Took the Kids Up (First Time)

GA is one of the best things that can ever happen to a family. If only
more people realized this fact, we wouldn't be closing airports...

Very few people with a family are in a position to pay the cost in money, time,
and risk to effectively partake in general aviation.

While you are correct, a very much larger proportion of those who COULD
afford it have never even considered it -- simply because they are
ignorant of the advantages GA has to offer.

It's an education thing as much as a money thing -- and it's our job to
teach them!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In article It4Ke.2234$D4.839@trndny07,
George Patterson wrote:

Jay Honeck wrote:

GA is one of the best things that can ever happen to a family. If only
more people realized this fact, we wouldn't be closing airports...

Very few people with a family are in a position to pay the cost in money,
time,
and risk to effectively partake in general aviation.


I just don't buy this argument. While it may be true for some, there
are also those who claim they can't afford it, but they can afford to
live in $500,000 houses, they can afford new monster SUVs every 3 years,
they can afford nice vacations every year with the entire family, and
they can afford to head out golfing every weekend. I've concluded that
most folks simply value those other things more than aviation. My wife
and I are far from wealthy, but I can't complain. We drive older cars
(that are paid for) and purposely built a smaller house than many of our
neighbors in order to meet a set budget that we had. We don't buy
things that aren't a necessity, except on special occasions. And with
all that we give up, we put into flying. And it's worth it.

That being said, I think it would be very difficult to convince most of
my coworkers to take up flying. Actually, it would be very difficult to
convince most of my coworkers' wives to allow them to take up flying.
Even when folks are interested, if the spouse is not (and usually this
is the woman), that creates a problem... especially if kids are in the
mix.



JKG

"George Patterson" wrote in message
news:SD7Ke.4802$lK2.1218@trndny01...

You seem to be concentrating on the money. While it may or may not be true
that
most Americans can afford the $5,000 or more it takes to keep a 4-seater
on
tiedown and fly it a few hours a year, I certainly wouldn't think so.
That's
about 10% of the median income for an American family.

As for the other two items, very few can take the time necessary to
maintain a
proficiency level good enough for even a few VFR cross-country trips a
year.
Fewer still can afford to get an instrument rating and stay current. And
even
fewer are able to convince both themselves and their spouses to take the
risks
inherent in taking long trips by light aircraft, especially if they're
honest
about how marginal their piloting skills have become flying, say, 50 hours
a
year. It's also one thing to head for Sun'n Fun solo, knowing that you
will have
to call the boss if the weather keeps you from coming back on time. It's
quite
another thing to take the family somewhere and risk having to return 3
days late.

And just about the time that the kids are getting big enough to enjoy it,
you
can't fit the family in the old Cherokee (or the not-so-old Maule)
anymore.

George, you nailed several points about GA and families. While it is
certainly possible to involve the whole family in GA activities, in many
cases, it's hard to do. Like you said, when they are really small, they fit
the W&B, but they are very needy and may actually not like it. When they get
older, they have this way of getting big (and heavy) and I just can't afford
a Cherokee Six, at least right now. And kids want to bring their friends
along. What now? A Caravan?

I've been wrestling with this issue for a few months now. I have a 6 year
old son and a 1 year old daughter.

I have taken my son to the airport hundreds of times, but he's just not that
interested. I took him flying and and he wasn't too impressed. He's the
outdoorsy type who likes to fish, hike and explore and likes my attention.
While you're flying, you just can't pay attention to your kids, which is
what they really want anyway. Why the hell take them if they don't enjoy it?
[Now, I am just talking about flying here, not X/C's. Destinations can be a
lot of fun] I came to the realization that flying is for ME, not really for
the family and I seem to be the only one who gets a kick out of it. Not that
there is anything really wrong with that, but when you have a young family,
you just don't have that much time for yourself. My wife supports my flying
(for which I am very grateful), it's just not HER thing either.

You mentioned time. I seem to have NO extra time these days. I pay dearly
for any time spent away from the house because my wife needs me at home to
help with the kids. It's hard to fly enough to keep current because of the
lack of time. I began to feel that the best thing to do would be to find
things that we can do together as a family that I also enjoy, not just me
going off by myself.

So, I bought a boat this year. It's an activity that we can all do together
and we can invite friends as well. While it's not flying, it does have some
of the same feelings of satisfaction of a job well done. The big difference
is that while I enjoy doing it, the whole family does too. Someone mentioned
that the best way to keep your kids interested in family outings is to let
them invite their friends. No big deal, invite who you can, pack the cooler
and head to the lake. Everyone has a blast and it's cheap!

I still fly, but I don't badger everyone to do it with me. I realize it's MY
thing and anyone who wants to join me can do so. I do hold out hope that
it's something that my kids will take a shine to, but there's always that
chance that they won't. I have to be OK with that. I plan to take my son up
this Fall, just him and me and see how it goes. It's funny, he always is
asking me when we are going fishing again, even though we've flown before. I
think the difference is that while fishing, we can talk, and relax and we
spend time together. While flying, I am rather preoccupied with what I am
doing and can't be silly, which he really likes.

