Student Drop-Out Rates...why?

Jay Honeck wrote:
You'll notice I've not mentioned the Number One reason people mention for
quitting: Money.

To ignore the money issue is to ignore the elephant in the room.

Right. However, we can't change the money situation. We CAN change
the other variables that are causing the appallingly high student drop
out rate in aviation.

IMHO this is the wrong problem to focus on solving. Up through solo,
flying is all fun and no work. Then you get into the written test and
all the crap to prepare for the checkride. Now it's a chore. I'll bet
getting rid of the written would reduce the attrition rate by at least
25%, perhaps more, but it won't happen anytime soon.

The real problem we should focus on are people who get their license
but then become inactive. There's no shortage of these, and they are
low-hanging fruit.

-cwk.

wrote:

The real problem we should focus on are people who get their license
but then become inactive. There's no shortage of these, and they are
low-hanging fruit.

Ok. You help me find a job within an hour's drive of my home that requires less
than 60 hours a week and pays at least 60K a year (much more if I have to
commute to Manhattan). Preferably involving computers, since that's what my MS
is in. I'll be flying again soon after I find that job.

One friend of mine probably will never fly again, but you never know. He quit
because of lack of time and money, but I think he's lost interest to the point
that he wouldn't start again if he won the lottery.

Another friend of mine quit when the kids started arriving. He was also upset
because he could never find the time to study for the instrument rating (he'd
get maybe two weeks of study and then work would ramp up again). That's a man
who may be back when the kids get through college.

On second thought, maybe these people don't have to be attracted back into
actively participating in aviation. As I understand it, Jay's main issue is that
we need more flyers to allow us to apply more political pressure. It is to be
hoped that that pressure will prevent airport closings and harsh restrictions.
With a few exceptions, most former aviators are likely to be friendly to our cause.

Perhaps the way to go is to start up a non-profit that will concentrate on
informing and/or pressuring non-active pilots about political issues. Go after
people who used to fly and now don't, former AOPA members, former EAA members,
etc.. I suppose that funding would have to come from active aviators, but you
never know.

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.

George Patterson wrote:
wrote:

The real problem we should focus on are people who get their license
but then become inactive. There's no shortage of these, and they are
low-hanging fruit.

Ok. You help me find a job within an hour's drive of my home that requires less
than 60 hours a week and pays at least 60K a year (much more if I have to
commute to Manhattan). Preferably involving computers, since that's what my MS
is in. I'll be flying again soon after I find that job.

Move out of New Jersey. Work as a consultant and you can live anywhere
you can get a high-speed internet connection. No commute necessary and
real estate costs a lot less. I hire developers and sales people almost
without regard to location these days. If you're good, you can probably
do more than 60k and no job really offers security anymore unless it's
for the gummint.

On second thought, maybe these people don't have to be attracted back into
actively participating in aviation. As I understand it, Jay's main issue is that
we need more flyers to allow us to apply more political pressure. It is to be
hoped that that pressure will prevent airport closings and harsh restrictions.
With a few exceptions, most former aviators are likely to be friendly to our cause.

True, but former aviators do not help to keep small airports, FBOs, and
mechanics from closing for lack of business.

-cwk.

In article . com,
wrote:

IMHO this is the wrong problem to focus on solving. Up through solo,
flying is all fun and no work. Then you get into the written test and
all the crap to prepare for the checkride. Now it's a chore. I'll bet
getting rid of the written would reduce the attrition rate by at least
25%, perhaps more, but it won't happen anytime soon.

I guess that depends on the order in which the student does things.
I passed my written and had my medical before the first lesson.

--
Bob Noel
no one likes an educated mule

Bob Noel wrote:
In article . com,
wrote:

IMHO this is the wrong problem to focus on solving. Up through solo,
flying is all fun and no work. Then you get into the written test and
all the crap to prepare for the checkride. Now it's a chore. I'll bet
getting rid of the written would reduce the attrition rate by at least
25%, perhaps more, but it won't happen anytime soon.

I guess that depends on the order in which the student does things.
I passed my written and had my medical before the first lesson.

Planning ahead helps but my point stands. As a busy person, a flying
lesson was recreation that I looked forward to. Studying for the
written was just a PITA. It cost me at least 6 months, and I'm pretty
sure it put a friend of mine on ice who'd made it to unsupervised solo.
He just didn't have the time to get around to it, and then life got
crazy and he lost track. That was 2 years ago and it will probably be 2
more before he can start again, assuming he does. The medical is a
nuisance but if you don't need a special issuance it takes a lot less
time.

-cwk.

Jay Honeck wrote:
In another thread, we have been hashing out whether some pilots in training
quit flying because of a hair-raising event, such as a brush with disaster,
or getting lost.

Few ex-students seem to admit that this was a reason for quitting, but the
drop-out rate seems to be far higher than it should be, and we all need to
do our level best to get more people into flight training. The World War II
and Korean War era pilots are dropping like flies, and formerly bustling
airports, especially in the vast reaches of the MidWest and Western states,
are turning into ghost fields.

We need more pilots, pronto, or we won't have anywhere to land in 20 years!
No municipality is going to pay to keep an airport open that is used by
fewer and fewer pilots every year -- and I can't blame them.

Off the top of my head I can think of three reasons (other than being scared
out of the cockpit) for the continuing drop-out conundrum:

1. CFI shuffling - You just get comfortable with an instructor, and off to
the regionals they go, leaving you to start all over with a new CFI...
2. Airport "snobbery" -- You walk into an FBO, prepared to spend thousands,
and you feel like an alien being on a strange world.
3. No Syllabus -- Too many CFIs work off the seat of their pants, without a
formal lesson plan. This drove me nuts, when I was getting my ticket.

You'll notice I've not mentioned the Number One reason people mention for
quitting: Money. We've beaten the relative cost of flying to death, and (for
the purposes of this thread) I will just leave it at this: Learning to fly
is about as expensive as a semester of college, and less expensive than
buying a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Let's leave "cost" out of this, for
now, as I think it's safe to say that there a millions of Americans who
could easily afford to learn to fly, if the urge were to strike.

That aside, can you name some other reasons for the abysmal drop-out rate of
student pilots?

Maybe they walked in with a polly-anna expectation of the blue skys,
and bailed
after seeing all the ownership/operating costs add up. GA schools are
close to the "career academies" advertised on TV.

JG