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#21
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Flying is boring to the generation that has been raised on action
filled TV, movies, and video games. -- Gene Seibel Hangar 131 - http://pad39a.com/gene/plane.html Because I fly, I envy no one. |
#22
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In article ,
Jose wrote: Are you any different? You stopped at one engine. All this noise about trailers at Oshkosh and you are still flying a slow, single engine airplane with a growing family. What is keeping you, who love aviation so much, from getting a twin rating and buying something that can acutally =haul= the stuff you want to take to OSH along with six friends, and at three hundred knots to boot, icing be damned? Huh? I don't see how flying a twin or a single relates to Jay's question at all. Jay's question deals with why people who have an initial interest in flying apparently lose interest, not why someone who flies a Cherokee doesn't run out and buy a Baron. By your measurement, I guess the only people who love flying are those who can afford to prance around in Gulfstream Vs. I do agree with your observation about the romance of flying--I think that flying is one of those things that is now taken for granted, even demanded, by the public. It is no longer respected as it once was. I agree with your observation about the commitment--to remain proficient and safe, so that flying is truly useful, you have to commit to flying on a regular basis. This takes discipline that many aren't willing to provide just so that they can take the family away once or twice a year. For families, I think that financial commitment is a big issue. Both adults have to see the value in flying and be willing to sacrifice other things in order to do it. There are quite a few husbands with an interest who have less enthusiastic wives. Who is going to willingly strain a personal relationship over something so unimportant in the big picture? Personally, I don't think those pilots who learn to fly because it's a rich kid's hobby, or so they can boast to their neighbors, do the rest of us any good, and I'd rather that they not set foot in an airplane at all. JKG |
#23
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On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 11:38:46 GMT, kontiki
wrote in :: We need to do more as a group to encourage the younger generation. Imagine being a young person today faced with the high cost of automobiles, ever increasing cost of insurance and gasoline, and the astronomical cost of a home, and then you'll realize why adding the cost of aviation instruction and operation is totally out of the question for the vast majority. |
#24
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You'll notice I've not mentioned the Number One reason people
mention for quitting: Money. That's because it is indeed the number one reason. Or, more precisely - flying does not offer good value for the money. Most students quit once they realize this. The ones who don't are a handful of aviation addicts - the kind of people who will tell you that flying is life, and everything else is just details. Those people will always find a way to fly, and little things like being shuffled between CFI's, disorganized and often incompetent instruction, and airport snobbery won't stop them - just like it didn't stop you, or me for that matter. If we're ever going to get more pilots in quantity, we need to attract a demographic other than "will go to any lengths to fly, regardless of what it costs or what sacrifices must be made." Right now, that's pretty much the only demongraphic we're attracting. Flying is expensive. You mentioned that getting a private license is no more expensive than a semester at college. This is questionable - it depends on the college - but in any case, a college degree these days is job training, not something you do recreationally. There are as many kids learning to fly as ever, shooting for a career in aviation. They're not dropping out unless they just totally run out of money or discover that's not what they want to do for a living. But for someone who is college-age and not going for a career in aviation, flying is just too expensive a hobby. Wrong demographic. So let's revisit the Harley thing again, since that's the demographic we're going for. Someone willing and able to shell out big bucks for an expensive and dangerous toy is indeed the person we're looking for. For the price of a brand-new loaded Harley, you can get an old ragged-out two-seater. Your cost of ownership for the plane will be ten times what it is for the Harley. Is the plane ten times more fun? Is it ten times more useful? You're losing students who realize that for a fraction of what they're spending on aviation, they coud be having more fun on a Harley. Aviation will recover when (a) You can buy a brand new, ready-to-fly, two-seat airplane with a reasonable warranty and service plan for what a new Harley costs, and have comparable operating costs, and (b) The bull**** factor associated with aviation falls off to what it is with a Harley, and the fun factor comes up to what it is with a Harley. I'm somewhat hopeful that (a) will happen under the LSA rules. When I was in the Keys, I saw a two-seat UL trainer on floats. It was open cockpit (very open), and had a Rotax engine and Dacron-sailcloth covered wing, but it was $25K new. Sell it as an LSA at that price and people will buy it. It also comes in a landplane version. As for (b), we need a change in attitude. I met an avid scuba diver and business owner who could afford an airplane, and actually went up with a friend of his on a lesson. The process of walking around the plane