GA is awesome, but my opinion is that it isn't the ideal family activity. To
those who make it work, God bless'em.

-Trent
PP-ASEL

Actually, it's only a little over 200 air-miles away. Living in the middle
of Long Island, I need to do a big dogleg to the west when I go north by
car--adding 100 miles. Just another thing to love about flying!

"Aluckyguess" wrote in message
...
300 miles away and your not tired when you get there.
Thats what I love about flying.



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George, you nailed several points about GA and families. While it is
certainly possible to involve the whole family in GA activities, in many
cases, it's hard to do. Like you said, when they are really small, they
fit
the W&B, but they are very needy and may actually not like it. When they
get
older, they have this way of getting big (and heavy) and I just can't
afford
a Cherokee Six, at least right now.

You need a Pathfinder, Trent. No W&B issues, ever, and a 1460 pound useful
load.

GA is awesome, but my opinion is that it isn't the ideal family activity.

Since April, as a family, we have flown to Florida, Seattle (commercial),
Washington, D.C., Mackinac Island, Door County, WI, Oshkosh, and the Ozarks,
with many other shorter trips in between.

With the exception of Florida and Seattle, NONE of these trips could have
been done without GA. Our time schedule and the ability to return on a
moment's notice make the airplane an absolute necessity, if we ever wish to
leave home at all.

Our children's lives would be dramatically diminished without GA, and every
time we're stuck driving somewhere they realize it. They have seen and
done things that none of their peers will ever experience, and the older
they get the more they realize how special their lives really are. The sad
thing is, people choose not to fly GA for many bogus reasons, ranging from
cost to "it's too hard." NONE of these reasons are valid, but we in the GA
world have done a terrible job of spreading the word to the non-flying
public.

Enjoy your boat, but don't label GA as being "family unfriendly" simply
because you haven't been able to make it work. Flying is one of the
greatest (and, for a change, useful) family activities there is.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay,
I think you make a good point. My bigest peeve is you never see a flight
school put an ad in the local newspaper, or in any type of media that is not
just see by the people that are already pilots! I have never seen it anway.
Every other type of biz advertises to gain customers. GA does not.
The cost to run an ad in a local paper is very reasonable, and may bring
in 10 new students instead of 2 or 3 . I think this can be especially useful
to the sport pilot rule. The public does not even know about it! Heck I know
mechs that have not heard about it yet! For TV, put Paris Hilton in her
bikini crawling in a Cherokee and see how many young male pilots GA gets!
If people never "know about it", "see it" , unless there is an accident,
what can aviation expect? They have to advertise to draw biz , that is why
other companies advertise!
The more pilots made, the more need for new GA aircraft. Fabbing new GA
aircraft makes more aviation jobs, etc etc.

Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:2AyKe.238299$x96.106126@attbi_s72...
NONE of these reasons are valid, but we in the GA
world have done a terrible job of spreading the word to the non-flying
public.

--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:

You need a Pathfinder, Trent. No W&B issues, ever, and a 1460 pound useful
load.

And costs upwards of $80,000.

With the exception of Florida and Seattle, NONE of these trips could have
been done without GA. Our time schedule and the ability to return on a
moment's notice make the airplane an absolute necessity, if we ever wish to
leave home at all.

You seem to forget about weather delays. "Moment's notice" my foot. Me, I've had
to cancel more family trips than fly them.

Our children's lives would be dramatically diminished without GA, and every
time we're stuck driving somewhere they realize it.

You're the guy who recently begged for ideas on things to make them want to go
flying instead of something else.

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.

You need a Pathfinder, Trent. No W&B issues, ever, and a 1460 pound useful
load.

Oh, I don't know. Our Dakota has too much weight in the back and we
can't load it fully without going out of balance. There's some talk
about moving the battery forward.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

You need a Pathfinder, Trent. No W&B issues, ever, and a 1460 pound
useful load.

Oh, I don't know. Our Dakota has too much weight in the back and we can't
load it fully without going out of balance. There's some talk about
moving the battery forward.

We have run every W&B scenario in our plane, including four 200 pounders,
plus baggage, plus full fuel. No worries!

:-)

It's one of the few planes that you can do that in. (In fact, flying with
just the two of us in the front is the toughest scenario, as we're at the
farthest forward W&B allowable.)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

You seem to forget about weather delays. "Moment's notice" my foot. Me,
I've had to cancel more family trips than fly them.

That's just bad luck, George. I can't remember the last trip we delayed
because of weather. (Of course, it's been an almost perfect flying season
in the Midwest, thanks to the months-long drought.)

Have we ended up delayed a few times? You bet! But our three days stuck in
Nashville (waiting for the snow to stop) have become some very fond
memories, even though (at the time) we would have much rather have been at
Sun N Fun.

It's all part of the adventure of flying.

You're the guy who recently begged for ideas on things to make them want
to go flying instead of something else.

That's for just "run of the mill" bop-around flying. For family trips,
they are every bit as eager to get in the plane as I am!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"