We're getting old, folks...

In article .com,
Jay Honeck wrote:
Here's the average age of pilots, comparing 1993 to 2003:
[...]
Here are the number of private certificates issued:
[...]
Both of these are a one-way trips, ladies and gentlemen. What the heck
kind of GA are we going to have in 25 years, at this rate? What can
we do to arrest this rate of decline?

Clearly, one of the biggest factors in flying is the cost. I think I
was one of the few people who added up _all_ of my aviation costs, and
it was approximately $12,000 (I admit I could have cut some of those,
but that's certainly within the ballpark for this area). Hopefully
Sport Pilot will drive down the flying costs, but that remains to be
seen.

I think the second reason for declining GA is that unless you're born
into an aviation family, there doesn't seem a popular "flying culture"
for people in my generation (I was born in 1969). I think I will be
derided for that statement, so it probably deserves some elaboration.

I've been interested in some form of aviation all my life. I flew
kites and did model rockets as a young kid. While I was always
interested in things like R/C, there was nobody else I knew that did
it, and my impression (which still holds true today) is that R/C is
tough to do completely by yourself; building the model is one thing,
but actually learning to fly it requires a mentor. Model rocketry was
relatively easy to do at the time (you could buy a pre-built starter
kit that required relatively little assembly). Once (I think I was
10), a relative who flew helicopters for the State Police landed in the
field behind our house and took us on a quick ride (boy, _that_ was
cool), but other than that, I had no experience with any sort of
general aviation.

There was a GA airport relatively close to where I grew up; everyone
knew about it, but it seemed like nothing ever happened there. I drove
up to it once while I was in high school; it seemed relatively
deserted, with a bunch of dingy hangers. Certainly not the kind of
place I'd want to hang out, and it didn't seem like there were a lot of
planes going in and out of there to do plane watching. I didn't know
anyone that had a plane, or did any sort of aviation at all (other than
the relative who flew the helicopter as his job, but he was a distant
relative and I think that was one of the few times I saw him), and as
far as I know they had no airshows or any sort of community awareness
type of program. So while I was interested in aviation, it seemed to
be unobtainable/nonexistant in my area. Couple that with a family who,
had the best intentions at heart, exerted a strong pressure during my
entire childhood to be "normal" (whatever that means) and not do anything
that other children didn't do, made me think that basically aviation
was a non-starter.

Fast forward to a few years ago. I've graduated college, got married,
have a reasonable disposable income. I do the research, and decide to
try learning to fly. We have a couple local GA airports, and one of
the flying schools has a "intro to learning to fly" seminar. One thing
leads to another, blah blah blah, I eventually get my private. But ...
I've come to the realization that I'm probably not going to use my
license again.

Why? Well, cost is a factor, but not as big as you'd think. I make
a decent living, so I could afford to fly. But a bunch of other factors
are at work.

First, my wife does not like flying. She has enough troubles with
commerical aviation; it took a fair amount of negotiation for her to
finally accept me learning to fly, but she stated that she is _no_ way
going to go with me. End of story. Her concern is fear; she just is
afraid of dying. She intellectually knows that this fear isn't
rational, but that doesn't change the fact that she's still afraid, and
I don't think anything would change that. And please, if you are
thinking of suggesting that I buy her introductory flight lessons, save
your typing; that would be the WORST thing in the world to do. She's
the sort of person that strongly fights back if someone tries to push
her into doing something she doesn't want to do, and I am sure she
would simply refuse to take the lessons. Why does she feel this way?
I'm not sure, but I think part of it is that she had no experience with
flying as a child; I've been surprised by things that scare _me_ that
don't scare her, until I find out that she had experienced these things
as a small child. I bet if she had flown in GA planes as a young girl,
it wouldn't bother her as an adult.

This has a number of negative consequences for flying. This means no
vacations, no trips to visit family, basically no extended trips of any
kind (unless you have the kind of marriage where taking a vacation away
from your spouse is acceptable; that's not the kind of marriage I
have). This also affects money and/or time, but indirectly. You have
to spend a fair amount of money on a hobby that is yours and yours alone,
one that your spouse gets no enjoyment from. Depending on how your
family deals with it's finances, that could be a major issue.

But that's not the only factor at work. Another factor is basically
I'm the _only_ pilot among my circle of friends and famly. Everyone
else thinks that I'm nuts/crazy/going to kill myself. This isn't a
huge negative factor, but it crops up a bunch of little ways. For
example, once I saw an unusual amphibious airplane at the airport (I
don't remember what it was). Normally the sort of thing you would
probably chat about with your friends, right? Well, I don't have any
friends that would find that interesting. That may seem like a minor
thing, but it's just one example of the lack of an "aviation culture"
.... that means that if you want to do aviation things, you have to
_really_ want it, because your friends won't be there encouraging you.
That's not to say that my friends DISCOURAGE me; they tolerate aviation
as one of my many strange interests. But it's nothing I could share
with them. Out of all my friends, only _one_ has accepted an offer to
go flying with me, and he drives race cars as a hobby.

