>two-wheelers.
>
>
> What, you're saying *motorcycling* is the be-all and end-all activity?
>
> I've ridden for 20 years, and (IMHO) it is VERY similar to flying. I love
> it dearly, but it is essentially just 2/3s of what flying is -- minus the
> third dimension.
>
> Until you can pull back on the handlebars and have the cycle go up, there
> will be no comparison.

I agree that flying is a greater pure thrill than motorcycling and I
have more than 30 years of motorcycling and approaching 30 years of
flying. However, since I live 40 minutes from the nearest airport, it
is much easier to walk down to my garage and take a spin on the bike
when I have a spare couple of hours, than it is to spend 1.5 of those
hours driving to and from the airport for a 30 minute hop.

And a motorcycle provides, as you say, maybe 2/3 rds of the thrill for
about 1/10 the money so it is a pretty good deal! :-)


Matt

[Matt Whiting]

Jay Honeck wrote:

>>>It's funny -- you described my life almost perfectly (I.E.: Kids,
>>>business, wife, billion-hour work-weeks, no time) -- yet we fly a couple
>>>of times per week.
>>
>>How much would you have flown if your wife didn't go up with you?
>
>
> Which begs the question: How can you be married to someone with whom you
> can't share the passion for flight?

Fortunately, I was motorcycling, flying and shooting before I was
married. Some folks get married before getting hooked on flying. I
don't think that you would seriously suggest that someone get divorced
simply because their spouse doesn't share their newly acquired thrill.


Matt

[john smith]

Tina Marie wrote:
> I have only ever met one woman who flew when her husband/boyfriend didn't.
> And she was having an affair with a guy with a Pitts.

See, it just goes to show you that you don't have to have a lot of money
to fly a Pitts.
All you need is something of value to trade for stick time. ;-))

[George Patterson]

Gary Drescher wrote:
>
>>Avgas sale is down almost 25% since 1999.
>
> Maybe more pilots have learned how to lean the mixture. :)

Maybe GAMI sales are up?

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

[George Patterson]

Jay Honeck wrote:
>
> It did, however, stick in my craw, since
> he was the first guy who has ever admitted to me that he was scared out of
> the cockpit.

And you should really take that as an indication that very few people are
actually scared out of the cockpit, instead of assuming (as the title of this
thread indicates) that the rest are simply lying about it.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

[George Patterson]

Matt Whiting wrote:
>
> I agree that flying is a greater pure thrill than motorcycling and I
> have more than 30 years of motorcycling and approaching 30 years of
> flying. However, since I live 40 minutes from the nearest airport, it
> is much easier to walk down to my garage and take a spin on the bike
> when I have a spare couple of hours, than it is to spend 1.5 of those
> hours driving to and from the airport for a 30 minute hop.

You put your finger on one reason I sold the Maule. It took me 45 minutes on a
good day to drive to the airport. Over fairly heavily traveled 2-lane roads that
could easily add half an hour to the trip. Add in 20 minutes to untie and
pre-flight and 15 minutes to put her to bed and the entire afternoon is gone for
even a short flight.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

[George Patterson]

Jay Honeck wrote:
>
> Which begs the question: How can you be married to someone with whom you
> can't share the passion for flight?

Very easily.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

[George Patterson]

Jay Honeck wrote:
>
> If we
> can figure out why so many people start -- and quit -- pilot training,
> perhaps we can counter the downward trend somehow?

Well, that's not going to be possible for you. You have said yourself several
times that you just can't understand how people can fail to feel the magic in
aviation. Until you *can* understand that, you will never figure out why people
quit.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

[George Patterson]

Peter Duniho wrote:
>
> Suffice
> to say, there are some things that are VERY important to a successful
> marriage, but sharing each other's personal interests 100% isn't one of
> them.

Right. My wife knits. The furnace room is full of yarn and we have knitting
books and patterns scattered through most of the house. It's sure cheaper than
any of my hobbies, and it makes her a quiet and appreciative passenger in a car
or plane. I have no inclination to pick up a set of needles myself.

Being able to accept and appreciate each other's interests is what's important.
Toleration is no good, because you look down on things you have to tolerate.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

[George Patterson]

Andrew Gideon wrote:
>
> It's a small sample, true, but I'd not go so far as to say that "wives don't
> like flying".

Dan said "most women." He's right.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

[George Patterson]

wrote:
>
> My wife becomes, or can become physically ill in several ways when
> flying.

Ditto here.

> I'd like to finish the homebuilt, but the cost of finishing it is
> beginning to look daunting.

Good luck with it anyway.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

[Jose]

You know Jay, I get the feeling that one day, maybe ten or twenty years
from now, you'll just hang it up and stop flying at all. Been there,
done that, whatever. The passion will have just... well... died, and
you won't understand why, nor will it make much sense to you to even ask
why, because you won't be actually =feeling= the passion any more.

You can't imagine it now. But you tout flying as the "be all and end
all for everyone" so strongly that I wonder what the future will
surprise you with. One thing I've learned in life is that things don't
turn out the way it looks like they are going to.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jay Honeck]

>> I have only ever met one woman who flew when her husband/boyfriend
>> didn't. And she was having an affair with a guy with a Pitts.
>
> See, it just goes to show you that you don't have to have a lot of money
> to fly a Pitts.
> All you need is something of value to trade for stick time. ;-))

God, that is SOO bad...

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Morgans]

"TaxSrv" > wrote

> It's not impossible. They use convention management
> software which was a finalist in Microsoft's annual world
> Windows competition, with awards handed out by Gates himself
> at COMDEX. I'll assume that the simplest thing that
> software does is tally up the number of daily tickets sold.
> Then just add the freebie tickets given out, like to media
> and exhibitors, for total attendance.

All well and good, but how do they handle the weekly passes? Are they added
to the total, as new attendees? Do they assume that the holder of a weekly
pass is there each and every day? If so, that could be a big source of
error, since some buy a weekly pass (it is cheaper to do that, if you are
going to be there for say, 4 days, compared to buying 4 daily passes) and
only stay for 4 days.

