NY Times Story on Pilot Population Decline

writes:

For $150 you can easily rent a C-172.

For a month?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...

Oh quit whining and go get a job you moron. If people want to fly, they can
fly. Perhaps a little less than for the same relative money 20 years ago,
but it hasn't changed that much.

On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:10:39 -0500, "Maxwell"
wrote in :

If people want to fly, they can fly.

One of the best ways for someone interested in aviation to test the
waters is to join a soaring club[1] and earn a glider certificate. The
Civil Air Patrol uses gliders to entice their recruits, and glider
instruction is the perfect entry to airmanship.

Soaring club dues are cheap, and instruction is often provided gratis
by club member CFIs. There is no fuel cost, and the cost of launching
can be reasonable through the use of auto-tow or winch launch. And
soaring club members are usually expected to crew for their fellows
which results in reduced expenses and healthy camaraderie.

So there is a reasonably priced means of entry into the ranks of
airmanship, and it tends weed out the dilettantes.



[1] http://www.ssa.org/sport/wheretofly.asp

On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 18:26:47 -0400, "Kyle Boatright"
wrote in
:

My personal theory is that flying is no longer the source of hero worship it
once was. Is there a current Lindberg? How about an Amelia Earhart? Maybe
a John Glenn? Not really. Flying has lost the public's imagination, and
therefore the publicity.

That is an interesting view.

I suppose there may be a disproportionate number of pilots who are
drawn to aviation for the perceived public esteem historically
conferred on airmen. And I agree, that the aura of the "daring young
man ..." has been somewhat tarnished by the less than magical,
cattle-car results of airline deregulation, notorious news stories and
jokes of pilot sleeping/rage/inebriation/... while on flight-duty, and
publicized/sensationalized blunders of less than qualified airmen.
After all, it is the exposé of heroes' clay feet, even more than their
stunning creative deeds, that titillates and boost ratings.

And if this loss of public esteem for airman discourages those who
seek to enhance their self-image through being regarded as pilots by
the public, other than its impact on our political influence due to
declining numbers, I fail to perceive a down-side. I would much
prefer to see competent, unassuming persons with the capacity and
understanding to perform to high standards while operating aircraft,
and a genuine love of the sky, displace the self-impressed, white
scarffed, showman of the past. But that's just me. Times change.

If one attempts a little prognostication, it's easy to see a future of
pilotless, fully automated space and air vehicles operating in a fully
computerized environment, and performing their pedestrian tasks with
all the alacrity and sagacity of an S-Tec System 65. With the
airliner manufacturers requiring ever increasing numbers of their
products to be in flight simultaneously in order to sustain their
market, and the finite nature of airspace (it's not so big a sky after
all), it's clear, that there will be increasing pressure to remove the
(somewhat unpredictable) human element from the system to facilitate
the ever tighter packing of airliners to the point of exceeding the
capabilities of mere humans.

But there will always be a cadre of exuberant and talented souls whose
love of the sky will fuel the development of innovative vehicles[1,2]
and the evolution of flight. So while aviation continues to mature,
it will also evolve. And it's likely that the 21st century will lack
the same warm naiveté, respect for human dignity, and awe of
technology characteristic of the last century, but it will have its
redeeming efficiency to distinguish it with the coming hoards[3]
(baring WWIII).



[1] http://www.cpinternet.com/sadkins/compare.htm
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites
[3]
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/...on/001720.html
Overall, the country’s population would continue to grow,
increasing from 282.1 million in 2000 to 419.9 million in 2050.

"Kyle Boatright" wrote in
:

My personal theory is that flying is no longer the source of hero
worship it once was. Is there a current Lindberg? How about an Amelia
Earhart? Maybe a John Glenn? Not really. Flying has lost the public's
imagination, and therefore the publicity.

I'd take it even a step further. 30 years ago, there was a "glamour
factor" to any sort of flying - even Airline. It was relatively more
expensive, there were fewer available flights to fewer destinations, the
flying experience was made to be pleasurable and comfortable, and unless
you were travelling between major cities or vacation spots, it was fairly
expensive in both time and money. You needed to make reservations through a
travel agent, who generally provided full service and took care of you and
made you feel important, and also increased the price by 15%.

Today, you can fly to just about anywhere in the US for a few hundred
dollars or less, and rarely have to wait more than an hour or two between
stops. The advent of web sites like Expedia and Kayak have made it easy to
find cheap fares without being made to feel important. The flying
experience has gone from a full service, comfortable, special experience to
a cattle-car style bus ride where you get nickel-and-dimed for even the
peanuts you eat. Regional carriers with Captains who are substantially
younger and less experienced have deteriorated the "Pilot Hero" image.
Instead, today's American Idol's are the music and sports stars whose
incomes have skyrocketed as compared with pilots. Airline pilots have
become bus drivers with wings.

Flying in general has become a commodity. It's just not special anymore to
most people. It's happening in many other industries as well. It's a shame,
but the truth is, the entire world is evolving in this way as the internet
makes information freely and readily available to the general population...

"LD" == Larry Dighera writes:
LD CNN) -- You're not imagining it. The United Nations'
LD International Labor Organization (ILO) has the proof: "Workers
LD in the United States are putting in more hours than anyone
LD else in the industrialized world."

But the US is not really part of the industrialized world, are we.

What do other industrialized countries have? Health care systems,
modern infrastructure, actual working hours that don't keep you away
from home for 12 hours a day. The US has a very costly fragmented
health care system for some, aging infrastructure (we quit building
anything decades ago), and long work hours...just like 3rd world
countries.

They say Russia is a 3rd world country with rockets...well the US is
becoming a 3rd world country with marketing.

Don't try to pin this on just one political party, both have had a big
part in this decline.
--
"Real men don't use backups, they post their stuff on a public ftp
server and let the rest of the world make copies." - Linus Torvalds

Bob Fry wrote:


Don't try to pin this on just one political party, both have had a big
part in this decline.


"Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal
in slavery than unequal in freedom."

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that
it can bribe the public with the public's money."

-Alexis de Tocqueville

Bob Fry wrote:

But the US is not really part of the industrialized world, are we.

What do other industrialized countries have? Health care systems,
modern infrastructure, actual working hours that don't keep you away
from home for 12 hours a day. The US has a very costly fragmented
health care system for some, aging infrastructure (we quit building
anything decades ago), and long work hours...just like 3rd world
countries.


Yep, our health care system is so bad that it is where those from countries
with socialized healthcare systems who have the money and a real problem
flock to.

Yep, our health care system is so bad that it is where those from countries
with socialized healthcare systems who have the money and a real problem
flock to.

The US health care system is indeed very bad especially in terms of
cost. Its ironic that a major reason for this is the absence of a free
market in the medical sector. The American Medical Association
undermines the free market with a death grip on who gets to practice
medicine in the country and that grip is so strong that even the
celebrated Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman (a major
critic of the AMA) could do nothing to loosen it.

wrote:
Yep, our health care system is so bad that it is where those from
countries with socialized healthcare systems who have the money and
a real problem flock to.

The US health care system is indeed very bad especially in terms of
cost. Its ironic that a major reason for this is the absence of a free
market in the medical sector. The American Medical Association
undermines the free market with a death grip on who gets to practice
medicine in the country and that grip is so strong that even the
celebrated Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman (a major
critic of the AMA) could do nothing to loosen it.

The cost of the US health system can be blamed on the ABA as much if not
more than the AMA.