GA is priceless

There is simply NO reason for GA flight training to be so complex --
period. Unless you intend to move onto the airlines, or fly charters,
you simply do not need to learn much of what is in the current flight
training syllabus.

That is probably the most ridiculous statement I've heard all year.

Ok, the year is new. But still... Flying is incredibly easy if nothing
goes wrong. "Push, the houses get bigger. Pull, the houses get
smaller". The training is needed for the third part: "Keep pulling,
the houses get bigger again". There is a lot to learn in aviation if
you want to know how to stay safe (and actually succeed). It's easy
once you know it (and it's also easy to forget if you don't use it).
And it's not all that difficult =to= learn it in the first place. I
don't really see what it is that you think is "so complex" about flight
training. After all, you =are= maneuvering in three dimensions,
balancing on nothing more than a blast of air whose properties are not
intuitive, and there is no pause button.

We need more pilots, and we need more aircraft owners --
and we need them NOW.

While attractive, and there is some truth to it, it is as senseless as
"we have to do =something=" in justification for the FRZ, cops and metal
detectors in schools, and patrolling the borders with UAVs.

Aviation is {fill in wonderful phrase} and I'm glad that you get to live
that to the fullest. I am somewhat envious, because even though I also
love to fly, I don't do it as much as I might like to. There are many
reasons for that; it might be useful to explore them as a proxy for why
non-pilots don't fly airplanes.

1: Although cloud dancing is fun, in and of itself, it's not the kind of
fun I would be drawn to do all the time, just for the fun value of
boring holes in the sky. That said, it is sometimes just =awesome=, and
I wouldn't miss it for (most of) the world.

2: It is expensive. It costs me on the order of a hundred dollars an
hour. It costs you the same, if you add it all up (though you probably
get the government to pick up some of the tab). So, with a finite
supply of money, I do have to balance how much of this kind of fun I
want to pursue, at the expense of that kind of fun I could be having.

3: It's usually not as useful as a car. Most of my trips are five to
twenty miles. I have to drive that far just to get to the airport;
flying twenty miles to go get groceries is not very practical where I
live. If I had to choose between a car and a plane, the car is far more
useful overall.

4: I love to share my love of flying with others. But this depends on a
supply of others who are willing and able. Schedules get in the way;
most of the people I come in contact with are not on vacation. I know
several people who are dying to get in the cockpit with me, and we still
haven't been able to arrange a ride.

5: The =usefulness= of aviation depends on having a place to go. I
suspect that most such places are invented as an excuse to fly. That's
fine; I do the same thing myself, but a $100 hamburger doesn't make the
airplane useful, it makes it entertaining. See #1 above. I don't go
places often for which an airplane is a significantly better way to get
there (but when I do, it is a boon). Recent trips (from Connecticut)
have included Georgia, Delaware, Ohio, and soon, Kentucky. But trips
like this don't come up all that often, especially since they usually
involve several days or weeks at the destination.

6: Weather is a factor too, especially in the Northeast. Although most
trips can be completed, even VFR, a schedule cannot necessarily be
relied upon. As you point out, flexibility is necessary, and sometimes
that is not an option.

Not everyone is like you. Not everyone lives next to the airport, owns
their own business, has a wife that flies, and lives in the middle of
the country (a few hours flight from most places). Just pretend for a
moment that you were someone else, say, living in NYC, working in an
office in Westchester, with most of your travel being to the DC area.
How practical would aviation be to you in that situation?

Sure, you would quit your job and open an aviation themed hotel in the
midwest instead doing that, but that's not the point. If everybody did
that, nobody would staff your hotel, deliver your goods, or make the
fuel you fly with. If you pretend you =can't= change the scenario,
maybe you'll understand that real life isn't just living in Iowa running
a business. There are other people with =real= lives that are
different, and have to deal with those differences.

Aviation is a distant fifth to those differences.

Jose


--
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