In my eyes, counting people over and over, for each day is misleading. if
they say 700,000 people, a bunch (400,000 perhaps?) are counted over for
each day. It doesn't seem right.

You know what, though? I don't care in the least bit, what their count is.
It is still a bunch of people, looking at some really cool airplanes, and
airplane stuff. Nothing else comes close. (IMHO)

Oshkosh (AirVenture) ROCKS, BIG TIME!
--
Jim (hooked - hook, line and sinker) in NC

[Jay Honeck]

> You put your finger on one reason I sold the Maule. It took me 45 minutes
> on a good day to drive to the airport. Over fairly heavily traveled 2-lane
> roads that could easily add half an hour to the trip. Add in 20 minutes to
> untie and pre-flight and 15 minutes to put her to bed and the entire
> afternoon is gone for even a short flight.

Now George, we've been over this before. If you had been open to moving to
a more GA friendly part of the country, you, too, could have lived 30
seconds from your plane. You opted instead to remain in the congested
eastern part of the US, for purely economic reasons.

While this may have made perfect sense from a marital standpoint, it was
certainly no good reason to sell a perfectly good airplane!

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jay Honeck]

> Well, that's not going to be possible for you. You have said yourself
> several times that you just can't understand how people can fail to feel
> the magic in aviation. Until you *can* understand that, you will never
> figure out why people quit.

Oh, I can understand everything, from a purely intellectual standpoint.
There are always a million good reasons to not fly.

But that's not the part of us that falls in love with the wonders of flight.

Sadly, if you can't understand *that*, you'll never understand my
consternation over pilots who quit the skies.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Andrew Sarangan]

"Gig 601XL Builder" <wr.giacona@coxDOTnet> wrote in
news:3isMe.1815$7f5.1413@okepread01:

>
> "Andrew Sarangan" > wrote in message
> ups.com...
>> Check http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/trend.html for a quantitative
>> summary of trends. Private, commercial and instrument issuances are
>> down 12% since 2000. New aircraft shipments are down 10% since 2000.
>> Avgas sale is down almost 25% since 1999. OK, dying may be an
>> overstatement, but it is not looking rosy either. On the other hand,
>> this year's Airventure drew record crowds. I am not sure what to make
>> of that, but it is probably something similar to what happens in
>> spectator sports. Large number of people turn up to watch but very
>> few are able to participate.
>>
>
> Interesting....
>
> Total Student Issuances
> 59,989
> 59,311
> -1%
> -678
>
> Private Issuances
> 23,826
> 23,331
> -2%
> -495
>
>
>


You are comparing the 2004 numbers to 2003. I was comparing the 2004
numbers to the peak year (which in this case was 2002). The change in
private issuance is -18% in that case. Student pilot issuance is also -
11%.

[Morgans]

"RST Engineering" > wrote in message
...
> I'll argue that from two observations. First, not once in the last 33
years
> have I seen the parking lots at the dorms with a single open space after
> about 9:30 in the evening. This year they were at least 1/3 empty every
> night.
>
> Second, the traffic to get onto the field in the morning was nowhere NEAR
as
> congested as any other year.
>
> Either they have stopped driving to Oshkosh or there were fewer people; I
> suspect the latter.

Nah, they have finally realized that it is cooler to camp on the field.
Wake up and smell the coffee! <vbg>

Really, I don't know about the daily attendance. It seemed to me to be
about the same, or up a very small amount. I do feel, without a doubt, that
the Saturday attendance watching the air show, was the biggest I have ever
seen, by a large amount, say 75% more than other
Saturday shows. The amount of homebuilts in the homebuilt showplane and
homebuilt camping area was the largest ever. (according to registration
totals)

Perhaps that is the key, the "watching the show" part. Maybe there was
almost nobody at the booths. I can't say; I was watching the show,
especially White Knight and Spaceship One.
--
Jim in NC

[Morgans]

> wrote

> My wife becomes, or can become physically ill in several ways when
> flying. Is it no surprise flying isn't her favorite thing to do?

Has she tried those electronic wrist bands for airsickness? I have heard
good things about how those things work.

It sounds like your wife is about the same as mine. She encourages my
interests, and I encourage hers. It has worked well for us.
--
Jim in NC

[Jay Honeck]

> You know Jay, I get the feeling that one day, maybe ten or twenty years
> from now, you'll just hang it up and stop flying at all. Been there, done
> that, whatever. The passion will have just... well... died, and you won't
> understand why, nor will it make much sense to you to even ask why,
> because you won't be actually =feeling= the passion any more.

It will happen, for sure.

My vision will continue to deteriorate. My blood pressure -- recently
brought under control through weight loss -- will continue its inexorable
upward climb. There will be no escaping the final defeat, and my flying
*will* cease.

But not until I've seen every last corner of this country from the left
seat. And not until I've passed my passion on to every person who sets foot
in my lobby. That I can promise.

> You can't imagine it now. But you tout flying as the "be all and end all
> for everyone" so strongly that I wonder what the future will surprise you
> with. One thing I've learned in life is that things don't turn out the
> way it looks like they are going to.

Boy, ain't that the truth. Three years ago, I was embarking on an almost
unbelievably risky venture to rescue an old hotel from the jaws of collapse,
and to rebuild it in the image of an almost unimaginably stupid dream. NO
ONE thought it could succeed, and none of us thought it would make money.

Well, here we are, three years later (on 8/19), and I'm here to tell you
that we haven't lost a dime. We haven't made much, either, but the entire
flying community has come out to support us, and we've turned a small profit
every year. People we could never have counted on (and had never even heard
of) came out of the woodwork with irreplaceable, one-of-a-kind memorabilia
and artwork -- all of it donated -- to help make our hotel unique and
therefore successful.

