"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:rEcNe.42126$084.40784@attbi_s22...

snip

That aside, can you name some other reasons for the abysmal drop-out rate
of student pilots? What can we do to make flying more accessible to
those who dream of piloting an aircraft?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"


Even to people who grew up in the 50's and 60's had pilots as heroes. The
guys at Edwards, the Astronauts, etc. Before then, the WWII generation of
pilots had a laundry list of aviation heroes. This brought people into
flying. In today's society, there are no pilot-heroes, and flying isn't
generally regarded as glamorous or as a grand adventure.

It has already been mentioned, but there are too many FBO's that don't care.
You sign up for an airplane and instructor for Saturday morning, only to
arrive and either the instructor has taken a charter flight elsewhere or the
airplane is broken. Even better, nobody bothered to call you, so you've
wasted a trip. Beyond that, the person behind the desk at the FBO doesn't
apologize.

There are some great FBO's out there, but there are a lot of not-so-good
ones too. The smart ones realize that without pilots, they are out of
business. The dumb ones jack up the cost of getting a PPL to the point
where there are no new pilots. In 20 years, they will wonder what happened
to all of their business and why they are closing the doors. The FBO at my
airfield is one of those. They sold their C-152's, so there is no
inexpensive airplane rental option for training. Also, they doubled their
instructor cost (not pay). The effect of these two items has more or less
doubled the cost of getting a PPL through that FBO. In the old days, they
used to crank out quite a few new pilots. I'm not aware of a single person
who completed their PPL using the services of this FBO in the last 2-3
years.

Aviation is getting old. I'm 40 now, and for 12 years have been the
youngest person hanging out at airport and the youngest person in my EAA
chapter. When a new guy shows up who's 28, he sees all the old farts (maybe
I'm one too in his eyes), and looks for a younger crowd to hang with. This
doesn't help.

KB