At last, the truth...

wrote

My wife becomes, or can become physically ill in several ways when
flying. Is it no surprise flying isn't her favorite thing to do?

Has she tried those electronic wrist bands for airsickness? I have heard
good things about how those things work.

It sounds like your wife is about the same as mine. She encourages my
interests, and I encourage hers. It has worked well for us.
--
Jim in NC

You know Jay, I get the feeling that one day, maybe ten or twenty years
from now, you'll just hang it up and stop flying at all. Been there, done
that, whatever. The passion will have just... well... died, and you won't
understand why, nor will it make much sense to you to even ask why,
because you won't be actually =feeling= the passion any more.

It will happen, for sure.

My vision will continue to deteriorate. My blood pressure -- recently
brought under control through weight loss -- will continue its inexorable
upward climb. There will be no escaping the final defeat, and my flying
*will* cease.

But not until I've seen every last corner of this country from the left
seat. And not until I've passed my passion on to every person who sets foot
in my lobby. That I can promise.

You can't imagine it now. But you tout flying as the "be all and end all
for everyone" so strongly that I wonder what the future will surprise you
with. One thing I've learned in life is that things don't turn out the
way it looks like they are going to.

Boy, ain't that the truth. Three years ago, I was embarking on an almost
unbelievably risky venture to rescue an old hotel from the jaws of collapse,
and to rebuild it in the image of an almost unimaginably stupid dream. NO
ONE thought it could succeed, and none of us thought it would make money.

Well, here we are, three years later (on 8/19), and I'm here to tell you
that we haven't lost a dime. We haven't made much, either, but the entire
flying community has come out to support us, and we've turned a small profit
every year. People we could never have counted on (and had never even heard
of) came out of the woodwork with irreplaceable, one-of-a-kind memorabilia
and artwork -- all of it donated -- to help make our hotel unique and
therefore successful.

Mustang stuff came from Vlado. SR-71 stuff came from Bill. Memphis Belle
stuff came from Bob Morgan himself. Stearman stuff came from local pilots.
Reno air race stuff was received from the race organizers themselves. Web
space was donated by Jav Henderson. ALL of this stuff was donated,
freely -- because these folks knew we didn't have a pot to pee in, and they
wanted to see their stuff enshrined in a setting that real, honest,
down-to-earth pilots and enthusiasts will see and enjoy.

They shared the dream.

I don't know about you, but that makes my throat tighten. I tend to get
awfully choked up about the generosity and assistance we've received from
pilots all over the world -- none of it requested or expected. These folks
just gave, freely, and without reservation, and all of us have benefited
from it.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"
"Jose" wrote in message
t...


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.

The passion will have just... well... died, and you won't
understand why, nor will it make much sense to you to even ask why,
because you won't be actually =feeling= the passion any more.

It will happen, for sure.

My vision will continue to deteriorate. My blood pressure...

I don't mean that way. I mean, maybe one day you'll wake up and realize
you just don't love aviation any more. You like it... it's handy... but...

And none of your reasons will apply.

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.

"Jay Honeck" wrote in
You put your finger on one reason I sold the Maule. It took me 45 minutes
on a good day to drive to the airport. Over fairly heavily traveled
2-lane roads that could easily add half an hour to the trip. Add in 20
minutes to untie and pre-flight and 15 minutes to put her to bed and the
entire afternoon is gone for even a short flight.

Now George, we've been over this before. If you had been open to moving
to a more GA friendly part of the country, you, too, could have lived 30
seconds from your plane. You opted instead to remain in the congested
eastern part of the US, for purely economic reasons.

But, it's a valid point. I'm selling the Zlins. Acro was fun, was *almost*
a flying-habit supporting business and a great way to learn to fly. I'm
down for a fifth of an SR-22. But I'm having trouble finding two more
people with the necessary 500 hours PIC as required by the insurers. The
airport is a 15 minute walk away. (And I live downtown in a busy
metropolis.) There's another airport an hours drive away where I can get
the necessary partners. But that doesn't interest me much. The spontaneity
is important. Maybe I'll get a cottage and an ultralight.

moo

On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 00:27:02 -0400, "Morgans"
wrote:

Has she tried those electronic wrist bands for airsickness? I have heard
good things about how those things work.

It sounds like your wife is about the same as mine. She encourages my
interests, and I encourage hers. It has worked well for us.

It isn't just air sickness, the other part of it is that her ears hurt
after just a few minutes due to pressure changes. I don't get very
high when we're up but it doesn't matter. She's always been that way,
even in the car going up and down seemingly small hills. We'll be
driving along and she will be swallowing and yawning and she'll say:
"Finally, my ears cleared."

I bought a set of ear plugs that have a calibrated hole in them that
are supposed to make a difference, but we haven't tried them yet. Not
much point, she's really not interested in going flying, especially
when she doesn't have to.

But she certainly understands my enjoyment for flight.

Corky Scott

"Jose" wrote

I don't mean that way. I mean, maybe one day you'll wake up and realize
you just don't love aviation any more. You like it... it's handy...
but...

And none of your reasons will apply.

Nope. Not Jay. I'll put money on it. This could be a rather lengthy
wager, though. g
--
Jim in NC

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
. ..
"Gig 601XL Builder" wr.giacona@coxDOTnet wrote in
news:3isMe.1815$7f5.1413@okepread01:


"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
ups.com...
Check http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/trend.html for a quantitative
summary of trends. Private, commercial and instrument issuances are
down 12% since 2000. New aircraft shipments are down 10% since 2000.
Avgas sale is down almost 25% since 1999. OK, dying may be an
overstatement, but it is not looking rosy either. On the other hand,
this year's Airventure drew record crowds. I am not sure what to make
of that, but it is probably something similar to what happens in
spectator sports. Large number of people turn up to watch but very
few are able to participate.


Interesting....

Total Student Issuances
59,989
59,311
-1%
-678

Private Issuances
23,826
23,331
-2%
-495





You are comparing the 2004 numbers to 2003. I was comparing the 2004
numbers to the peak year (which in this case was 2002). The change in
private issuance is -18% in that case. Student pilot issuance is also -
11%.



Andrew, that is the worst job of sniping I've seen in a while. You sipped
everything I wrote which was in no way questioning your comparisons or even
your thesis.

Private Issuances
23,826
23,331
-2%
-495

You are comparing the 2004 numbers to 2003. I was
comparing
the 2004 numbers to the peak year (which in this case was
2002).

That was peak year as far back as AOPA went. It may be
relevant to the discussion that going back to 1971,
according to GAMA, the peak year was 1978, with 58,064 PP
Certificate issuances. And in that period (up through
1982), 8 of the years were over 50,000. It's not in AOPA's
interest to broadcast such things, I guess.

Fred F.

I don't mean that way. I mean, maybe one day you'll wake up and realize
you just don't love aviation any more. You like it... it's handy...
but...

And none of your reasons will apply.

Not!

(What else can I say?)

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

Gig 601XL Builder wrote:

Andrew, that is the worst job of sniping I've seen in a while. You sipped
everything I wrote which was in no way questioning your comparisons or even
your thesis.

His snipping is not so hot, either.