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

300 miles away and your not tired when you get there.
Thats what I love about flying.
"Marco Leon" mmleon(at)yahoo.com wrote in message
...
Things fell into place this past weekend to finally take the kids up in
the
airplane. Their grandma's birthday, a nice high-pressure over New York,
our
original weekend plans falling through and relatively cooler weather all
made for the right opportunity to cut a 6-hour car ride down to a 2-hour
plane ride from Long Island (FRG) to Lake George (Ticonderoga 4B6) for a
surprise visit.

What a flight. Took off at 8AM Saturday to avoid any low-level bumps of
which we experienced exactly zero. Filed IFR for that little extra traffic
avoidance assurance although only one aircraft was called out to us. The
one-year-old fell asleep on climbout just like I've read about in so many
posts in this newsgroup. She kept her earplugs in almost the entire time.
My
three-year-old kept his headset on the entire time as well with a little
help from the "Dora the Explorer" audio off the DVD player pumping through
the music input (marking its first-ever use).

With regards to the return flight, the flip-flop of forecasts from Friday
through Sunday for the Long Island area created some anxiety on my part
while staying at my folk's house in Ticonderoga. But all was well in the
8AM
forecast Sunday morning reinforcing my Forrest Gump-ish belief that "you
never know what yer going to get" until the day you fly. As of Saturday
Aug
6th, a warm stationary front was threatening to push up from the south
over
Long Island (but I thought it was "stationary??").

I took the advice from another in the group to put "Infant on board.
Requesting shallow descents" in the remark section of the flight plan. A
couple of controller's along the way asked how the baby was doing which
added to the enjoyment of the flight--especially for my wife. Although we
didn't end up using any special handling, it was great to know that the
controllers were keeping an eye out for us. On a side note, my experience
with NY controllers has been 99% good and I'm convinced their reputation
for
being cut-throat is only from the fact that they're so damn busy all the
tim
e.

It will still be a while until I take them up in IMC and probably not when
there's an airmet for turbulence until I get more experience and the kids
get a little older. I want to be careful not to sour their taste for
flight
with a bad experience early-on. By that time, I'll have hopefully saved a
few pennies to get the Garmin 396 to help alleviate my IMC anxiety level
as
well.

What normally would have been a car ride eating up the entire usable day
became a pleasant GA trip that allowed us to hit the beach on Sunday
afternoon while marveling at the fact that we were 300 car-miles away just
a
couple of hours ago.

Only in general aviation.

Marco Leon




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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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