for 10 minutes with a written checklist, and then spending 5 more minutes in the plane reading a checklist, was enough to turn him off. I routinely get a twin preflighted for IFR and launched in less time than that, and they were just going on a local day-VFR flight in a Cherokee. We need to understand that if we're going to attract the Harley demographic, that kind of bull**** is unacceptable. For that matter, the whole fascination with rules has to stop. We don't religiously follow every traffic law in our cars (and god knows it doesn't happen on motorcycles), and we certainly don't spend hours debating the fine points of what it and is not legal. Why should this be acceptable with airplanes? The Harley demographic is not going to stand for it. How would the motorcycle community react to a rider who turned in one of their own to the police for a traffic violation? Or even suggested that it might be OK to do? Do riders worry about what's actually legal - or just what they can get busted for? Why is it different for airplanes? It doesn't need to be. Motorcycles are loud, they're dangerous, but the biggest restrictions placed on bikers are helmet laws - and even this is far from universal. They don't police their ranks, but they have something we don't - they have numbers. That's much more useful. If policing our own ranks costs us numbers (and it does) then it's counterproductive to keeping aviation alive. So bottom line - if you want to see fewer people dropping out, we need lower costs and fewer rules. Otherwise, we're going away. Michael |
#25
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On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 09:36:32 -0400, RNR
wrote in :: you cannot remove cost from the analysis. It is probably the most significant factor. I have no idea if the cost of flight training is still covered by the GI Bill, but it was a strong motivating factor in the past. The problem was, as I recall, that only those instruction costs beyond the Private Pilot certificate were covered. If there was a loan program in place to cover the initial training costs, it might motivate more veterans to become pilots. |
#26
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I don't see how flying a twin or a single relates to Jay's
question at all. Jay's question deals with why people who have an initial interest in flying apparently lose interest, not why someone who flies a Cherokee doesn't run out and buy a Baron. By your measurement, I guess the only people who love flying are those who can afford to prance around in Gulfstream Vs. The point is that in both cases, somebody who is attracted to aviation goes "just so far" and then is satisfied. Jay doesn't understand how this can be so. For the person who is satisfied by having mastered enough to solo, he's happy in a way that Jay doesn't understand, because he has the drive to go further. But Jay too has "stopped"... albeit at a different place. The reasons that Jay has for stopping are reasons that Jay understands, since they are =his= reasons, despite the arguments I've given for continuing on. My point is that the reasons on both sides and in both places may well be the same, differing only in perspective. For example, despite the usefulness of the higher performance aircraft, maintaining currency in a twin is a commitment, twins cost significantly more to operate, they operate out of fewer fields, and all these look sneakingly like the arguments against airplane flight over highway travel for somebody who thought flying would be =so= handy. 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. |
#27
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#28
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His point is that all people decide to stop progressing at some point. He
used Jay as an example of someone who stopped progressing at single engine, fixed gear VFR flying. Others may stop at solo. I don't see much of a difference between stopping at solo or at PP. Mike MU-2 "Jonathan Goodish" wrote in message ... In article , Jose wrote: Are you any different? You stopped at one engine. All this noise about trailers at Oshkosh and you are still flying a slow, single engine airplane with a growing family. What is keeping you, who love aviation so much, from getting a twin rating and buying something that can acutally =haul= the stuff you want to take to OSH along with six friends, and at three hundred knots to boot, icing be damned? Huh? I don't see how flying a twin or a single relates to Jay's question at all. Jay's question deals with why people who have an initial interest in flying apparently lose interest, not why someone who flies a Cherokee doesn't run out and buy a Baron. By your measurement, I guess the only people who love flying are those who can afford to prance around in Gulfstream Vs. I do agree with your observation about the romance of flying--I think that flying is one of those things that is now taken for granted, even demanded, by the public. It is no longer respected as it once was. I agree with your observation about the commitment--to remain proficient and safe, so that flying is truly useful, you have to commit to flying on a regular basis. This takes discipline that many aren't willing to provide just so that they can take the family away once or twice a year. For families, I think that financial commitment is a big issue. Both adults have to see the value in flying and be willing to sacrifice other things in order to do it. There are quite a few husbands with an interest who have less enthusiastic wives. Who is going to willingly strain a personal relationship over something so unimportant in the big picture? Personally, I don't think those pilots who learn to fly because it's a rich kid's hobby, or so they can boast to their neighbors, do the rest of us any good, and I'd rather that they not set foot in an airplane at all. JKG |
