BDS writes:

I think it's more a matter of priorities and the choices we all make.

Certainly one can see if from that viewpoint, but the more expensive a hobby
becomes, the more skewed one's priorities must be in order to justify pursuing
it--_or_ the more rich one must be to pursue it without making terrific
sacrifices in other domains.

I know, it sounds like a cliche and I'm sure a few folks won't be able to
resist poking fun at this, but the fact is that almost anyone who wants it
bad enough can afford to get their pilot license.

No doubt, but as I said above, the more expensive it becomes, the more badly
and desperately one must want it (unless one is rich).

The fact is, the more expensive it becomes, the less likely general aviation
is to survive over the long term, as it gradually prices itself out of
existence. While a handful of wealthy people can extend the life of something
for a certain time, eventually they become too small in number to support some
of the fixed costs of infrastructure, and everything collapses.

All it takes is a hard
look at what you think you "need", and a willingness to get a job or two -
my wife had one and I had two at the time.

The problem is that you cannot promote or hope to preserve a hobby by limiting
it to people who are willing to sell a kidney just to practice it. The
availability of a few die-hards who will sell their own moms to get that
license isn't going to preserve general aviation as a whole. It has to be
reasonably accessible, or it will dry up and blow away.

Whining about not having enough money to do it won't make it happen.
You have to get off your derrier and actually do something to make it happen.

Perhaps I haven't made myself clear. To keep a hobby alive, you have to make
it accessible to a critical mass of the population. Telling people that if
they can't afford it, they're not dedicated enough is just shooting yourself
in the foot. They aren't going to become more dedicated; they're just going
to give up on the idea. And if there are too few people with the extreme
"dedication" required to pursue the hobby, there won't be enough to support
the infrastructure that it requires, and there will be none to speak out in
its favor when others wish to eliminate it.

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