So, you're probably going to say that I should _find_ some aviation
friends. Well, I've tried.

I have two co-workers who are interested in aviation. One got his
license, one gave up midway, post-solo (I think money was the issue).
The one who got his license is an adrenaline junkie who came close to
killing himself and his friends the first time he took them up (I heard
them chuckling about the story one day in the lunch room). Needless to
say he's not the sort of guy I'd prefer to go flying with. Neither of
them responded when I suggested doing aviation-related things away from
work. Example: we work close to Andrews AFB, and they partner with the
FAA to do altitude chamber flights for a ridiculously low fee (I think
it was $50). I asked them if they would be interested in going; both
declined. I ended up going by myself. Incidently, I think there were
12-15 people in the class. Most were corporate pilots who were
required to take the training. A couple were from some aviation
college (they came in together). I was the _only_ pilot from the local
area.

When I was learning to fly (at a local GA airport which actually was
rather busy), there wasn't what you would call "hanger bums". The
terminal was rather neat, and I would see the same people over and
over, but we were all on a mission: learning to fly. The flight
instructors were mostly time-builders, and they had a sort of exclusive
"I'm better than you" attitude that didn't encourage a newbie to hang
around with them. My instructor didn't have that attitude, but he was
busy doing his thing and didn't really have spare time to hang out. I
know that people deride time-builders, and I understand their arguments
against them. However, it was sort of Hobson's choice; going to
another airport would have added too much time to my hobby and
basically would have been a non-starter. I've never seen the hanger
BBQs that people talk about; there were a number of hangers there, but
nobody hanging out in them.

I joined a local pilots mailing list. This has sort of a ... well,
it's a strange vibe is all I can say. Most of the people on the list
are owners and have instrument ratings and I get the vague sense they
poo-poo VFR renters (a lot of the discussion is proper IFR routing
around the DC ADIZ and the right waypoints to put in their
panel-mounted GPSes, for example). Maybe that's me reading too much into
the list politics, I dunno. Example: I once posted asking if anyone
would be interested in going to the Sport Pilot Expo in Florida, and I
got zero response. There's no sense of community on this list; at
least, none that I can detect. There aren't any get-togethers that
I've seen, but even if there were, I'm not sure I would go. I'd have
to go by myself (e.g., without the spouse) and it doesn't seem like
they'd welcome me. Maybe they would, but it's sort of moot since they
don't have any.

So, I figured maybe this was just the local area, and there were just
tons of pilots out there hanging out at other airports. So I flew to a
number of airports in the vicinity (both during and after my training),
and I even drove to some during trips back to where my wife grew up.
The LARGE majority of these airports were deserted; most of the time I
was the _only_ person at these airports. These were all visited on
nice VFR days that would be packed at my home airport. Many of these
airports had hangers that were collapsed and generally had the "no one
has been here in a long time" feeling. Almost all of them were kinda
depressing, frankly.

So, I finally realized that my flying was going to be _me_, alone,
flying to other airports that were mostly deserted, and no one else to
share the experience with. I thought that was going to be enough to
keep me interested, and maybe it would be ... but not at the current
price. Maybe if Sport Pilot takes off a nice SLSA aircraft would be
the answer (I'd probably have to buy it myself, since no one else is
interested in sharing the cost).

I can't speak for anyone else's experience, but I can't believe I'm
alone in this. Certainly people on these newsgroups talk about their
local pilot communities and how great they are. I don't doubt their
experiences, but I don't know if it's just the area they live in, or
they somehow had some "in" that I'm missing. I'm not sure if my
experiences are part of the cause or part of the effect; is the lack of
an aviation culture the result of declining experience, or the cause?
I suspect they're interrelated.

As a final note: one of the airports I visited, I met the airport
manager, and asked him why his airport was so empty. His answer: "Well,
everyone got old and moved away". Ironically, he thought Sport Pilot
was a terrible idea.

--Ken

"Ken Hornstein" wrote in message ...
In article .com,
..snip
... Why does she feel this way?
I'm not sure, but I think part of it is that she had no experience with
flying as a child; I've been surprised by things that scare _me_ that
don't scare her, until I find out that she had experienced these things
as a small child. I bet if she had flown in GA planes as a young girl,
it wouldn't bother her as an adult.

..snip

--Ken

Our local EAA group (221) flew 940 young eagles this year. I'm sure this early life experience will stick with these
kids for a long time. I hope we all work to be sure that they will have the same opportunities that we have had in the
NAS.

