I don't understand. For the most part, I see people who want to get x
hours
in y (shortest) time to get their license.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

I know you're not a pilot yet, and that this is all very exciting and
intoxicating. Flying IS the best thing you can do, head and shoulders
(literally!) above every other human endeavor, but I'm about to let you in
on a little secret.

It's a secret that your government, and most of the "big watch" pilot crowd,
will never, EVER tell you. You may want to be sitting down when you read
this -- but here it is:

Flying is easy. You're making it into a much bigger deal than it is.

Not that flying can't kill you in a heartbeat -- it can. But that's true of
most skills in life, from driving on the freeway to working with power
tools. The FAA and a large segment of the pilot population would like you
to believe that it takes some sort of super-human skill and intelligence to
learn to fly, but it just ain't true.

Why is this so? How has this situation evolved?

1. The FAA is "government", which is in the regulatory business. Thus, each
year requires more regulations, lest the FAA find itself large pointless
(which, on the GA side of flying, it largely *is*). Since, by nature, no
government agency can EVER solve the problems it was set up to address (or
risk being eliminated), it *must* continue to make things more complex. It
also must find new problems to fix, since most of the original problems were
quickly resolved. If that means largely inventing new problems, all the
better.

2. The "big watch" crowd likes to boast of their flying prowess, and likes
to feel above and separate from the "folks on the ground". Obviously, if
flying were easy and accessible, this would destroy their self image, so it
plays into their game to make flying appear really, really hard. Thus, many
airports have unfriendly, elitist FBOs, and pilot groups are traditionally
exclusionary good ol' boy clubs, unfriendly and suspicious of newcomers.

After long observations and pondering, I believe this attitude evolved from
the combat pilots of World War II, who truly demonstrated superior skills
and abilities. Those guys moved to their local airports after the war, and
their natural attitudes toward newcomers (not combat pilots) was an "us and
them" mentality. To some degree, this attitude has been imprinted on every
generation of new pilots ever since.

These two groups, inadvertently working together, have almost killed general
aviation in America. As usual, the FAA's work is done under the guise of
"safety" -- the catch-word that makes EVERYTHING okay. (The only words in
our society that kick open the treasury vault quicker, and eliminates our
rights quicker, is: "It's for the children" -- which have been used for
everything from school busing to the building of government-sponsored
casinos.)

We can fix the FAA, given enough political will -- but I don't know what to
do about the big watch crowd. I belong to every pilot's group, both locally
and nationally, and I see this attitude toward newcomers slowly improving
(basically as a result of their numbers dwindling to the point of death)
but it's been a glacially slow change.

I hate to burst your bubble like this -- I, too, once thought learning to
fly was beyond my means, and must be really, really hard -- but once you've
learned the truth, you can quickly and efficiently move from standing on the
ground to soaring through the sky. Find a mentor through AOPA (if you need
help finding one, email me off-group), and get to it -- you'll never regret
it!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"