Ouch!!! Wet rates keep going up!

On Sep 23, 1:55 am, Jim Logajan wrote:
Andrew Sarangan wrote:
I think you are right on the money. I am in the education field, and
see this phenomenon first hand. We are promoting an educational system
that does not reward hands-on skills and the joy of creating things.
Elec engineering students graduate without ever having seen a
soldering iron;

Ahem. We used plug-in breadboards and wirewrap in college to wire up
circuits, not soldering irons. As we should have - we were learning
concepts, not necessarily eye-hand skills. In college you are supposed to
experiment with circuits and soldering is an impediment to that goal. And
that was in the physics program at the University of Minnesota. You can't
get a physics degree without taking the required 1 year lab course, 2/3rds
of which was electronics. (The required text was (still is?) Horowitz and
Hill's "The Art of Electronics" which a lot of people consider a classic
text. I know one of the authors used to contribute in the
sci.electronics.design group - not sure if he still does.)

mech engineers graduate never having done any machining.

While having hands-on experience with machining is nice, it isn't necessary
to doing good design work. Especially when a lot of machined items are now
done with CNC the hands-on experience has less relevance. We all live the
same number of years yet the amount of things to learn keeps growing -
something has to give. For example, machining isn't relevant to much of the
design work they'd do with composite materials, so that is yet another
reason why it is no calamity is mech engineers graduate without machining
experience.

Engineering is a combination of "practice" and "concepts". I have seen
how a lack of hands-on experience can be a big handicap. Many students
turn in designs that are conceptually and mathematically fine, but
impossible to make in real life. That is the result of our
educational system focusing too much on "concepts" and not enough on
"practice". Part of the reason is, the teachers themselves don't have
the practical experience. One could become an engineering professor
without having spent a single day practicing engineering. If you can
demonstrate the concepts on paper, you are good to go. What do you
think they are going to teach their students? But you can't design a
good bicycle if you don't ride a bicycle. You can't design a good
airplane if you don't fly airplanes. All the theory in the world is
not going to help you make a widget if you don't work on widgets. The
Wright brothers built the airplane from their rudimentary bicycle
buiding experience. Their designs were driven by "gut feeling", not by
anaylsis. I don't see how you can develop a gut feeling if you don't
have the hands-on experience. I met a mech PhD student who brought me
a piece of steel block and called it aluminum. He had no "gut feeling"
for how much aluminum weighs compared to steel. It is dificult to
imagine how one could be innovative with such a serious handicap. When
a EE PhD connects the live and neutral wires together, you have to
think that something is seriously wrong. Regarding concepts vs
practice, it has been said that the steam engine did more for
thermodynamics than thermodyanmics did for the steam engine. The same
could be said about aerodynamics and airplanes. There are exceptions.
Einstein did not have much hands-on experience, yet he transformed a
century worth of techology. Wright brothers did not have much
theoretical framework. But most of us are not Einsteins or Wright
brothers. We need a good balance of concepts and practice in order to
make useful things.

wrote in message
ups.com...
I keep hearing claims that inflation is low, but fuel costs have
doubled in the past 6 years, and housing prices have also nearly
doubled (my house is appraising from almost twice what I paid for it
in 2000), and consequently my property taxes have doubled. Seems to
me that inflation is running pretty high since energy and housing are
both pretty big portions of everyday expenses.

The rising cost of insurance is also a big factor in the cost of housing.
Our has increased by some 10X in the last decade. I also have been noticing big
increases in the price of food recently. I don't know how the government
figures that inflation is less than 5%.

Yes, my income is not keeping pace and my flying hours are on the decrease
as a result.

Vaughn

Do you have a side busines with Mike?

wrote:
The hourly rate on all of the planes in my flying club just went up
again (second time in a year).

Archer II's just went up by another $10 per hour. Flying rates in the
past 6 years have gone up by a factor of 1.6 times yet I am still
making the same salary I was making in 2001. If this keeps up, I sure
won't be flying much...

I keep hearing claims that inflation is low, but fuel costs have
doubled in the past 6 years, and housing prices have also nearly
doubled (my house is appraising from almost twice what I paid for it
in 2000), and consequently my property taxes have doubled. Seems to
me that inflation is running pretty high since energy and housing are
both pretty big portions of everyday expenses.

Salaries are being held down by offshoring of jobs. We have lost
close to 5,000 high tech jobs in Boise in the past 2 years alone,
mostly due to offshoring by Micron and HP. With that going on, very
few people in the high tech industry in this area have gotten raises
in the past 5 or 6 years, and if they did, it was pretty small (a
couple of percent one time).