Mustang stuff came from Vlado. SR-71 stuff came from Bill. Memphis Belle
stuff came from Bob Morgan himself. Stearman stuff came from local pilots.
Reno air race stuff was received from the race organizers themselves. Web
space was donated by Jav Henderson. ALL of this stuff was donated,
freely -- because these folks knew we didn't have a pot to pee in, and they
wanted to see their stuff enshrined in a setting that real, honest,
down-to-earth pilots and enthusiasts will see and enjoy.

They shared the dream.

I don't know about you, but that makes my throat tighten. I tend to get
awfully choked up about the generosity and assistance we've received from
pilots all over the world -- none of it requested or expected. These folks
just gave, freely, and without reservation, and all of us have benefited
from it.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"
"Jose" > wrote in message
t...
>
>
> Jose
> --
> Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
> except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no
> universe.
> for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jose]

>>The passion will have just... well... died, and you won't
>> understand why, nor will it make much sense to you to even ask why,
>> because you won't be actually =feeling= the passion any more.
>
> It will happen, for sure.
>
> My vision will continue to deteriorate. My blood pressure...

I don't mean that way. I mean, maybe one day you'll wake up and realize
you just don't love aviation any more. You like it... it's handy... but...

And none of your reasons will apply.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Happy Dog]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in
>> You put your finger on one reason I sold the Maule. It took me 45 minutes
>> on a good day to drive to the airport. Over fairly heavily traveled
>> 2-lane roads that could easily add half an hour to the trip. Add in 20
>> minutes to untie and pre-flight and 15 minutes to put her to bed and the
>> entire afternoon is gone for even a short flight.
>
> Now George, we've been over this before. If you had been open to moving
> to a more GA friendly part of the country, you, too, could have lived 30
> seconds from your plane. You opted instead to remain in the congested
> eastern part of the US, for purely economic reasons.

But, it's a valid point. I'm selling the Zlins. Acro was fun, was *almost*
a flying-habit supporting business and a great way to learn to fly. I'm
down for a fifth of an SR-22. But I'm having trouble finding two more
people with the necessary 500 hours PIC as required by the insurers. The
airport is a 15 minute walk away. (And I live downtown in a busy
metropolis.) There's another airport an hours drive away where I can get
the necessary partners. But that doesn't interest me much. The spontaneity
is important. Maybe I'll get a cottage and an ultralight.

moo

[[email protected]]

On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 00:27:02 -0400, "Morgans"
> wrote:

>Has she tried those electronic wrist bands for airsickness? I have heard
>good things about how those things work.
>
>It sounds like your wife is about the same as mine. She encourages my
>interests, and I encourage hers. It has worked well for us.

It isn't just air sickness, the other part of it is that her ears hurt
after just a few minutes due to pressure changes. I don't get very
high when we're up but it doesn't matter. She's always been that way,
even in the car going up and down seemingly small hills. We'll be
driving along and she will be swallowing and yawning and she'll say:
"Finally, my ears cleared."

I bought a set of ear plugs that have a calibrated hole in them that
are supposed to make a difference, but we haven't tried them yet. Not
much point, she's really not interested in going flying, especially
when she doesn't have to.

But she certainly understands my enjoyment for flight.

Corky Scott

[Morgans]

"Jose" > wrote

> I don't mean that way. I mean, maybe one day you'll wake up and realize
> you just don't love aviation any more. You like it... it's handy...
but...
>
> And none of your reasons will apply.

Nope. Not Jay. I'll put money on it. This could be a rather lengthy
wager, though. <g>
--
Jim in NC

[Gig 601XL Builder]

"Andrew Sarangan" > wrote in message
. ..
> "Gig 601XL Builder" <wr.giacona@coxDOTnet> wrote in
> news:3isMe.1815$7f5.1413@okepread01:
>
>>
>> "Andrew Sarangan" > wrote in message
>> ups.com...
>>> Check http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/trend.html for a quantitative
>>> summary of trends. Private, commercial and instrument issuances are
>>> down 12% since 2000. New aircraft shipments are down 10% since 2000.
>>> Avgas sale is down almost 25% since 1999. OK, dying may be an
>>> overstatement, but it is not looking rosy either. On the other hand,
>>> this year's Airventure drew record crowds. I am not sure what to make
>>> of that, but it is probably something similar to what happens in
>>> spectator sports. Large number of people turn up to watch but very
>>> few are able to participate.
>>>
>>
>> Interesting....
>>
>> Total Student Issuances
>> 59,989
>> 59,311
>> -1%
>> -678
>>
>> Private Issuances
>> 23,826
>> 23,331
>> -2%
>> -495
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> You are comparing the 2004 numbers to 2003. I was comparing the 2004
> numbers to the peak year (which in this case was 2002). The change in
> private issuance is -18% in that case. Student pilot issuance is also -
> 11%.
>


Andrew, that is the worst job of sniping I've seen in a while. You sipped
everything I wrote which was in no way questioning your comparisons or even
your thesis.

[TaxSrv]

>> Private Issuances
>> 23,826
>> 23,331
>> -2%
>> -495
>
> You are comparing the 2004 numbers to 2003. I was
comparing
> the 2004 numbers to the peak year (which in this case was
2002).

That was peak year as far back as AOPA went. It may be
relevant to the discussion that going back to 1971,
according to GAMA, the peak year was 1978, with 58,064 PP
Certificate issuances. And in that period (up through
1982), 8 of the years were over 50,000. It's not in AOPA's
interest to broadcast such things, I guess.

Fred F.

[Jay Honeck]

> I don't mean that way. I mean, maybe one day you'll wake up and realize
> you just don't love aviation any more. You like it... it's handy...
> but...
>
> And none of your reasons will apply.

Not!

(What else can I say?)

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Dave Butler]

Gig 601XL Builder wrote:

> Andrew, that is the worst job of sniping I've seen in a while. You sipped
> everything I wrote which was in no way questioning your comparisons or even
> your thesis.

His snipping is not so hot, either.

[Mike Weller]

On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 09:17:48 -0400, "Morgans"
> wrote:

>
>"Jose" > wrote
>
>> I don't mean that way. I mean, maybe one day you'll wake up and realize
>> you just don't love aviation any more. You like it... it's handy...
>but...
>>
>> And none of your reasons will apply.
>
>Nope. Not Jay. I'll put money on it. This could be a rather lengthy
>wager, though. <g>

It never ends. Even the lust.

