On Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:08:50 +0000, Judah wrote:


Neither FBO on my field had a daily minimum as recently as 2001.

Wow.

One of
them subbed out their flight school/rental operation to American Flyers in
2001 (just before 9/11) and stopped renting planes altogether.

This certainly backs up your idea that training and rental aren't much as
compared to the services provided to other aircraft.

[...]

Do most graduating student pilots go on to fly professionally like that?

[...]
My guess is that of the ones that go to College for it,
a relatively high percentage go all the way to at least the regional jet
level, and of the ones that start at a local Part 61 FBO, a much smaller
percentage go all the way.

That's my guess too. So the FBOs aren't [mostly] training people that are
going to go on to aviation careers. Thus, at least in the aggregate (over
all FBOs), they are training the "next generation" of GA-ers.

And that makes them "important" in the task of raising more GA pilots.

[...]

I'm curious, what rules?

[...]

We've a very different mechanism which may work out about the same. It's
a point-based system. A long booking "costs" 2 points; a short "costs" 1.
Bookings "today" are free, and when a booking rolls around to "today" the
points it cost return to the pilot.

So we can have on the schedule at any moment two long bookings, four
short, or one long and two short.

The "free today" rule means that even someone maxed out can "grab an
available plane and fly".

Like you, I've had little difficulty grabbing a plane for when I wanted
it. More, I've had a two-point booking (a vacation {8^) on the system for
a while, and I've not felt constrained by the fact that I'm running at
only two available points.

Also, frankly, everyone is pretty good about it. I'd a booking that was
immediately followed by someone else's once. I found I wanted to stay
away longer, and a quick call to the other member made it possible.

[...]

Certainly there are still some people out there with "unlimited" budgets
for buying a new SR-22. But what's another couple-of-hundred a month to
continue to have a backup plan?

Heh Good point. I'll have to remember that if I ever come across my own
unlimited budget grin.

In fact, now that I consider it, we've had and have members that owned
their own aircraft as well. Hmm.


Our club has 8 planes (2 Archers, 3 Arrows, and 3 Bonanzas) and is
chartered for 80 people. We actually only have about 70 members right
now, in some sense because of exactly what you described above. When I
joined the club a few years ago it was smaller (60 members, 6 planes,
IIRC) and had 2 of each type of plane. In the last few years, our club
has certainly faced some challenges, especially with respect to the
growth, and to the differing opinions of priorities. In the end, though,
things have worked out.

I just recognized you: WFC-HPN.ORG? You're one of the few clubs in the
"neighborhood" with six-seaters. I've noticed that; we have only
four-seaters.

I've also long admired what little I can see about your finances, in that
you seem to keep your aircraft very well equiped for a rather low price.

[...]

The only other way to save this industry (and maybe this country) is
to kill all the lawyers and insurance companies.

Don't forget the FAA mouthpieces for the airline industry trying to
push for a tax break for them funded by GA fees.

Aren't they lawyers? Or just Lobbyists?

I don't know. Some run the FAA, but it doesn't preclude membership in
either/both of those two sets.

[...]

I read in some magazine a funny aside: from where are all those VLJs
going to come given the shrinking pilot population?

More importantly, who's going to train the pilots?

Yet everyone (certainly the VLJ-manufacturers) are expecting the boom.

Perhaps this isn't going to end up being related to GA ("small GA") but
instead airlines. That is, perhaps VLJs will take clients and pilots away
from the airlines (ie. the "air taxi" model)?

But the number of pilots would still need to increase significantly. Yet,
if these are "career" pilots then they'll come though the universities and
rush programs.

- Andrew