At last, the truth...

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
ups.com...
Check http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/trend.html for a quantitative
summary of trends. Private, commercial and instrument issuances are
down 12% since 2000. New aircraft shipments are down 10% since 2000.

On the other hand, there were more new private, commercial and (especially)
instrument pilots in 2004 than in 1997, and far more GA shipments in 2004
than in 1997. Yes, there was a spike in 2000 (just before the tech bubble
burst), but the overall trend seems more up than down.

Avgas sale is down almost 25% since 1999.

Maybe more pilots have learned how to lean the mixture.

--Gary

Gary Drescher wrote:

Avgas sale is down almost 25% since 1999.

Maybe more pilots have learned how to lean the mixture.

Maybe GAMI sales are up?

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

We are extremely complex creatures. An environmental factor here, an
unbalanced chemical there, a gene here and a personal encouter there -
all multiplied by thousaands throughout our lifetime makes each of us
unique. Trying to put a finger on a why is in my opinion an exercise in
futility. Find one piece of the puzzle and there are a million more to
go. But like you, Jay, when I get in that plane and take off on a dream
flight, it boggles my mind how so many can "not get it".
--
Gene Seibel
Hangar 131 - http://pad39a.com/gene/plane.html
Because I fly, I envy no one.

"Jay Honeck" writes:

There's no mystery to me as to why not everyone loves aviation like we do
(or why some people love golf like I don't!).

Right. But these "near-pilots" DID love aviation like we do -- and
something spooked them to the point where they walked away.

Well...did he? Your specific example? As you said yourself, quitting
was essentially inconceivable to you, and you resorted to fairly
drastic means to pay for flying sometimes (you mentioned selling blood
plasma). You didn't report him saying anything suggesting his love of
flying was actually like yours.

If we are to replace all the World War II and Korean War-era pilots who are
dying in droves, we've got to get people into aviation, NOW. I address
this "scared straight" issue as just another small piece of the "Why is GA
dying?" puzzle, and hope that we (as pilots) can come up with better ways to
train newbies so that this kind of thing won't happen so often.

Note how many of the people taught to fly for those wars kept on
flying, either professionally or for fun, afterwards. Not, I believe,
a very high percentage.

I've been interested in flying forever, but I've never done anything
about flight training. I used to ride my bicycle over to Stanton
airport (from Northfield) now and then to watch (and sometimes
photograph) glider and skydiving operations, and anything else that
was going on there, when I was a kid. I made sure to get pictures of
the VC-10 we flew to Entebbe in in 1964.

I've got lots of other interests (notably photography) to absorb my
time and energy. And, perhaps, I figured out early some things about
how useful general aviation was for transportation (not terribly at
the basic level), and how much money it would cost. So I've read (and
now and then posted) to aviation newsgroups for years, go to aviation
events locally, talk to pilot friends, and so forth, but never started
training. I classified it as something cool which, if it was your
overriding obsession, somebody in my income range could do. And I
didn't think it was my overriding obsession.

Maybe I would have found out it *was* going to be my overriding
obsession if I'd taken some lessons or something, maybe. I've liked
what little time I have in smaller planes, but I've actually never
been in a single-engine fixed-wing plane, and only two GA-size twins.

If I won the lottery, I'm not at all sure I'd start lessons. The
lottery would dispose of any money issues, but there are still time
issues. Plus my interest is towards planes that would take a lot of
flying to maintain competence, and the lottery would put me in the
position of being able to easily afford more plane than I could
quickly learn to fly safely.

So, I'm still here as a reasonably-friendly onlooker rather than a
pilot, and I enjoy that.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com/ http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/ Much of which is still down

Right. But these "near-pilots" DID love aviation like we do -- and
something spooked them to the point where they walked away.

Well...did he? Your specific example? As you said yourself, quitting
was essentially inconceivable to you, and you resorted to fairly
drastic means to pay for flying sometimes (you mentioned selling blood
plasma). You didn't report him saying anything suggesting his love of
flying was actually like yours.

Well, perhaps I'm reading more into it than I should, but:

- He chose to stay in an aviation themed hotel, right next to an airport...
(we're not the closest to the University, nor are we the cheapest)
- He was deep in study of our aviation memorabilia when I interrupted his
reverie...
- He avidly and animatedly talked about aircraft, displaying a breadth and
depth of knowledge far beyond our average "wannabe" guest...

I got the impression that aviation ran strong in his blood, but it was,
admittedly, a brief conversation. It did, however, stick in my craw, since
he was the first guy who has ever admitted to me that he was scared out of
the cockpit.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:

It did, however, stick in my craw, since
he was the first guy who has ever admitted to me that he was scared out of
the cockpit.

And you should really take that as an indication that very few people are
actually scared out of the cockpit, instead of assuming (as the title of this
thread indicates) that the rest are simply lying about it.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

Jay Honeck wrote:
There's no mystery to me as to why not everyone loves aviation like we do
(or why some people love golf like I don't!).


Right. But these "near-pilots" DID love aviation like we do -- and
something spooked them to the point where they walked away.

I used to play golf several times a week, had my handicap down to 5.
Then I lost interest so I quit. I played twice this summer. I have a
ham radio license, the highest one you can get, the extra class. I got
the first one in 1985. By summer 1988 I had worked nearly 190 countries
with a pretty modest setup at my folks house. Then I got married and I
pretty much haven't turned a radio on since and really don't miss it.
Although I just ordered up the new Vertex handheld that is an aviation
Nav/Comm and a 2 meter ham transceiver. I do have a 2 meter radio at my
computer here with an antenna up on the roof but I mostly set it up
because it has the aviation band on it. I occasionally plug in the
handheld and BS with some flying buddies on 122.75. I don't forsee
losing interest in flying but you never know. I sure would like a cabin
on a lake.