Hillsboro Aviation

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
news:2007072009474843658-christophercampbell@hotmailcom...

Frankly, learning to fly is cheap. People talk about the cost, but
learning to fly is a lot cheaper than golf or boating.

Well...it didn't cost me much to learn to boat. Instruction was free with
the purchase of the (used) boat and the online licensing test was open-book.
On the other hand, there is an interplanetary gap between the average
skillset at the airport versus the dock just down the road.

The financial cost is not the big deal. It is the time commitment.

That's debatable. It's the cost that's prohibiting me, for example, from
running out and adding multi- and taildragger and was -definately- a factor
for the IFR.

Then they look at an airplane. You can get something that looks like the
old beater you drove in college for a mere $90,000 or so. Or, for
the price of a nice home, you can buy a new plane. Or you can rent -- and
the plane will never seem to be available when you need it for as long as
you need it. Renting? Forget about that weekend trip to the Catskills. You
will never be able to block out a plane for that long.

As a lowly renter, I'd say that's a huge factor.

But people quickly learn also that general aviation is not a simple
solution to those problems. And they don't derive great pleasure from just
going up and boring holes in the sky for an hour or two.

Certainly not at $100/hr anyway. I can spent all day on my boat for less
than that, and I can drink (a) beer with lunch and four or five of my
friends on some island on the Columbia River. When I bought my boat in
2000, I quit flying for two or three years because I was simply having just
as much fun exploring rivers and lakes.

If pilots, especially instructors, were paid more, however, it might
actually attract *more* students -- people might see flying as something
that might actually give a worthwhile return on the investment.

Well, I'm not a flight instructor (studying for the exams, though) but when
I'm out at the airport and I see somebody playing around in a brand new
Cirrus or Lancair, or Morgan Freeman's jet parked out front, I kinda wonder
how it is that the people who taught these guys how to fly and to keep
themselves and their passengers alive can barely afford medical insurance,
let alone support a child or afford a house payment and retirement.

My wife notes that it's simply the way America treats the service industry.

-c