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