Guy Elden Jr writes:

Well, one of the missions of AOPA is to promote GA to as many people as
possible, and understandably, for many reasons, not everyone is
destined to be a pilot. Whenever I get the chance to chat someone up
about aviation, I find that more often than not, the issue of cost
crops up.

When a hobby costs ten thousand dollars to get into and thousands of
additional dollars a year, cost usually crops up in the conversation.

My impression is that most people still think that pilots of
small planes are the untouchable richie rich establishment doctor /
lawyer crowd, and despite all of my arguments about ways to manage the
cost, the fact that I choose this versus many other things I could do
with that money, etc, that thought sticks in their minds.

Justifiably so. Richie Rich, doctors, and lawyers are a lot closer to
reality than McDonald's employees, welfare recipients, or the average
wage earner.

About the
only way I can think of shaking that mentality is to take someone to a
nice small airfield about 50 miles away that has a nice rustic charm to
it, with lots of pilots hangar flying over breakfast / lunch in a nice
small restaurant on the field, watching the old airbirds flying in and
out.

What if they don't want to fly old airbirds?

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