Mike Weller

[George Patterson]

Jay Honeck wrote:
>
> Now George, we've been over this before. If you had been open to moving to
> a more GA friendly part of the country, you, too, could have lived 30
> seconds from your plane. You opted instead to remain in the congested
> eastern part of the US, for purely economic reasons.

I opted to remain here because family considerations make it impossible for
Elisabeth to move and I wish to remain married. I have no intention of posting
the details.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

[Andrew Sarangan]

Huh? I did not snip anything. Your whole post was quoted in my reply.
Besides, I did not imply that you were questioning my statements. I was
simply clairfying why your numbers were different from mine.

[Grumman-581]

Jay Honeck wrote:
> My vision will continue to deteriorate. My blood pressure -- recently
> brought under control through weight loss -- will continue its inexorable
> upward climb. There will be no escaping the final defeat, and my flying
> *will* cease.

You mean you would let a little thing like not having a current medical
stop you from flying? Damn... Must be a Yankee thing... In Texas, we
have a RIGHT to fly and don't need no stinkin' *license*... Our RIGHT
to fly is a sub-clause of the 2nd Amendment and as such was guaranteed
by Samuel Colt...

[Jim Burns]

One observation about the Saturday traffic getting into the field.

My son and I took our time and didn't arrive until about 11am. Traffic was
nuts. From the time we left Hwy 41, until the time we parked, it took over
30 minutes. And we got lucky. We entered the line to park in the Red lot,
and they were vectoring most cars further south, luckily a few cars were
leaving the Red lot and they let a few of us in. Then it was packed again
and everybody continued south towards the brown lot.

On the flip side of that coin, the lines at the ticket counters were
non-existent. Both Wednesday and Saturday there was no waiting and several
open windows. And from my accounts it was NOT because the volunteers were
extra speedy or efficient. God bless them, but on Wednesday the lady that
waited on me didn't know what NAFI was, I actually had to point to where she
entered the membership number on the screen, and it was the only other
option available other than EAA #. That, I thought weird. On Saturday a
very nice man with a thick German accent helped us, and for the life of him,
he couldn't punch the correct buttons on the computer. He may have been
distracted by the young teenage blonde that was aimlessly wandering around
in the booth with next to nothing on, but I honestly had to make sure that I
hadn't bought 6 tickets instead of just 2. I took it all in stride,
thankfull that they are so generous with their time.

Jim



"Morgans" > wrote in message
...
>
> "RST Engineering" > wrote in message
> ...
> > I'll argue that from two observations. First, not once in the last 33
> years
> > have I seen the parking lots at the dorms with a single open space after
> > about 9:30 in the evening. This year they were at least 1/3 empty every
> > night.
> >
> > Second, the traffic to get onto the field in the morning was nowhere
NEAR
> as
> > congested as any other year.
> >
> > Either they have stopped driving to Oshkosh or there were fewer people;
I
> > suspect the latter.
>
> Nah, they have finally realized that it is cooler to camp on the field.
> Wake up and smell the coffee! <vbg>
>
> Really, I don't know about the daily attendance. It seemed to me to be
> about the same, or up a very small amount. I do feel, without a doubt,
that
> the Saturday attendance watching the air show, was the biggest I have ever
> seen, by a large amount, say 75% more than other
> Saturday shows. The amount of homebuilts in the homebuilt showplane and
> homebuilt camping area was the largest ever. (according to registration
> totals)
>
> Perhaps that is the key, the "watching the show" part. Maybe there was
> almost nobody at the booths. I can't say; I was watching the show,
> especially White Knight and Spaceship One.
> --
> Jim in NC
>

[Michael]

> God, that is SOO bad...

Yes, but I've seen it happen more than once. We had a local female
pilot on the field whose husband (or maybe live-in boyfriend) didn't
fly. He's long gone. She's racking up a bunch of twin time, hoping to
fly for a living. The onwer of the twin is getting a divorce. He's
her future ex-husband, don't you see...

Seriously, there really aren't a lot of female pilots, and most of the
ones you see are career-track. A female general aviator is a true
rarity. If you're a man who insists on only marrying someone who
shares your passion for flight, odds are you will be staying single.

I'm sitting here, racking my brain, trying to think of ANY
non-career-track female pilots I ever met who were not already married
or otherwise somewhat permanently attached to a male pilot. I'm
thinking there were maybe half a dozen at most, and none are still
available.

Michael

[Marco Leon]

It's similar to the metrics used for website visitors. If you hit the
website 3 times in a day or refresh the page 3 times, are you three
visitors? Of course not. However, there are many ways to identify "unique"
visitors and it sounds like that's the crux of the issue with OSH
attendance. They're only supporting metrics. The primary indicators are new
pilot certificates, first-time medicals (i.e. students), aircraft sales, and
avgas sales.

I believe we'll see a decline for some time. We'll only see a significant
increase when a fundamental change in the way aircraft are flown (such as
full-blown SATS goodies) is in full swing making the task of flying much
more forgiving of mistakes. For many, that's a big part of the reward--a
sense of accomplishment.

