One BIG factor that dimiinishes flying for me that I’ve not seen mentioned here is all of the rules and departure BS at major airports. Getting vectored all over creation is expensive and frustrating.

Charles

Sure gas is astronomical now, and insurance liability (again, good old American greed at work there) was a nasty culprit, but in my opinion Cessna is guilty of being lax and offering nothing new or creative to the market for way too many years. Milking the same old designs with aluminum and rivets assuming no one would complain. Their R&D budget for GA single engine aircraft must have been, oh, $20 a year since 1969? Ha! If it was more I sure would like to see what they came up with! If it wasnt for thinkers outside the box, like Cirrus, etc, we would STILL be stuck with primitive designed aircraft. Thank you Cirrus and others. You deserve all your success and thank you for leading GA out of the ‘dark ages’.

But I must disagree on the “benefits” of a declining pilot population for important economic reasons. Flying, whether for fun or a career, is no exempt from the laws of supply and demand, so fewer customers mean higher prices for goods and services.

According to FAA statistics, roughly 60 percent of GA flight time is categorized as “personal,” which means these pilots are paying their own expenses. Those flying for business defray their costs through tax decuctions, and employers pay the bills for those flying for hire.

In other words, those flying for fun are carrying the load, especially in GA, which is the where most pilots get their start. To see what the flying life would be like without a sizeable and growing GA pilot population, look at any nation where it does not exist. Personal flying is only for the rich, and flying careers are possible only through the airlines that select and train pilots (often in the US) on the military model, where only a handful of hopefuls can pursue their dreams of flight.

To sustain our tradition of flight–and its opportunities–America needs a viable and growing pilot population.

I am a full time University student majoring in education and decided this March it would be a good feather in my cap to go and pursue a pilot’s certificate. I knew I would enjoy flying, as it was something that I had a love for since I was small though I didn’t know I would LOVE it to the extent that I do now.

After my first intro flight, and dumping 100% of my savings into a private pilot’s license, I found myself to be engulfed in this new found world of aviation and really sought a personal liking to developing that into something practicable. I am now training for a career as a pilot while also pursuing my degree in education.

From this forum I get the sense of many experienced and educated aviators, jaded by the realities of the “business,” that goes along with aviation.

For me as a student flying my 172, I have not controlled anything more maneuverable or less of a minivan, so I do not know any better. Regardless, and as Will stated, you get the chance to fly and all of the goodies that go along with it. For me, the fun of flying lies within my training, and moreover actually getting to experience flight itself. Speed and maneuverability of my aircraft play a very little factor in the fun column when I’ve got all that pretty scenery to look at outside the window.

The news of the pilot population going down is actually good news to a younger generation of aviators like myself. More jobs openings and less qualified applicants mean a greater selection for me down the road. And though I know the road is long to a job with good pay and good hours, I am more than willing to work for peanuts on a crappy schedule in order to obtain a job with a well respected major or corporate airline.

As for the negative comments surrounding aviation now-a-days, I have learned to take it with a grain of salt. If you’re willing to put in the necessary work, however long be it, then I firmly believe that there will be a reward for you at the end of that path. I do not mind taking my time and following the required rubric or criteria to becoming an airline pilot. Though the training IS in fact very expensive, it does cost significantly less than a private university degree, and generally will pay just as much if not more than the jobs dispensed by the degree’s given from universities.

All in all, aviation for me, as I see it now, is like any other job market. The best jobs go to the most qualified people with the best attitudes and work ethic. I am willing to keep my hopes up despite the furloughs, mergers, and bankruptcies, and moreover, I am willing to work and earn my title as a pilot, whether that means living on Ramen noodles for the next 6 years of my life, that sits well with me because I know there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Sometimes I know it helps to see things from the perspective of someone newer to the industry. My only newbie advice to all of you is to not stop looking out the window and to not forget what you are doing. The world is a much better place from a couple thousand feet in the air, and many of us here have the means to experience that either commercially or just as a hobby. You are FLYING, what is there to complain about?!

Bottom line, minivan or subcompact I really think the joy of flying is FREEDOM. Do kids or people now think of freedom or I wish I could fly like we did when we were kids? I mean when is the last time you went to the airport ate at the runway cafe and showed people how close you can get to planes and ‘aviation stuff’. Ahh the smell of jet fuel in the morning.

