"Jay Honeck" wrote:
[snip] If we can figure out why so many people start --
and quit -- pilot training, perhaps we can counter the
downward trend somehow?

Jay, your hotel and other efforts to keep and promote interest are
commendable and more advantageous to GA than trying to encourage
everyone who quits pilot training to keep going. IMO, *some* people who
were encouraged to keep going when they should have stopped end up doing
more harm to GA than those who know themselves well enough to decide
it's not for them.

Having worked at a flight school, IMO not everyone who begins flight
training *should* see it through. SOMETIMES, it is a blessing when a
customer announces that they have decided to quit. CFIs/Flight schools
face a dilemma when a customer shows up for all their lessons but isn't
doing the studying (despite painful ground sessions), isn't making any
progress, or isn't safe regardless of how hard the CFI has worked to
instill that. What do they do in that case? They (1) refer the customer
to another CFI or to another school (pass the buck); (2) they just keep
on keepin' on, milking the customer of thousands of dollars and building
a logbook with tons of dual and no license; or the most difficult, (3)
THEY suggest that the customer consider that perhaps they have chosen
the wrong activity. We've all seen/known/heard of instances where a CFI
or the school SHOULD have taken that stand but didn't.

So JMO, but while it's a shame when an eager, motivated student who got
hooked up with the wrong CFI or school quits, I think some who quit have
made the right decision and that it should be left at that.

Pilot training probably has more unique elements than most other
activities for which people take lessons and test for licenses; BUT one
common element in *all* forms of training is that there will always be
some people who quit.