I don't see how GA is going to attract many new pilots if this trend
continues...

Dean

On Sep 21, 11:51 am, LJ Blodgett wrote:
Do you have a side busines with Mike?

Yes.

wrote in message
ups.com...
The hourly rate on all of the planes in my flying club just went up
again (second time in a year).

Archer II's just went up by another $10 per hour. Flying rates in the
past 6 years have gone up by a factor of 1.6 times yet I am still
making the same salary I was making in 2001. If this keeps up, I sure
won't be flying much...

I keep hearing claims that inflation is low, but fuel costs have
doubled in the past 6 years, and housing prices have also nearly
doubled (my house is appraising from almost twice what I paid for it
in 2000), and consequently my property taxes have doubled. Seems to
me that inflation is running pretty high since energy and housing are
both pretty big portions of everyday expenses.

Salaries are being held down by offshoring of jobs. We have lost
close to 5,000 high tech jobs in Boise in the past 2 years alone,
mostly due to offshoring by Micron and HP. With that going on, very
few people in the high tech industry in this area have gotten raises
in the past 5 or 6 years, and if they did, it was pretty small (a
couple of percent one time).

I don't see how GA is going to attract many new pilots if this trend
continues...


You could look at this like a "rebalancing your portfolio" exercise.
By pulling SOME of the increased equity out of your house and putting it
into a seperate account, you'd have money to pay the extra property tax, and
quite a bit more money to fly. You can get pretty close to 5% on the
account, and if it gets a little too flush because of a lack of flying etc,
you can use the extra to pay down the house.

"Ken Finney" wrote in message
. ..
You could look at this like a "rebalancing your portfolio" exercise.
By pulling SOME of the increased equity out of your house and putting it
into a seperate account, you'd have money to pay the extra property tax, and
quite a bit more money to fly. You can get pretty close to 5% on the
account, and if it gets a little too flush because of a lack of flying etc,
you can use the extra to pay down the house.

I can think of very few good reasons to mortgage my home, and "flying money"
is surely not among them. There are hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions)
out there right now who answered that siren call and are now watching their home
equity loans reset to a higher interest after they blew the money.

Vaughn

"Vaughn Simon" wrote in message
...

"Ken Finney" wrote in message
. ..
You could look at this like a "rebalancing your portfolio" exercise.
By pulling SOME of the increased equity out of your house and putting it
into a seperate account, you'd have money to pay the extra property tax,
and
quite a bit more money to fly. You can get pretty close to 5% on the
account, and if it gets a little too flush because of a lack of flying
etc,
you can use the extra to pay down the house.

I can think of very few good reasons to mortgage my home, and "flying
money"
is surely not among them. There are hundreds of thousands (perhaps
millions)
out there right now who answered that siren call and are now watching
their home
equity loans reset to a higher interest after they blew the money.


Your life. Just remember, leaving money to your kids screws up their lives!
;^)

And I emphasized "SOME".

On 20-Sep-2007, wrote:

The hourly rate on all of the planes in my flying club just went up
again (second time in a year).

Archer II's just went up by another $10 per hour. Flying rates in the
past 6 years have gone up by a factor of 1.6 times yet I am still
making the same salary I was making in 2001. If this keeps up, I sure
won't be flying much...



I think others on this group recently established that all you need is a
minimum wage job to be able to afford to own and fly a Piper Pathfinder. You
can even fly it all across the country, covering distances as far as Iowa to
North Carolina! My guess is you make too much, that's why you're finding
rentals too expensive. Give up your current job and get one that pays less
so you can continue flying with no worries. Owning and making minimum wage
is definitely the way to go if someone earning minimum wage can afford a
nice machine like a Pathfinder!
Scott Wilson

I think others on this group recently established that all you need is a
minimum wage job to be able to afford to own and fly a Piper Pathfinder. You
can even fly it all across the country, covering distances as far as Iowa to
North Carolina! My guess is you make too much, that's why you're finding
rentals too expensive. Give up your current job and get one that pays less
so you can continue flying with no worries. Owning and making minimum wage
is definitely the way to go if someone earning minimum wage can afford a
nice machine like a Pathfinder!

As with most people who have never owned and operated a family
business, you forgot the caveat that states: "...And you and your wife
will have to work every waking hour in order to pull it off."

The trade-offs are stark. The rewards are many -- as are the costs.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:



As with most people who have never owned and operated a family
business, you forgot the caveat that states: "...And you and your wife
will have to work every waking hour in order to pull it off."

The trade-offs are stark. The rewards are many -- as are the costs.


You guys work way too hard for the return. I know you can't help it,
most people in a small business of their own do likewise.