Marco Leon

"Morgans" > wrote in message
...
>
> "TaxSrv" > wrote
>
> > It's not impossible. They use convention management
> > software which was a finalist in Microsoft's annual world
> > Windows competition, with awards handed out by Gates himself
> > at COMDEX. I'll assume that the simplest thing that
> > software does is tally up the number of daily tickets sold.
> > Then just add the freebie tickets given out, like to media
> > and exhibitors, for total attendance.
>
> All well and good, but how do they handle the weekly passes? Are they
added
> to the total, as new attendees? Do they assume that the holder of a
weekly
> pass is there each and every day? If so, that could be a big source of
> error, since some buy a weekly pass (it is cheaper to do that, if you are
> going to be there for say, 4 days, compared to buying 4 daily passes) and
> only stay for 4 days.
>
> In my eyes, counting people over and over, for each day is misleading. if
> they say 700,000 people, a bunch (400,000 perhaps?) are counted over for
> each day. It doesn't seem right.
>
> You know what, though? I don't care in the least bit, what their count
is.
> It is still a bunch of people, looking at some really cool airplanes, and
> airplane stuff. Nothing else comes close. (IMHO)
>
> Oshkosh (AirVenture) ROCKS, BIG TIME!
> --
> Jim (hooked - hook, line and sinker) in NC
>



Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services
----------------------------------------------------------
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[Longworth]

Michael wrote:
> I'm sitting here, racking my brain, trying to think of ANY
> non-career-track female pilots I ever met who were not already married
> or otherwise somewhat permanently attached to a male pilot. I'm
> thinking there were maybe half a dozen at most, and none are still
> available.
>

Michael,
Your post reminded me of a story told by Rick Durden. He met a single
female pilot at an aviation event and heard her making this comment:

"The odds are good, but the goods are odd" ;-)


Hai Longworth

[[email protected]]

"Michael" > wrote:
> I'm sitting here, racking my brain, trying to think of ANY
> non-career-track female pilots I ever met who were not already married
> or otherwise somewhat permanently attached to a male pilot. I'm
> thinking there were maybe half a dozen at most, and none are still
> available.

Nice job of blanket generalizing and stereotyping, assuming/presuming!
Hope the Women in Aviation group never gets ahold of you! There are
several of us who do NOT fit the stereotypes you described above. There
are several of us who did not pursue a pilot license to become an Airbus
Captain *or* to give us an way to find a male pilot to "attach"
ourselves to. Another common insulting misconception among women who are
fearful or disinterested in flying is that those of us that *aren't*
fearful and who *are* interested are only after their husbands.

Why is it *so* unbelievable to so many people that a woman can be just
as passionate about *flying* as a man can be -- just for the love of
FLYING, not to get to the airlines or to find a husband?

[Dan Luke]

> wrote:

> Why is it *so* unbelievable to so many people that a woman can be just
> as passionate about *flying* as a man can be -- just for the love of
> FLYING, not to get to the airlines or to find a husband?

It's not unbelievable; I know such a woman.

That's it: one.

Is it so unbelievable to you that women, for whatever reasons, are
*generally* less disposed to be interested than men in flying just for
the love of it? If you are, you should be proud of being such a special
person, IMO.

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

[Jose]

> Why is it *so* unbelievable to so many people that a woman can be just
> as passionate about *flying* as a man can be -- just for the love of
> FLYING, not to get to the airlines or to find a husband?

It's not.

What is unbelievable is that anywhere near as many women feel this way
as men. It is unbelievable because so few such women are observed.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Michael]

> Why is it *so* unbelievable to so many people that a woman can be just
> as passionate about *flying* as a man can be -- just for the love of
> FLYING, not to get to the airlines or to find a husband?

Oh, it's not unbelievable. I've met two or three like that - about one
for every hundred men like that.

Sure makes for some interesting odds.

Michael

[[email protected]]

Xmnushal8y:
> > Why is it *so* unbelievable to so many people that a woman can be just
> > as passionate about *flying* as a man can be -- just for the love of
> > FLYING, not to get to the airlines or to find a husband?

Jose > wrote:
> It's not.
>
> What is unbelievable is that anywhere near as many women feel this way
> as men. It is unbelievable because so few such women are observed.

No one claimed that there were ''anywhere near as many'' ... but there
are SOME, and maybe if there wasn't a pre-established
assumption/presumption about why we're there, you might observe that
there are more of us who feel that way (about flying) than you think!

[Jose]

> No one claimed that there were ''anywhere near as many'' ... but there
> are SOME, and maybe if there wasn't a pre-established
> assumption/presumption about why we're there, you might observe that
> there are more of us who feel that way (about flying) than you think!

Noone claimed, as you imply, that there are none.

My flying club has about fifty members. Of them, only one is a woman.
As it turns out, her husband is also a pilot, and a member of the same club.

Of my personal friends, I know only a few women pilots; one is even an
aerobatics champion. As it turns out, none of my personal male friends
are aerobatics pilots.

I've flown with four female CFIs, but probably close to twenty or thirty
male CFIs. Where there's a choice I try to fly with the women, figuring
that a woman who is trying to make it in any male-dominated field is
likely to have more passion for it than the men.

Yes, they are out there. Nobody said nay. Perhaps they are less
visible than their numbers would dictate.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[[email protected]]

> wrote:
>
> > Why is it *so* unbelievable to so many people that a woman can be just
> > as passionate about *flying* as a man can be -- just for the love of
> > FLYING, not to get to the airlines or to find a husband?
>
> It's not unbelievable; I know such a woman.
>
> That's it: one.

"Dan Luke" > wrote:
> Is it so unbelievable to you that women, for whatever reasons, are
> *generally* less disposed to be interested than men in flying just for
> the love of it?

No, I'm not arguing that women are *generally* less inclined to be as
interested in or passionate about flying as men. I totally agree with
that.

What I'm responding to here is the assumption that most women pilots are
''on the career track'' OR are ''attached to a male pilot'', and the
presumption that unlike men, *women* pilots are not in it, on their own,
for an intense love of flying. There may be more women in flying *for
the love of flying* than you think ... maybe you just presumed they were
there for other reasons, because that's the stereotype. (Just for the
record, I'm not disagreeing that *some* are there to get their M.R.S.
certificate, either!)

[Jay Honeck]

> Yes, they are out there. Nobody said nay. Perhaps they are less visible
> than their numbers would dictate.

One thing Mary and I have noticed is that female voices on the radio are
predominantly CFIs or commuter airline drivers. It's rare, indeed, to hear
a woman just out flying.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Trent Moorehead]

"Jose" > wrote in message
m...
> I've flown with four female CFIs, but probably close to twenty or thirty
> male CFIs. Where there's a choice I try to fly with the women, figuring
> that a woman who is trying to make it in any male-dominated field is
> likely to have more passion for it than the men.

