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"