It is costly fuel. Right?

Like cars, mass production of personal plane is possible. Mass training
of pilots who can work on pay equal to pay of car-driver is possible.
But still i do not see planes in sky.

Reason is costly fuel. Am i right?

You are right Neo. You ARE the "one!"

No, the reason is crashing and dieing. Most people don't want to fly
around in little planes. In addition, small planes are not reliable
transportation in the sense the public is looking for. The type of
weather you can drive your car in is far beyond the ability of even the
best jets.

-Roebrt

Airplanes are costly, much much more than any auto. Insurance is costly.
Training is costly, and there is no "mass training" along the likes of
drivers ed classes. Aviation is expensive overall simply because of
lower numbers of planes and people involved.

"neo" wrote in message
ups.com...
Like cars, mass production of personal plane is possible. Mass training
of pilots who can work on pay equal to pay of car-driver is possible.
But still i do not see planes in sky.

Reason is costly fuel. Am i right?

No. Fuel expense affects the costs of practically everything we do. In
that respect, the effects of fuel costs are equal for any industry or
product you'd care to compare. In another respect, depending on the
proportion of the costs of fuel to other costs involved, fuel can be more or
less of a problem. But it's still not a "make or break" situation.

Aviation has never been a "mass participation" industry, even when fuel
costs were extremely low (and frankly, on an inflation-adjusted basis, fuel
costs aren't all that high today).

Probably the biggest problem keeping the participation in aviation down is
the large personal barrier to participation itself. It's relatively
difficult to become a pilot, compared to other activities competing for the
same dollars. Reduced participation does of course relate back to overall
costs, but margins are pretty tight in the aviation business, mitigating
somewhat the lack of economy of scale.

If and when aviation is reduced to buying an airplane and pushing the button
that hooks it into the global navigation and control system, allowing a
person to get from Point A to Point B with no intervention on their own and,
most importantly, with significantly reduced formalized training, then
perhaps you'll see more airplanes in the sky. Until then, people will
continue to spend their extra $30,000-$80,000 (or more) on their cars and
other stuff, excluding aviation entirely.

Of course, that said, any discussion regarding the true reason for lack of
participation in aviation is going to be large part conjecture. We've been
'round this topic many times before in this newsgroup, and I'm sure we'll
see a wide variety of differing opinions here too.

Pete

"John T" wrote in message
...
Airplanes are costly, much much more than any auto. Insurance is costly.
Training is costly, and there is no "mass training" along the likes of
drivers ed classes. Aviation is expensive overall simply because of lower
numbers of planes and people involved.

Your post is circular. You describe all of the costs, as if that's an
answer to why participation is low. Then you state that the costs exist
because of low participation.

You've got a whole "chicken and egg" thing going there...

No. Most people realize recreational GA is a very expensive hobby which
requires continual training and dedication in order to not wind up like a
dead Kennedy. Unless one is proficient and dedicated enough to get their
IFR cert, GA is a pretty damned unreliable form of transportation.

The majority of small planes you see on sunny weekends are flown by pilots
flying around in circles just for the fun of it, or looking for someplace
to land (like a hamburger stand.) Most people with discretionary dollars
would rather spend them elsewhere.

The upcoming price increases (new or raised landing fees, tie-down fees,
etc.) due to reduction of federal tax subsidies to GA will also hurt the
business, because it is currently heavily subsidized by commercial air
passengers and taxpayers in general.

The AOPA does its best to misinform people of the supposed benefits of GA
(see GA Serving America website, which abounds with misinformation and
propaganda designed to get people to foolishly sign up for flight
training. Most who do quickly realize the real state of affairs and
wisely quit.)

So
Virtually no private pilot will agree that GA is subsidized (despite the
facts), or that pollution, increasing populations around formerly rural
airstrips, etc. is a problem affecting. They will blame politicians,
insurers, lawyers, anti-pollution, anti-noise, and anti-GA activists for
the industry's problems. They want the world to revert to 1955,
consistent with the level of technology of their planes.

Skylune wrote:


The majority of small planes you see on sunny weekends are flown by pilots
flying around in circles just for the fun of it, or looking for someplace
to land (like a hamburger stand.)

Unlike boats, classic cars, or motorcycles cruising by. G

neo wrote:
Mass training
of pilots who can work on pay equal to pay of car-driver is possible.

I don't believe that is true. People have tried to create programming
languages that can be read and understood by non programmers, they have
all been wasting their time. Programming, like flying an airplane, is a
skill that can not be mastered by everyone. This is not meant to be an
insult to anyone. We all have different talents, while some can be
developed, others can not. You need to learn what you can do well, want
you can't, and take advantage of that. Most of the people on the road
can't even drive, do you really think those people could learn to fly
and be even close to safe?


--
Chris W
KE5GIX

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"Chris W" wrote in message
news:OvIcg.50682$9c6.16340@dukeread11...
neo wrote:
Mass training
of pilots who can work on pay equal to pay of car-driver is possible.

I don't believe that is true. People have tried to create programming
languages that can be read and understood by non programmers, they have
all been wasting their time. Programming, like flying an airplane, is a
skill that can not be mastered by everyone.

It's unclear what you mean. Someone who uses a programming language is a
"programmer".

We haven't gotten to the point where computer languages are trivial for
anyone to use. But keep in mind that human beings have a pretty hard time
using *human* languages too.

Computer languages certainly HAVE become much easier to use, and much more
"foolproof" (inasmuch as anything can be foolproof, which is to say "not
much"). I personally would argue that a really good programmer needs to
understand the minute details of how computers operate, but languages like
Java and C#, never mind technologies like PHP, ASP, Javascript, and Ajax,
have opened programming to a much broader range of people. They make it
easy to do things that used to be quite complicated, and restrict the
"programmer" in ways that avoid the most common and dangerous errors.

Likewise, aviation has gotten MUCH easier since its inception, and while
progress is slow, there's no reason to believe it's impossible to make it
available to "the masses". To state that "Most of the people on the road
can't even drive, do you really think those people could learn to fly and be
even close to safe" seriously underestimates technology's ability to remove
obstacles from the path of the unwashed masses.

And yes, when that day comes, flying will be just as annoying a pasttime as
driving can be.

Pete