George Patterson writes:

Jay Honeck wrote:

It's intimidating as hell, even at most uncontrolled fields. At a Class C
airport, you might as well be trying to break into Area 51.

No around here. Here, the FBO sees dollar signs as soon as someone walks in
the door. They fall over their tongues to show you around.

I agree, at both FBOs (in NJ) I've trained at once you get in the door they're
very eager to tell anyone with that lost look about learning to fly.

Without a mentor, most new pilots never get started. We've made airports so
inaccessible that flying has become like some sort of priesthood, where you
must be inducted into it by the Elders.

I don't know anyone who got started by a mentor.

I assume what Jay means is potential new pilots...ones that never even started
flight training. Like others, I'm sure, until my mid 20's it never even
occurred to me that I _could_ become a GA pilot. I don't think I'm alone in
this because I have talked to at least three people who are considering flight
training who never would have if I didn't tell them I was taking lessons (and
this is before I've taken anyone up for a ride). There are probably lots of
potential pilots we've lost this way.

I don't know if mentoring is the way to fix this or not, and the PP written is
probably way down on the list of things I'd change about GA, but....what were
we talking about again?

Dan.

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