My favorite CFI was a young woman about my age at the time (mid 20's) who
soloed me. She was very patient and positive with her comments.

I liked her because she was a very good flight instructor, a natural teacher
and a good pilot. She got hired away to the regionals just after I soloed.
The next guy was dumb as a box of rocks. The one after that had a death
wish, I swear.

-Trent
PP-ASEL

[Gig 601XL Builder]

"Dave Butler" > wrote in message
news:1124292929.497629@sj-nntpcache-3...
> Gig 601XL Builder wrote:
>
>> Andrew, that is the worst job of sniping I've seen in a while. You sipped
>> everything I wrote which was in no way questioning your comparisons or
>> even your thesis.
>
> His snipping is not so hot, either.

I was trying to save bandwidth.

Those "P's" cost money.

[Gig 601XL Builder]

"Andrew Sarangan" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Huh? I did not snip anything. Your whole post was quoted in my reply.
> Besides, I did not imply that you were questioning my statements. I was
> simply clairfying why your numbers were different from mine.
>



===MY POST===
"Andrew Sarangan" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> Check http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/trend.html for a quantitative
> summary of trends. Private, commercial and instrument issuances are
> down 12% since 2000. New aircraft shipments are down 10% since 2000.
> Avgas sale is down almost 25% since 1999. OK, dying may be an
> overstatement, but it is not looking rosy either. On the other hand,
> this year's Airventure drew record crowds. I am not sure what to make
> of that, but it is probably something similar to what happens in
> spectator sports. Large number of people turn up to watch but very few
> are able to participate.
>

Interesting....

Total Student Issuances
59,989
59,311
-1%
-678

Private Issuances
23,826
23,331
-2%
-495




If you use these numbers you would get a pretty good feel for the number of
people who start and then don't get their license. If only 10% of the
drop-outs were retained that would be more than 3600 more private pilots.

==END MY POST==

==YOUR POST==
"Gig 601XL Builder" <wr.giacona@coxDOTnet> wrote in
news:3isMe.1815$7f5.1413@okepread01:

>
> "Andrew Sarangan" > wrote in message
> ups.com...
>> Check http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/trend.html for a quantitative
>> summary of trends. Private, commercial and instrument issuances are
>> down 12% since 2000. New aircraft shipments are down 10% since 2000.
>> Avgas sale is down almost 25% since 1999. OK, dying may be an
>> overstatement, but it is not looking rosy either. On the other hand,
>> this year's Airventure drew record crowds. I am not sure what to make
>> of that, but it is probably something similar to what happens in
>> spectator sports. Large number of people turn up to watch but very
>> few are able to participate.
>>
>
> Interesting....
>
> Total Student Issuances
> 59,989
> 59,311
> -1%
> -678
>
> Private Issuances
> 23,826
> 23,331
> -2%
> -495
>
>
>


You are comparing the 2004 numbers to 2003. I was comparing the 2004
numbers to the peak year (which in this case was 2002). The change in
private issuance is -18% in that case. Student pilot issuance is also -
11%.

==END YOUR POST==

You removed what was essentially my entire post.

[[email protected]]

"Gig 601XL Builder" wrote:
[snip]
> If you use these numbers you would get a pretty good
> feel for the number of people who start and then don't
> get their license. If only 10% of the drop-outs were
> retained that would be more than 3600 more private
> pilots.

Maybe I'm missing the point ... ???

There will *always* be a drop-out rate. The only way to say that
aviation has a high(er) drop-out rate is to compare it to other
activities with at least *some* expense, risk-factor, high mental demand
and time commitment similarities, where you train to fill requirements
and test for a license. Then compare those current numbers to two, five
or ten years ago to see if those other activities currently are
experiencing a higher drop-out rate, too. How high is the drop-out rate
for student sky-divers? What percentage of med school students actually
become doctors? The state of the economy could play a part in drop-out
trends, too.

Everyone here understands that learning to fly is a huge endeavor that
takes money, commitment, time, energy, and the support of whoever you
live with. It also requires access to a CFI that you work well with that
is available when you are, and reliable, well-maintained equipment. The
absence of any *ONE* of those elements is enough to make it impossible
to complete the training ... or even to continue after the rating is
achieved (except the presence of the CFI). That said, not everyone who
*has* all those elements sees it through to completion, either. Without
meaning to sound arrogant, I'm not sure there is, or should be, a way to
fix that.

[Jay Honeck]

> Everyone here understands that learning to fly is a huge endeavor that
> takes money, commitment, time, energy, and the support of whoever you
> live with. It also requires access to a CFI that you work well with that
> is available when you are, and reliable, well-maintained equipment. The
> absence of any *ONE* of those elements is enough to make it impossible
> to complete the training ... or even to continue after the rating is
> achieved (except the presence of the CFI). That said, not everyone who
> *has* all those elements sees it through to completion, either. Without
> meaning to sound arrogant, I'm not sure there is, or should be, a way to
> fix that.

This is, of course, all true. Heck, I know perfectly intelligent adults
that can't ride a bicycle -- so there's even a "drop-out rate" for that
seemingly universal endeavor.

That said, it is incumbent upon those of us who *have* made it through to
help those who haven't -- whether we want to or not. Why? Because at the
current rate of pilot population decline, it will be impossible to convince
municipalities (like Iowa City) to maintain an airport that is used by fewer
and fewer people.

We NEED to get every possible body into the cockpit, no matter what our
personal feelings about aviation may be, purely through enlightened
self-interest.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Gig 601XL Builder]

The point is there is a HUGE drop-out rate. It means that there are a number
of people who thought "I'd like to learn to fly," Flew at least a few
flights and then quit. What is AOPA, EAA, FAA and GA in general doing to
figure out what the reasons for the drop-out rate?

Just because there has always been a drop-out rate and it has stayed pretty
steady doesn't mean there is nothing that could be done to reduce it. Sure
some and maybe most of the reasons are things that the flying community
can't fix but I'd be willing to bet that 10% of the problem could be
addressed by the community and as I said in my original post 10% is a lot of
new pilots every year.