Keep the spirit, Ken, more folks will come along to enjoy your passion. Sometime these things just happen by osmosis...

;-)

".Blueskies." wrote

Our local EAA group (221) flew 940 young eagles this year. I'm sure this
early life experience will stick with these
kids for a long time. I hope we all work to be sure that they will have
the same opportunities that we have had in the
NAS.

IMHO, the best way to follow up on the young eagles flights, and get the
kids in *learning* to fly, or wanting to have a career in aviation, is to
found an aviation explorers group, or help one out, if there is one near
you.

It keeps the fire lit, and provides that long term push that is necessary to
get into flying, and stay in it.

CAP may be an option, but it would be much harder to start one of those
groups. g
--
Jim in NC
--
Jim in NC

Clearly, one of the biggest factors in flying is the cost. I think I
was one of the few people who added up _all_ of my aviation costs, and
it was approximately $12,000 (I admit I could have cut some of those,
but that's certainly within the ballpark for this area).

That's 300% higher than the "ballpark" figure for around here.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:

That's 300% higher than the "ballpark" figure for around here.

I disbelieve you. My Cessna cost me half that ten years ago.

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

That's 300% higher than the "ballpark" figure for around here.

I disbelieve you. My Cessna cost me half that ten years ago.

Whoops -- sorry. I may have mis-read his post.

I thought he was posting his cost of learning to fly. Upon re-reading, it
does appear that $12K was his annual expense to *fly* -- which might include
aircraft maintenance.

In which case, $12K isn't far off the mark, in a bad year.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:

I thought he was posting his cost of learning to fly.

Well, even there you're really low-balling to claim an average below $4,000. It
cost me over $5,000 back in the late 80s, and things are a lot higher now around
here.

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

In article R7Lqf.645848$_o.497629@attbi_s71,
Jay Honeck wrote:
That's 300% higher than the "ballpark" figure for around here.


Whoops -- sorry. I may have mis-read his post.

I thought he was posting his cost of learning to fly. Upon re-reading, it
does appear that $12K was his annual expense to *fly* -- which might include
aircraft maintenance.

You had it right the first time. That's what it cost me to learn to fly.
I could have probably squeezed it in around $9-$10K, had I not decided
to switch to newer-model 172's in the second half of the training (I just
got tired of all of the flaky equipment in the older 172s the flight
school had ... nothing unsafe, but just annoying).

So, you said that's 3x what your ballpark is where you are (in other
words, people in your area should expect to pay around $4000 to get
their private pilot). Is that the "ideal" figure, e.g., 40 hours in a
152, or is that what the average person who isn't a natural pilot
(e.g., me) actually pay? I think by the time I got my private I had
over 80 hours; clearly that was a factor, but I thought that the
national averagge was something like 75 hours. I'm geniunely curious.

--Ken

So, you said that's 3x what your ballpark is where you are (in other
words, people in your area should expect to pay around $4000 to get
their private pilot). Is that the "ideal" figure, e.g., 40 hours in a
152, or is that what the average person who isn't a natural pilot
(e.g., me) actually pay? I think by the time I got my private I had
over 80 hours; clearly that was a factor, but I thought that the
national averagge was something like 75 hours. I'm geniunely curious.

Around here you can still rent a clapped out old 152 for $70/hour, and you
can get a CFI to instruct you for $25/hour.

I figure around 55 hours to get your Private. Some take more, some do less,
but if you treat learning to fly like a semester of college, that's about
what it will take. (Both Mary and I finished up with right around 55
hours...)

20 hours x $95/hour = $1900
35 hour x $70/hour = $2450

Total Cost: $4350
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In article ziMqf.668974$xm3.338032@attbi_s21,
Jay Honeck wrote:
Around here you can still rent a clapped out old 152 for $70/hour, and you
can get a CFI to instruct you for $25/hour.

So, I think that when I learned, the 152 the school I had was something
like $79/hr (I see that it's up to $89/hr now). My instructor rates
were $30/hr. That's pretty reasonable, considering the difference in
cost-of-living between our locales. But let me throw some variables
into the mix.

A 152 isn't a plane you can learn in if you're a fatass. I think I
would have needed a 12 year old instructor to learn in a 152. That
means that 172 is the minimum. Okay, not everyone in America is
a fatass ... yet. But it's something to consider ... a 152 isn't
an option for some people.

You say it takes 55 hours to get your private. But I scheduled two
flights, every week, and it took me around 80. According to some of
the web pages I've seen, 75 is the national average, which means I'm at
least within a standard deviation. So I don't think 55 hours is a fair
amount of time for the _average_ person.

So, I'm curious ... assuming it still would have still taken me 80
hours if I trained in Iowa City, what would that have cost me in a 172 in
your neck of the woods? It doesn't have to be a new one; a clapped
out one is fine.

--Ken