At last, the truth...

Jay Honeck wrote:
Right. But these "near-pilots" DID love aviation like we do -- and
something spooked them to the point where they walked away.

Not love, a fling.
They lack the passion of flight that those of us who scare ourselves,
yet go right back to it, have.

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:ag0Me.28191$084.26229@attbi_s22...
[...]
I don't know. But I guess if a pilot is able to "give up" flying
*without* some sort of a life-changing scary experience, then, perhaps,
they were never really that hooked on it in the first place?

But this is what I'm trying to explain to you. I know few pilots who love
flying more than I do. I know they are out there, but I still feel the
passion, and I'm sure it equals or betters that held by most. Yet, I am
still capable of contemplating quitting.

Granted, I haven't done it yet. And perhaps my passion WILL prevent me from
doing so. But I personally believe that even being able to contemplate it
suggests that I'm capable of it.

Of course, you could go with the tautological approach, and define "never
really that hooked on it in the first place" as meaning "is able to give up
flying without some sort of life-changing scary experience". But as with
all tautologies, that doesn't get you any closer to actually understanding
each pilot who gives it up.

This is another concept I cannot understand -- how can someone fly without
becoming hooked on the magic of flight? -- so perhaps I'll never be able
to fathom these folks.

As Jose already pointed out, there are people who become equally hooked on
the magic of other pursuits. There is nothing unique about flying that
makes it somehow better than other hobbies, except of course to those of us
that *believe* it to be better than other hobbies.

Flying is *not* golf, nor boating, nor motorcycling, nor anything else.

Golf is not flying, nor boating, nor motorcycling, nor anything else.

Boating is not golf, nor flying, nor motorcycline, nor anything else.

Motorcycling is not golf, nor boating, nor flying, nor anything else.

The above is equally valid for the infinite number of other things that
people develop a passion for. The fact is, each person has their own unique
outlook on what makes life all worthwhile. For any given pursuit, there's a
person out there that feels that pursuit is what gives them breath, that
that pursuit is the pinnacle of human achievement and demonstrates the very
best of humanity in a single activity. And for most of those people, they
view aviation as just another hobby, nothing special or magical at all.

It's not at all hard for me to imagine a person who tried out flying, and
perhaps even found it enjoyable enough to keep at it for awhile, but who
eventually decided there were other, more important things they needed or
wanted to do.

[...]
To simply relinquish the ability to fly of my own free will is
unthinkable, and -- since it's hard to B.S. a B.S.-er -- I always search
for deeper reasons when someone tells me they quit flying because of "the
wife" or "the job".

People imagine in others their own worst qualities. When you're a
"B.S.-er", it's hard to imagine that there are lots of people out there who
don't B.S. at all.

Pete

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message

It's not at all hard for me to imagine a person who tried out flying, and
perhaps even found it enjoyable enough to keep at it for awhile, but who
eventually decided there were other, more important things they needed or
wanted to do.

Most likely. But I see a lot of people who have an epiphany after they solo
and they realize the extent of training they must still do before their
qualifications are satisfactory to meet the expectations they had when they
signed up. Most people I talk to say they want to fly so they can travel.
In reality, that's a demanding, and expensive, proposition.

moo

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

Golf is not flying, nor boating, nor motorcycling, nor anything else.
SNIP
The above is equally valid for the infinite number of other things that
people develop a passion for. The fact is, each person has their own unique
outlook on what makes life all worthwhile. For any given pursuit, there's a
person out there that feels that pursuit is what gives them breath, that
that pursuit is the pinnacle of human achievement and demonstrates the very
best of humanity in a single activity.

Ohmigod, did you really come *that* close to saying that there are
people who define "golf" as the "pinnacle of human achievement"?
Whew!

:-)


People imagine in others their own worst qualities. When you're a
"B.S.-er", it's hard to imagine that there are lots of people out there who
don't B.S. at all.

You've almost got that right, Pete, but not quite. When you're a good
B.S.er, you *know* that there are no people devoid of B.S.

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

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"

When you're a good
B.S.er, you *know* that there are no people devoid of B.S.

Oh, that's just BS.

(sorry, couldn't resist

There's one other thing to consider - one of the reasons people have for
flying is going places. You, who own the perfect plane for your
situation (family of four), can do this. Most pilots don't own =any=
kind of plane, nor do they belong to a club or partnership. They rent.

Find me a place that will rent a plane for a week at Block Island (a one
hour trip from here) and be happy with the two hours of tach time they
will be able to bill. More likely, there is a four hour per day
minimum. At a hundred dollars an hour, this brings the tab to almost
three thousand dollars for two hours of flying. A plane doesn't begin
to become useful for travel until one is at least a club member (of the
right club). There is a lot of overhead to flying, and I don't think
you realize how much that really means, since you've already done the
overhead.

Pretend for a moment that you didn't own a plane, and could not (for any
number of reasons), so that each flight was governed by the four hour
per day minimum, and whenever you wanted to schedule it, you rolled a
die every day to see if somebody else already booked it. Figure on it
being available for a week long flight maybe once or twice a year,
booked a month in advance. Figure also that you worked 9-5 M-F as an
employee, with one two-week vacation.

What would your flying be like?

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Pretend for a moment that you didn't own a plane, and could not (for any
number of reasons), so that each flight was governed by the four hour
per day minimum, and whenever you wanted to schedule it, you rolled a
die every day to see if somebody else already booked it. Figure on it
being available for a week long flight maybe once or twice a year,
booked a month in advance. Figure also that you worked 9-5 M-F as an
employee, with one two-week vacation.

What would your flying be like?

Crikey, been there, done that. Renting SUCKS.

Which is what usually pushes people into the (often financially
unjustifiable) realm of ownership.

Although a good many people see partnership or flying clubs as a
logical half-step toward outright ownership.

In any event, you're right -- for family flying of any duration,
renting a plane is difficult at best.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:

This is another concept
I cannot understand -- how can someone fly without becoming hooked on the
magic of flight? --

That has become very obvious. Few people I know feel that way.

so perhaps I'll never be able to fathom these folks.

I'd say you never will.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

Crikey, been there, done that. Renting SUCKS.

Which is what usually pushes people into the (often financially
unjustifiable) realm of ownership.

Or perhaps, justifiably, out of aviation. No scare needed.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.