> wrote in message
...
> "Gig 601XL Builder" wrote:
> [snip]
>> If you use these numbers you would get a pretty good
>> feel for the number of people who start and then don't
>> get their license. If only 10% of the drop-outs were
>> retained that would be more than 3600 more private
>> pilots.
>
> Maybe I'm missing the point ... ???
>
> There will *always* be a drop-out rate. The only way to say that
> aviation has a high(er) drop-out rate is to compare it to other
> activities with at least *some* expense, risk-factor, high mental demand
> and time commitment similarities, where you train to fill requirements
> and test for a license. Then compare those current numbers to two, five
> or ten years ago to see if those other activities currently are
> experiencing a higher drop-out rate, too. How high is the drop-out rate
> for student sky-divers? What percentage of med school students actually
> become doctors? The state of the economy could play a part in drop-out
> trends, too.
>
> Everyone here understands that learning to fly is a huge endeavor that
> takes money, commitment, time, energy, and the support of whoever you
> live with. It also requires access to a CFI that you work well with that
> is available when you are, and reliable, well-maintained equipment. The
> absence of any *ONE* of those elements is enough to make it impossible
> to complete the training ... or even to continue after the rating is
> achieved (except the presence of the CFI). That said, not everyone who
> *has* all those elements sees it through to completion, either. Without
> meaning to sound arrogant, I'm not sure there is, or should be, a way to
> fix that.

[Larry Dighera]

On Thu, 18 Aug 2005 17:38:33 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
> wrote in
<tI3Ne.262425$_o.202397@attbi_s71>::

>Why? Because at the
>current rate of pilot population decline, it will be impossible to convince
>municipalities (like Iowa City) to maintain an airport that is used by fewer
>and fewer people.

Another approach to convince municipalities to continue to operate
their airports is to make them aware of the FAA's imminent intent to
implement the Small Aircraft Transportation System*.

If the municipal airport is closed, and the property developed for
other purposes, it will be difficult or impossible for most
municipalities to re-establish a replacement airport once SATS is
implemented due to the lack of available real estate and NIMBY
resistance to airport operations. So closing the municipal airport
effectively shuts the municipality out of participation in the
aviation infrastructure of the 21st century.


* http://sats.larc.nasa.gov/main.html
http://ncam-sats.org/

The SATS benefits include improved standards of living and quality
of life for the nation in the new global economy. SATS technology
innovations will provide the nation with:

Economic development for communities of all sizes enabled by
localized air accessibility

Choices to bypass highway and hub-and-spoke transportation systems
delays

An efficient means for intermodal connectivity between small
airports and the global aviation system

An exportable transportation revolution with affordable "instant
infrastructure" for developing nations around the world

[TaxSrv]

"Larry Dighera" wrote:
> ...
> Another approach to convince municipalities to continue
> to operate their airports is to make them aware of the
FAA's
> imminent intent to implement the Small Aircraft
Transportation
> System*.
>

The FAA doesn't implement beyond rule changes; the private
sector must implement. I'm trying to find a site which
discusses the economics and therefore market demand for SATS
type transportation for what it will cost the traveler. Do
you know of one?

Fred F.

[Larry Dighera]

On Thu, 18 Aug 2005 20:25:51 -0400, "TaxSrv" > wrote
in >::

>"Larry Dighera" wrote:
>> ...
>> Another approach to convince municipalities to continue
>> to operate their airports is to make them aware of the
>FAA's
>> imminent intent to implement the Small Aircraft
>Transportation
>> System*.
>>
>
>The FAA doesn't implement beyond rule changes; the private
>sector must implement.

Perhaps I should have said the US DOT instead of FAA.

>I'm trying to find a site which
>discusses the economics and therefore market demand for SATS
>type transportation for what it will cost the traveler. Do
>you know of one?

You might try here: http://tinyurl.com/7kau7

[Jose]

> Another approach to convince municipalities to continue to operate
> their airports is to make them aware of the FAA's imminent intent to
> implement the Small Aircraft Transportation System*.

But this is one of the reaons municipalites want to close the
airports... residents are afraid of jet noise. And they do have a point.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[RST Engineering]

Jay, as a flight instructor with something approaching five hundred
students, I'd appreciate it if you would modify your statement to that we
NEED to get every possible QUALIFIED body into the cockpit, ...

I've gently counseled about a dozen (including some with certificates) that
this might not be the avocation for them.

Jim



"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
news:tI3Ne.262425$_o.202397@attbi_s71...

>
> We NEED to get every possible body into the cockpit, no matter what our
> personal feelings about aviation may be, purely through enlightened
> self-interest.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 03:21:26 GMT, Jose >
wrote in >::

>> Another approach to convince municipalities to continue to operate
>> their airports is to make them aware of the FAA's imminent intent to
>> implement the Small Aircraft Transportation System*.
>
>But this is one of the reaons municipalites want to close the
>airports... residents are afraid of jet noise. And they do have a point.
>

If the City Council members choose to deprive their city's residents
of the means of shuttling to the region's international airport so
that another strip mall can be built, that is their prerogative, but I
wouldn't re-elect them. :-(

And today's smaller turbofan powered aircraft aren't significantly
more noisy than piston powered aircraft especially when you consider
the shorter time they are nearby as they climb out on departure.

[[email protected]]

"RST Engineering" > wrote:
> Jay, as a flight instructor with something approaching five hundred
> students, I'd appreciate it if you would modify your statement to that we
> NEED to get every possible QUALIFIED body into the cockpit, ...
>
> I've gently counseled about a dozen (including some with certificates) that
> this might not be the avocation for them.

Jim, that's exactly what I was saying earlier in this thread from having
worked at the flight school (I'm not a CFI, but was there to observe
just the same)...about there being a (good) reason for some who "drop
out" of flying, either before or after the rating.

