On Jun 17, 9:06 pm, Jay Honeck wrote:

Get out there and FLY, people!

I appreciate learning info like this,even though I don't really want
to know it.

I love flying, but unless I ever come into some kind of mad money, I
will always be a club pilot and/or renter, with its huge cost
advantages but huge drawbacks in the areas of availability and control
of your own aviation destiny.

I am flying to Oshkosh for the first time this year but I have a
sneaking suspicion in the back of my mind that given the way aviation
is going, Oshkosh 2007 may be my last hurrah of aviation. On the one
hand I hope not, but besides accumulating more ratings I don't see
much to drive to me to keep flying given the expense and the high
percentage of my flying time and budget that goes to staying
proficient to allow me to take hypothetical trips that never seem to
happen for whatever reason -- weather, schedule, etc. In six years of
flying I have taken exaclty two long distance x-country trips where I
got full utility and enjoyment out of my years of investment, and they
were great. Far more have been cancelled. Oshkosh will be the
third. Maybe I should look more closely at light sport. Maybe the
IFR rating isn't worth the trouble and money I went through to get it
and what it takes to keep it current. I was thinking of going for my
commercial but I have to ask why? To become an instructor in my
retirement from the cube farm, but will there be anyone left to
instruct by then?

AOPA may be doing us a service by warning about the doom coming with
the FAA's next authorization bill, but I suspect I'm not the only one
who finds that the AOPA propaganda is more effective at being
discouraging than galvanizing action. Not trying to start a poltical
flame war but it's clear we have an administration that listens to no
one, and will do whatever it wants to no matter the evidence, public
opinion and consequences, or alternatively you could say they stand by
what they think is right come what may, but either way it's clear that
what they are bent on doing is destroying GA with this year's FAA
"reforms" and their drive to privatize.

I do think clubs will be the salvation of aviation, or at least the
life support system that keeps it limping along for several more
years. It's really the only way the "everyman" that you refer to can
afford to keep flying.