On 2007-05-03, Jay Honeck wrote:
But you're right about computers. They have sapped the life out of
our kids, by allowing them to experience the world without ever
leaving their chairs.

You can always say $NEWTHING has sapped the life out of/displaced
$OLDTHING from our kids lives. Same thing was said about TV. Same thing
was said about books.

Computers greatly enhanced my life, not sapped it. I wrote my first
computer program age 8, on a Sinclair ZX-81. Computers allowed me to not
experience the world, but make new worlds (albeit very simple ones). It
opened a huge world of creative opportunity for me that otherwise
wouldn't have existed - since when writing a program, all you need is
time (and kids have a lot of it) and not money (which kids don't have).

There's nothing as much fun as seeing your friends play in a virtual
world _you_ invented.

I think it's pretty curmudgeonly to say computers "sap the lives from
our kids", they do nothing of the sort - in many cases, they greatly
enhance the learning and knowledge of our children. Few things stick
better than self-directed learning. There may be lots of hanging out in
IRC and on IM or playing games, but I see children of my friends
learning in ways that prior generations simply couldn't, and by and
large they are smarter for it.

Back to aviation - aviation is never going to be something with mass
appeal: it's a very unnatural thing for ground dwelling beings to do,
and most people find that flying as an experience spans from something
mildly uncomfortable to terrifying. Few people actually enjoy being in
the air. Face it: those of us who do are somewhat weird (in the nicest
possible way). Especially when you consider what we are prepared to
spend on ancient aircraft, costing three times as much as a Mercedes
Benz and not even having AC, let alone being quiet enough inside to
conduct a conversation without a pair of David Clamps. The economics
works against us: those of us free enough (i.e. young and not married)
typically can't afford it, those who are earning enough either have
kids, an unsupportive (of flying) spouse, or more frequently both, and
the older people who's children have left still have the unsupportive
spouse who wants to spend the money on the house, not a plane.

So you have to hook them young, before they get a spouse, so hopefully
one of their spousal qualifiers is "must be supportive of flying". Then
the rugged individualism of the pilot personality works against us: set
up a scholarship so that young people can learn to fly? No! Never! That
includes the dirty word "subsidy!"

The latter, however, is just what we may need. Our tiny glider club
(with only about a dozen regular members) has taught several teenagers
to fly who otherwise would never have been able to afford it thanks to a
scholarship fund run by the BGA. Perhaps there's therefore some hope
that soaring at least can keep interest in general aviation going
because it can hook interested people young. It's not enough to give
kids a flight in a Young Eagles type thing. While this is good, if we
want to keep a supply of new, young pilots - you have to give them a
reason to keep coming back to the airport.

Hopefully the Sport Pilot thing in the US may help, too, in making a
supply of somewhat affordable aircraft (even if the new sport aircraft
now won't be affordable until they are 20 years old). My own aircraft
turns 62 years old this November, the aircraft that I used to own turns
61 years old this year too. To many people in normal jobs who are less
than 35 years old, ancient aircraft are the only affordable ones -
this is not sustainable. We also need a supply of newer affordable
aircraft, and by affordable I mean must not cost significantly more
to buy than a midsized car. We need something new (or at least new-ish)
which is as much fun to fly as my elderly Auster, but without costing
more than a high end Mercedes Benz. While there's nothing wrong with our
old plane, the truth is the number of aircraft whose purchase price is
in that price bracket is falling all the time.

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