Student Drop-Out Rates...why?

Seth Masia wrote:
I can't help thinking that if we made learning to fly a lot easier, and made
airplanes a lot simpler to fly safely, and made them as cheap as cars --
then they'd be as common as cars and we'd be bitching about all the newbies
cluttering up our airspace. We'd have midair collisions every day, across
the country. A lot of us would quit in frustration.

I believe you're right. Since the FAA is tasked with improving safety, that's
probably the reason for a lot of what they do. "If too many of 'em get into the
air, it ain't hard enough -- write some more regs."

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.

On 2005-08-22, Gig 601XL Builder wr.giacona@coxDOTnet wrote:
I think you are putting the effect before the cause. The FBO with the new
planes has them because the have pilots coming through. The fact that they
are young is just luck.

Speaking as a pilot who started flying just after graduating university,
I can say for me (and other younger pilots) that the age of the plane
isn't necessarily a factor. Personally, I prefer older planes. I work
with technology all the time, and I quite enjoy getting away from it and
flying a simple VFR aircraft using simple, non-electronic navigation.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

On 2005-08-22, Jose wrote:
computer. How could it have been less entertaining in a real aircraft?

Reset button. Thunderstorms. Simulated emergencies.

I dunno. I've found real thunderstorms and real emergencies a lot more
exciting than the ones in MS Flight Simulator!

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

On 2005-08-22, Seth Masia wrote:
There's something else going on here. Real flying has a physical aspect:
it's sensuous in the same way that sports are sensuous. [...]
get in a real airplane, thus it's a better intellectual challenge and more
fun. But if he's a physical guy, he'll want to fly for real.

I'm not sure you're onto something there - as a group, the pilots I know
are probably the least athletic and least fit and eat the worst foods of
any group I know! Go to any fly-in and notice the propensity to being
rotund.

On the other hand, I like hanging out with fellow pilots on the
principle of 'never trust a skinny chef'. As a group we tend to eat the
nicest tasting food (and beer). (I only weigh 150lbs btw).

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

On 2005-08-22, Dave Stadt wrote:
You have that backwards. Get rid of all the planes 50 years old and newer
and keep all the older fun to fly planes. The new stuff is boring to look
at and even worse to fly. I'd quit flying in a micro second if the only
option was new spam or plastic.

Having flown a couple of newer planes, I'd disagree with that. Some of
the plastic (especially the homebuilt new plastic, like the Europa) is a
lot of fun to fly. I also enjoyed the DA-40 a lot.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

"George Patterson" wrote in message
news:lUQOe.2573$IG2.1726@trndny01...
Roger wrote:

The last Census (2000) put the household median at
$41,994 so I'd expect it to be close to $50,000 now. There is a 2002
survey that put it a bit over $42,000

I would expect it to be considerably less after the off-shoring rush that
got rolling in 2003.

About 6 months ago, NPR reported that the number of jobs created for the
quarter had finally exceeded the number of jobs lost. For the first time,
most of those new jobs went to Spanish-Americans. That means that most of
them pay diddly-squat.

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.

I don't think that median income is the relevent statistic. The question is
how many people is the economy creating that have enough money to buy or do
any particular thing like learing to fly AND want to do it. The economy
could still be producing record numbers of millionairs even if the average
were flat or declining. A few IPOs can significantly increase the number of
$100MM+ individuals in an area and not effect the median. You see this in
the ultra high end real estate market. The best business strategy I ever
heard was: "figure out what rich people want and provide it, they WILL buy
it. It doesn't matter how desirable something is to someone who can't
afford it or how affordable something is to someone who doesn't want it,
desire and resources have to match. Aviation doesn't appeal to many of
those who can afford it.

Mike
MU-2

On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 19:20:21 -0400, "TaxSrv" wrote
in ::

"Jay Honeck" wrote:
...
Gasoline is only now getting back to the price it was (in real terms)
back in the 1980s.

Don't fall for that propaganda regarding "1981 prices, in today's
dollars." There was a spike in crude prices during the Iran-Iraq war.
Retail price, in real dollars, on either side of that spike (late 70's
and mid-80s) were significantly less than today.


What I want to know is why the Windfall Profits Tax (implemented by
President Carter in 1972 IIRC) hasn't been mentioned yet. It would
seem that domestic oil producers' costs haven't risen anywhere near
the price of crude.

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 19:20:21 -0400, "TaxSrv" wrote
in ::

"Jay Honeck" wrote:
...
Gasoline is only now getting back to the price it was (in real terms)
back in the 1980s.

Don't fall for that propaganda regarding "1981 prices, in today's
dollars." There was a spike in crude prices during the Iran-Iraq war.
Retail price, in real dollars, on either side of that spike (late 70's
and mid-80s) were significantly less than today.


What I want to know is why the Windfall Profits Tax (implemented by
President Carter in 1972 IIRC) hasn't been mentioned yet. It would
seem that domestic oil producers' costs haven't risen anywhere near
the price of crude.

Why should they be taxed more just because they are in the right place at
the right time? Should we tax stock investors at a higher rate during bull
markets? BTW Nixon was president in 1972

Mike
MU-2

Dylan Smith wrote:

Speaking as a pilot who started flying just after graduating university,
I can say for me (and other younger pilots) that the age of the plane
isn't necessarily a factor.

True enough; it's the appearance of the plane that matters most. Unfortunately,
the plastic interiors of the 60s, 70s, and 80s do not hold up well under the
demands of a flight school or rental environment. They don't even look that good
when they're new.

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.

Which raises an interesting question about focusing more effort on
making an airplane that is simpler to fly.

Which is very doable - it merely requires that we give up some of our
cherished concepts about what the right way is.

Some thoughts:

Forget rudder pedals. Forget slips. Crosswind landings are made by
crabbing all the way down, then plopping the plane on the runway by
chopping the throttle. The gear will take it. It worked fine on the
Ercoupe, and it would work fine on a Cherokee. I've seen the way
students land those things in a crosswind - if they can take that, they
can take anything.

We can make it more effective by adding spoilers on the wings. They
activate when the throttle is pulled all the way out. They also
simplify glideslope control.

Navigation? What a waste of time. Every plane would have the
equivalent of a Garmin 396 (its failure would be considered an
emergency condition warranting a call to ATC for emergency handling)
and everyone would just follow the purple lines. VOR? NDB? DME?
Dead reckoning? Pilotage??? You gotta be kidding.

Weather? Why? That 396 has a satellite downlink. A little
reprogramming, and it will simply shade areas of the screed green (for
safe), yellow (for caution), or red (for hazardous) and you reroute
yourself. METAR? TAF? You gotta be kidding.

Engine failure? How often does that happen anyway? And if it does -
hey, let's just equip the planes with parachutes. If you can't get it
restarted by 2000 ft, pull the handle.

Ground reference maneuvers? Patterns? WHY? That 396 will zoom in on
the airport and guide you into a pattern entry. After all, it already
knows the winds and the traffic pattern direction. We can add
skywatch, and then it will even sequence you in with the traffic. No
transponder in the aircraft? Those guys are a hazard, shouldn't be
allowed.

With modern technology, it would be no problem to design and build
airplanes that any idiot could learn to fly in a weekend, never mind a
week. We wouldn't get the Harley crowd that way, but we might well get
the Mercedes crowd.

Michael