#29
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All good points but a huge difference between flying and riding a Harley is
the amount of time from when you start spending money until you start having fun. Americans, at least, are not very interested in delayed gratification. Consumer products that require reading the manual before use usually flop. Mike MU-2 "Michael" wrote in message oups.com... You'll notice I've not mentioned the Number One reason people mention for quitting: Money. That's because it is indeed the number one reason. Or, more precisely - flying does not offer good value for the money. Most students quit once they realize this. The ones who don't are a handful of aviation addicts - the kind of people who will tell you that flying is life, and everything else is just details. Those people will always find a way to fly, and little things like being shuffled between CFI's, disorganized and often incompetent instruction, and airport snobbery won't stop them - just like it didn't stop you, or me for that matter. If we're ever going to get more pilots in quantity, we need to attract a demographic other than "will go to any lengths to fly, regardless of what it costs or what sacrifices must be made." Right now, that's pretty much the only demongraphic we're attracting. Flying is expensive. You mentioned that getting a private license is no more expensive than a semester at college. This is questionable - it depends on the college - but in any case, a college degree these days is job training, not something you do recreationally. There are as many kids learning to fly as ever, shooting for a career in aviation. They're not dropping out unless they just totally run out of money or discover that's not what they want to do for a living. But for someone who is college-age and not going for a career in aviation, flying is just too expensive a hobby. Wrong demographic. So let's revisit the Harley thing again, since that's the demographic we're going for. Someone willing and able to shell out big bucks for an expensive and dangerous toy is indeed the person we're looking for. For the price of a brand-new loaded Harley, you can get an old ragged-out two-seater. Your cost of ownership for the plane will be ten times what it is for the Harley. Is the plane ten times more fun? Is it ten times more useful? You're losing students who realize that for a fraction of what they're spending on aviation, they coud be having more fun on a Harley. Aviation will recover when (a) You can buy a brand new, ready-to-fly, two-seat airplane with a reasonable warranty and service plan for what a new Harley costs, and have comparable operating costs, and (b) The bull**** factor associated with aviation falls off to what it is with a Harley, and the fun factor comes up to what it is with a Harley. I'm somewhat hopeful that (a) will happen under the LSA rules. When I was in the Keys, I saw a two-seat UL trainer on floats. It was open cockpit (very open), and had a Rotax engine and Dacron-sailcloth covered wing, but it was $25K new. Sell it as an LSA at that price and people will buy it. It also comes in a landplane version. As for (b), we need a change in attitude. I met an avid scuba diver and business owner who could afford an airplane, and actually went up with a friend of his on a lesson. The process of walking around the plane for 10 minutes with a written checklist, and then spending 5 more minutes in the plane reading a checklist, was enough to turn him off. I routinely get a twin preflighted for IFR and launched in less time than that, and they were just going on a local day-VFR flight in a Cherokee. We need to understand that if we're going to attract the Harley demographic, that kind of bull**** is unacceptable. For that matter, the whole fascination with rules has to stop. We don't religiously follow every traffic law in our cars (and god knows it doesn't happen on motorcycles), and we certainly don't spend hours debating the fine points of what it and is not legal. Why should this be acceptable with airplanes? The Harley demographic is not going to stand for it. How would the motorcycle community react to a rider who turned in one of their own to the police for a traffic violation? Or even suggested that it might be OK to do? Do riders worry about what's actually legal - or just what they can get busted for? Why is it different for airplanes? It doesn't need to be. Motorcycles are loud, they're dangerous, but the biggest restrictions placed on bikers are helmet laws - and even this is far from universal. They don't police their ranks, but they have something we don't - they have numbers. That's much more useful. If policing our own ranks costs us numbers (and it does) then it's counterproductive to keeping aviation alive. So bottom line - if you want to see fewer people dropping out, we need lower costs and fewer rules. Otherwise, we're going away. Michael |
#30
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All good points but a huge difference between flying and riding a Harley is
the amount of time from when you start spending money until you start having fun. I'm not convinced that's true. I know that most people (at least in Houston) who buy a Harley who have never ridden before take a course that starts Friday evening, goes all through the weekend, and I think there's some finishup Monday. That would be enough time to solo a tri-gear LSA. For those who really must have the one-day training course, there is always the powered parachute. Michael |
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