[Roger]

On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 09:54:06 GMT, Larry Dighera >
wrote:

>On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 03:21:26 GMT, Jose >
>wrote in >::
>
>>> Another approach to convince municipalities to continue to operate
>>> their airports is to make them aware of the FAA's imminent intent to
>>> implement the Small Aircraft Transportation System*.
>>
>>But this is one of the reaons municipalites want to close the
>>airports... residents are afraid of jet noise. And they do have a point.

Ahhh... No they don't.
It's a point based on ignorance as today's small jets are quieter than
many older prop planes and pretty much on par with most of the newer
prop planes. No, many can't match one of the new 172s, but they do a
good job.

Now, when you get up to the Falcon 900 you are pretty much reaching
the break even point compared to an old Bonanza with a two blade prop,
but the smaller jets with turbofans are much quieter. The don't burn
all the grass off the end of the runway when they run up the engines
either. That 900 pretty much cleaned the grass from the end of the
runway to the fence by the road. Good thing it was green grass and
not dry. <:-))

Here the residents were afraid if we lengthened 18/36 and 06/24 to
4000 they'd be inundated with jet noise. What they didn't realize was
we have a number of jets in and out and they never notice then. What
we couldn't convince them was on 18/36 going from 3000 to 4000 feet
would make it quieter. On a hot day I'm only a few hundred feet
over their heads, but at least I went to a 3-blade prop. When I had
the 2-blade they used to complain I was rattling the dishes in the
cupboards and I have no doubt I was.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
>>
>
>If the City Council members choose to deprive their city's residents
>of the means of shuttling to the region's international airport so
>that another strip mall can be built, that is their prerogative, but I
>wouldn't re-elect them. :-(
>
>And today's smaller turbofan powered aircraft aren't significantly
>more noisy than piston powered aircraft especially when you consider
>the shorter time they are nearby as they climb out on departure.
Roger

[Jose]

>> residents are afraid of jet noise. And they do have a point.
>
>
> Ahhh... No they don't.
> It's a point based on ignorance as today's small jets are quieter than
> many older prop planes and pretty much on par with most of the newer
> prop planes.

Well, it may be based on ignorance, but it is ignorance that I also
have, and I'm a pilot. I've never actually heard a microjet (and I
don't automatically believe what the manufacturers say)

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jay Honeck]

> I've gently counseled about a dozen (including some with certificates)
> that this might not be the avocation for them.

Can you give us some examples?

Were these vision problems? Hand-eye coordination lacking? Bad attitudes?

What was the cause of their failure?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[john smith]

Why do people stop flying?
I was just reading my acro-group postings and was reminded about why
many people drop out of flying completely... friends crashing and dying!
It is mostly associated with people with less than five years in the
sport. Their thoughts being that, "Wow! So-and-so has all these hours
and years of experience in aerobatics, yet, they still crashed! What
chance do I have?"
I personally know of one pilot, a young guy with small kids, who's
mentor crashed and burned. The never flew his Pitts again. I cannot
prove it, but I think his wife gave him an ultimatum. Although she had
her PPL, she never seemed really comfortable around the acro crowd.
Those that have been around longer know the causes (99.9% pilot error)
and are confident enough in their own abilites to not repeat the cause.

Another thing about the five years and out in acro flying.
Some people get into the sport for the thrill.
They have the time and money to get the training and buy the highest
performance acro mount of their choice. Did I mention that many of them
are low time (couple hundred hours)? They have gotten their PPL,
Instrument and Commercial and are looking around for their next aviation
challenge.
Acro is something that you either have a natural ability for, or you
spend many hours and years developing the talent. The ones that drop
after five years have plateaued out at Intermediate or Advanced. They
want to show that they have big ones, that they can compete in
Unlimited! That's why they bought the biggest, badest acro mount to
begin with, right?
They blew through Sportsman the first year, didn't always win, place or
show, but thought they flew well enough.
Second and maybe third year, they did okay in Intermediate. Again,
doesn't matter how well they did, they have an airplane that is capable
of flying the higher catagory maneuvers, so why not move up?
Advanced is where it starts to really get tough. Two or three years at
Advanced and they are not progressing or just botching every other
maneuver. It's getting embarassing! Time to get out. So they just
disappear, on to something that will give them their next big high or
ego boost.
By the way, if you haven't learned it yet, ego will kill you in aviation!

[W P Dixon]

"john smith" > wrote in message
...
> By the way, if you haven't learned it yet, ego will kill you in aviation!

;),
I know a few that have not gotten a grasp on that one yet. I guess the
same goes for pilots as it does for mechs! No one knows everything about
airplanes, Nobody! There are plenty of people that think they do on both
sides of that (pilots and mechs) . In 22 years I have sure seen the egos!
And alot of them, could it be that some of our attitudes make people not
continue with their pilot training? My wife came down to the airport with me
one day and MAN she just did not like the , as she put it..."holier than
thou" attitude given off by one of the fellows hanging around the flight
school.
Totally turned her off ! How many students have run into this type of
aviation personality, let's face it guys their are ALOT of them,...and said
what a bunch of jerkwads and never gone back? Does the self proclaimed " God
of the sky" egos play a role in drop outs?

Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech

[Jay Honeck]

> How many students have run into this type of
> aviation personality, let's face it guys their are ALOT of them,...and said
> what a bunch of jerkwads and never gone back? Does the self proclaimed " God
> of the sky" egos play a role in drop outs?

Wow, that's a hot button topic. Without effort I can name several guys
at our airport that fit the "I am God" pilot description to a "T".

One in particular simply loves to let everyone know that his knowledge
of aviation, aircraft, and all things mechanical is superior to
everyone on the planet. (Actually, it may be, but that's beside the
point), and he has a particularly snide and nasty way of doing it.

Woe unto any new student who should stumble into this guy, because not
only will he come away with the attitude that all pilots are assh*les,
but he will be made to believe that the learning curve in aviation is
far steeper than it really needs to be.

The rest of us have learned to live with the guy (he actually does know
a lot, and -- if you can suffer through the attitude -- it's usually
possible to learn something around him), but it's not been easy.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"