Liberals Ignore The Wright Brothers

6. When asked what kind of airplane you flew on, make
sure you can't remember. For bonus points, be sure
that you don't even remember the airline.

Wait a minute now -- no bonus points should be awarded for *that*!

Heck, I can tell you every type of airliner I've ever flown in -- but
certainly not every airline I've ever used.

To me, the only thing cool about airline travel nowadays is the equipment
they use. Otherwise, they're all in a race to the bottom, to see who can
provide the least service with the worst attitude.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message =
news:8A4Cb.502867$HS4.3881620@attbi_s01...
=20
Heck, I can tell you every type of airliner I've ever flown in -- but
certainly not every airline I've ever used.
=20
--=20
Jay Honeck
=20

Hah! My obsessed son-in-law can tell you the tail number of most =
aircraft he's flown on.
---JRC---

vincent p. norris wrote
Like it or not, "history marches on." Aviation is not as romantic as
it was when I was a kid. Pilots no longer wear helmet, goggles, and a
silk scarf.

Why not? Those things are still there, and still available to us.
I've worn the helmet, goggles, and silk scarf, and I've looped and
rolled an open cockpit biplane over the countryside. So could you.
For what that plane cost, you couldn't buy a half-decent C-172, and
the operating cost wasn't any higher. No, the plane wasn't as safe,
comfortable, or easy to fly as the Cessna - but the romance of
aviation does not come from safety, comfort, or ease of operation.

Personally, I think the reason so many kids have lost interest in
aviation is that, in a futile attempt to make it safe, we've squeezed
the life out of it.

Michael

Flying has become routine of course as far as airlines. Also its
very hard to see out of the window, IF you get a window
seat,NOT over the wing, not to mention the funky angles you
have to hold your neck to see sometimes when the window is
not aligned with the seat. Over the pacific ocean at night,
I could barely see stars though those windows.
Kinda scary too for folks to want to peek into
the cockpit since 911. Even a little joke can
cause a huge ruckus. That I think hurts things.
The captain cant have a kid come up to the cockpit for
5 minutes during the flight?

Pre-911 I was able to pass a note up to the Captain
of a Quantas 747 and got the jumpseat for approach
and landing to Brisbane. It might be a loooong time
before I can do that again. Im so glad I had the chance.
But as private pilots we can change ALL that for
people. Just take up anyone who wants to go. The view
alone is such a drastic difference.
Involve them in the process, looking for traffic,
make a radio call maybe, I let them fly the plane
a little while, Pitch, Yaw and Roll are easily
demonstrated I have recently taken to plotting
the course from the GPS on a chart and printing it
for them to see exactly where they had flown.
Give an old chart away after the flight.
I have flown lots of friends from work and one
may even learn to fly soon.

Some younger people are more impressed with the
military flying, but you can tell them even military
pilots need to fly a Cessna or Piper or what have you
if they want to take friends or family sightseeing.
People who love aviation are there, Wings channel is
dedicated to flight afterall. Airshow attendance is
good. Miramar and Nellis were packed when I went
this year. I still see kids there with their toys playing airplane.
But you know what was missing? Very few
local flying clubs had decent displays. Maybe some flyers
held down by a paperweight in front of a club plane.
I think more effort there would help. Big banners
"LEARN TO FLY" or Win a Sight Seeing Trip. General
Aviation would benefit by some simple good advertising
to let people know its do-able. The costs are what they
are but its still within the average Jane or Joes reach.
You just have to sacrifice sometimes, maybe no brand new
car. Ive been driving mine 10 years.
Almost all my passengers had not been up in a "little"
airplane before. Every one of them has been impressed
with it and many wanted to go again.

Cub Driver wrote in message . ..
Youngsters today have no idea who Lindbergh was, or Jimmy Doolittle,
or even Wrong Way Corrigan

Vince, I am pleased that someone else remembers Corrigan.


Who doesn't remember Wrong-way Corrigan? As a student pilot in the
pre-GPS days I could always point to Corrigan's (supposed) wrong way
flight as an example navigation that turned out even worse than some
of my student exploits.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

"Judah" At some point in relatively recent history,
many things that we currently
take for granted were Magic...

The Light Bulb
The Telephone
The Car
The Computer
The Internet
Christmas

That's just life...

I think for most people nowadays, there isn't much Magic. Nowadays it's
always about money. There isn't even much visionary Sci-Fi to lead us to
our next dream... We've even got the Cell-Phone as a Star Trek
Communicator...

....ut that's overly cynical

At least for most people, anyway. I still enjoy the magic of flying...
And even some other things... Although I have become something of a
pragmatist - or maybe even a cyncic. (Could you tell?)

I enjoy it too... and I think you are just getting older. I know that for
sure.

I watched "Master and Commander" the other night and fantasized about how
magical sailing and sailing ships must have been in previous centuries.
Sort of like space flight in the last one. The magic of open ocean sailing
is still there but so is thousands of other pursuits. We just have some
many damn options available to so damn many people. It's great! .

Yeah, you're right. But I can still be cynical if I really want to!

"Maule Driver" wrote in
. com:

"Judah" At some point in relatively recent
history, many things that we currently
take for granted were Magic...

The Light Bulb
The Telephone
The Car
The Computer
The Internet
Christmas

That's just life...

I think for most people nowadays, there isn't much Magic. Nowadays
it's always about money. There isn't even much visionary Sci-Fi to
lead us to our next dream... We've even got the Cell-Phone as a Star
Trek Communicator...

...ut that's overly cynical

At least for most people, anyway. I still enjoy the magic of flying...
And even some other things... Although I have become something of a
pragmatist - or maybe even a cyncic. (Could you tell?)

I enjoy it too... and I think you are just getting older. I know that
for sure.

I watched "Master and Commander" the other night and fantasized about
how magical sailing and sailing ships must have been in previous
centuries. Sort of like space flight in the last one. The magic of
open ocean sailing is still there but so is thousands of other
pursuits. We just have some many damn options available to so damn
many people. It's great! .

Youngsters today have no idea who Lindbergh was, or Jimmy Doolittle,
or even Wrong Way Corrigan

Vince, I am pleased that someone else remembers Corrigan.

all the best -- Dan Ford

Oh, very well! It was big news at the time, and I was already crazy
about airplanes. I was 10 years old, and had just begun to build
airplane models.

My first model was, guess what! A Curtiss Robin!

(For the younger posters, that was the airplane Corrigan flew across
the Atlantic.)

vince norris

Pilots no longer wear helmet, goggles, and a
silk scarf.

Why not? Those things are still there, and still available to us.
I've worn the helmet, goggles, and silk scarf, and I've looped and
rolled an open cockpit biplane over the countryside.

Me too! But not nearly often enough. Once in awhile, in a friend's
Starduster.

But I learned to do that in the navy, in an SNJ, more than 50 years
ago. I have a fair number of flying friends, younger than I, and not
one of them has ever rolled or looped or spun an airplane, or flown in
an open cocpit, or worn helmet and goggles; and only one has ever
flown a taildragger (he bought a C-140, a couple of years ago.)

vince norris

Judah,

I think for most people nowadays, there isn't much Magic.


Careful with statements like that. At the end of the 19th century,
common wisdom was that everything inventable had been invented. Things
have changed quite a bit since then...

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)