Is this the death of GA

On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 05:51:32 GMT, "John"
wrote:


"Bob F." wrote in message
...
In case you haven't noticed, the death of aviation has already occurred.
It
happened with all the law suits, rising cost of gas prices and scab CFI's
that will fly for nothing. I've been in the industry for over 45 years.
They say there is a lot of money in aviation. I know that because I put a
lot of it in there! I am appalled that you can't make a decent living in
the industry. Oh yes, there are a few souls that have made it, but it's
like the lotto, not a planned definite process. I can't believe that I
have spent so much time and money in the industry and can't make it there.
In what other industry can you invest almost $100k in training and
experience achieve, what is called "the PhD of Aviation, the ATP", all the
CFI's offered by the FAA and still can't command more then minimum wags??
The AOPA, FAA, NAFI and defunct organizations such as NPA, etc have all
fallen down on the job, BIG TIME. All useless to foster the community. I
go into a flight school and immediately get the feeling that "I don't want
to be here". You do not feel welcome! All these managers need serious
marketing and business education. And pilots need to start DEMANDING a
living wage, or just don't fly. Students need to expect to PAY for
training, $100 per hr for an instructor is not unreasonable. This about
how much you would pay any other professional. How much would you pay a
plumber. Then think about how much you pay a CFI and gripe about it!
NUTS.

--
BobF.
Lincoln actually got it right but was way ahead of his time when he said,
"You can have some of you computer working all of the time and all of your
computer working some of the time but..." It was he that said that,
wasn't it?

While the ATP can cost a lot of money to obtain, a CFI is not the same. I
see ads for CFI training for 3000.00 That being said, I too agree that CFI
are way underpaid. I don't think that should be paid on the scale of a
lawyer or a plumber but rather on a teacher scale, somewhere between 40-100k

But if IIRC that teacher had to take 4 years of accredited college
at roughly $6,000 a term, plus one or two terms of student teaching
where they still have to pay. So they are looking at something like
$50,000 to $60,000 and over 4 years before they can do anything. Even
then wages depend on where they teach and are at the mercy of the
system until they get tenure and then they have to continue to take
classes and tests throughout their careers.

It cost me nearly that per term (plus 4 years of lost wages from a
very good paying job) and I graduated in Dec of 90. OK so graduating
from High school in 58 and college in 90 makes me a slow learner:-))
At any rate the const must be more now.

If the industry wants to attract qualified committed people, they need to
make the teachers pay something that they can live on or else they will have
the issues they have now where instructors are just building hours to move
on.

John
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com