Minivan or subcompact, you get to FLY, above the ground look down, see stuff you can’t see in the car does that sound cool at all?

I think part of the boring is the we learn to fly, then we want to go faster then we get to the business of it and forget the pleasure and freedom. As the late, as of this week, Sydney Pollack said, I don’t fly for pleasure much anymore it is too much business climbing to altitude and getting there in my Citation X.

The half full or half empty mentality really has to be thought out. If it is my glass hopefully it is half full, if it is my trash can hopefully it is half empty. So minivan or subcompact hopefully LSA will for a better operational price allow us to enjoy why we started flying and get others to enjoy it too.

Go to the airport, its like the gym once you get there a few times you figure out there is some fun stuff going on. (I fall into the passionate nut mentioned in other posts)

Hopefully I spelled everything correct… :)

But, giving the declining number of pilots and student starts, it seems that many people do have a problem with the malaise that permeates the communityas a whole. And they express their problems by walking away from aviation, or never getting started in it.

My point is that with a negative pilot population growth, the laws of supply and demand dictate that aviation will grow ever more expensive for a dwindling pilot population, giving pilots still flying even more reason to grouse about the cost of flying.

Like you, I hope that sport pilot takes hold because it is, perhaps, aviation’s last chance to reverse the declining population. What concerns me is the first impression these newcomers will get when they walk in the door.

But there is hope, I think, because you and others answered the questions I posed. Silence is a sign of apathy, a sign that aviation is so unimportant to us it’s not worth a few minutes to submit a comment.

Conversation is good because it makes each of us evaluate our thoughts and feelings, and we need to expand it by forwarding the link to this conversation to our flying friends and foes. In expanding this dialogue we can at least take stock of where we, as a community, are, and where we want to go.

If you have a problem with me saying that 172s are boring and 152s are old, tough. I fly them at work, day in, day out, and it’s true. Newer 172s in particular have been rigged to feel ‘heavy’; just last night I took a private student up for her first flight in the 172 after 30 hours in a 152; she said it was “like driving [her] minivan instead of a subcompact”. If someone is comparing our primary training fleet to a minivan, it’s boring.

When I’m not working, I fly a 1971 American AA-1A Yankee. It’s older, but it’s fun. It also burns 6 gph and goes 110 knots, a slightly hotter (stall/spin-wise) version of what I HOPE light sport aviation becomes… something challenging and invigorating.

You asked, we answered.

If you were thinking about fulfilling the dream of becoming a pilot, how would you respond to comments such as Flying isn’t FUN, 172s are BORING, 152s are OLD, Flying is for business trips, and It costs too much. We don’t need more pilots making the sky more congested, only those who can afford it need apply.

We established aviators are really a friendly, welcoming bunch, aren’t we. I was going to say that the last pilot flying should lock the hangar door before hanging up his wings, but on second thought it really doesn’t matter, does it?

I always think about how I could use flying for business trips, but it rarely makes any sense. For trips within the range of a 172, by the time I go to the airport, park, pre-flight, taxi, wait for take-off clearance, get on course, get to the airport a few hundred miles away, land and then get a rental car - I could have been there in my car, in almost any weather, almost certain to be able to make the return trip, at a much lower cost and safer. So where’s the business case?

Also, do we really need more pilots? There will always be a certain percentage of aviation nuts, the kind that are really into flying, and there will be some drawn by the prestige and salary of airline flying. As the pilot pool dries up, the salaries will go up and more of those types will be drawn.

The last thing we need are a whole crop of fun seekers, the wind-surfer and jet-ski crowd, buzzing around in Skycatchers and SRSes.

Like it or not, the rude, customer unfriendly nature of FBOs has served as a kind of filter to keep the less motivated folks away from the cockpit. Maybe there’s some good in that?

Cost yes. It’s also lousy industry marketing of the value of flying and the well, the joy of flying.

Rob

I looked at the new Cessna 400 last week at the Parade of Pistons, beautiful plane and fast, but $620,000 that’s more than 95% of people’s houses (excepting the east and west coast)

LSA seems to be helping with that as well as the kit industry. Check out my site http://www.what2fly.com or my blog and look at some of the options.