At last, the truth...

Jay,

I had only come across half a dozen or so of folks who no longer
flew. Here are the reasons which they gave me: a) been there, done
that - now into other things (2) b) got scared (2) one after getting
lost in a solo cross country trip, one right after the introductory
flight lesson - the instructor went through the whole routine including
slow flight, stalls and steep turns!! c) no money/no time (3) d) no
time (1).

Learning to fly requires a tremendous amount of time and effort.
It's a good thing that sport pilot category came along. Even for
licenced pilot who wants to fly often, it's not easy or convenient to
rent a plane. After Rick got his licence, he did not fly for over 6
months because the only local FBO (at that time) required a checkout in
an expensive, difficult to learn newer 172 which broke down quite
often and the only two 'qualifed' instructors were hard to book. He
even had to take a ground school GPS. To get proficient, we had to
drive 1.5hrs to another FBO so that Rick could continue to fly. We also
had to pay renter's insurance.

Flying is still not easy accessible or affordable to many people.
It requires a tremendous amount of commitment to stay active in
aviation. The same goes to any other serious hobbies. Rick and I
used to go scuba diving at least 4 times a year including a liveaboard
trip. We are down to 2 trips a year since owing the plane. Before
each trip, we have to go to the local YMCA's pool to practice and
check out our gear. We go rowing/sculling 4 times a week and would
feel out-of-synch or out-of-shape without rowing for a week. 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.

Hai Longworth