What led You to This?

Forgive me, Red, for I could not sleep after posting that. It's 2AM my time, and my danged wee brain could not shut down.

Aviation history kept toying with me, as history in general did.

For most of the years Leighton Collins and Wolfgang Langewiesche toiled and wrote about people who flew, aircraft were an elite man's possession. Collins flew a St. Louis Cardinal - four grand in '31, after Henry Ford broke all the rules and paid workers five dollars a day to work on his assembly lines - big money back then. An Alexander Eaglerock sold for six grand years before that. And what do you think a new Waco, Fleet, Travelair, or Monocoupe went for back then? Flown privately, this was a sport of rich people.

Yes, there was the Buel Pup - an aircraft someone with no family relying upon them could buy. The later flat four gave us the Aeronca C series, and the Welch, though the latter never was funded sufficiently to break though.

We are the children and grand children of the G.I. Bill of Rights, and the Civilian Pilot Training Program that preceded it. Our Army Air Corps was caught unprepared and paid Piper to make lots of little airplanes, employing the flat four, to train gobs of pilots in a hurry.

Afterward you could buy a Cub at Sears. Dusters grabbed Stearmans for a few bucks and, as you noted Red, Vultee vibrators were so cheap that dusters could buy them for their Pratts alone. A P-38 cost fewer than two grand. As late as 1960 a P-51 Mustang could be had for six hundred dollars when Canada dumped them on the market as obsolete.

Prior to that era, Jennys in boxes cost six hundred. My point is that good aircraft were already paid for by taxpayers and dumped on the market after each major war ended, and training after WWII was cheap.

But most important, risk assessment among Americans was different. Hence thousands of Cubs, Champs, Luscombes, and Cessnas were built every year. Even as late as the '70s 7000 152s were built in just eight years. Now one tenth of that number of new airplanes are built. Thus their cost is untold multiples of the price, adjusted for inflation, of earlier airplanes.

The EAA created the homebuilt aircraft opportunity. The AAA created the restoration movement. But kids don't grow up around tools, and there are no shop classes.

Supply and demand. Demand is low, and we no longer get the benefit of aircraft, paid for in times of war, dumped into the civilian market. Training is no longer subsidized. I'm trying to work with disabled vets to get them into the air but there is no money to train them. The G.I. Bill of Rights is long gone.

Were we to fight we'd have to play by rules unheard of in years past. We'd have to advertise - not with pleasant images of fluffy clouds, but with advertisers tools: the message of inadequacy of those who do not buy the product.

For awhile I thought that aviation was dying because it no longer represented the population: the Hispanics who outnumber the Americans of yore who preceded them in our most populous states and cities. That culture is full of pilots (my brother's inlaws are a family of pilots and their last name is Ortiz), but not the folks fleeing poverty right now. Let's be serious. The AOPA pilot mentor program is rooted in a past that no longer exists.

Now...I'm not so sure. I knew the late Henry Hampton - a post polio pilot and film maker who's best known work was the PBS documentary Eyes on the Prize. He marched in Selma, with leg braces. For him, a black man, flying was an act of defiance. African Americans defy pervasive notions in different ways now.

These are the large forces I mention. It's not the kids forced to wear helmets. It may not even be the contemporary ethics that deem a private pilot irresponsible if he or she has a family. Motorcycles are cool, yet carry the very same risk of injury and death as airplanes. Motor boats do too. But every motorcycle or boating accident is not reported in the news. Again, large forces work against us.

I may have worked for Members of Congress and have known great men, but I am not especially smart. I am at a loss here. What do we do, Red? What tactics do we employ? Every day I ask myself a simple question: how do I win from here? Pray tell me - any of you - what shall we do to give us peace on our deathbeds that the biggest parts of us do not pass with our passing? Tell me and I'll do it. I'm bingo ideas at this moment.

Jonathan
 
JB, your input reminded me of a recent conversation I had between a small group of Pilots and A/C owners. The private aircraft movement is dying for the little man. I felt like JOB in the Bible trying to rationalize what we had left and what went wrong! I too did not have an answer but was thankful for the time and what I have had. Lynn N9818B :cry: :cry: the crate
 
Oy vey, did this turn into one bummer of a buzz kill on a holiday meant to give thanks for what we have that's good in our lives.

Ah, but as day follows night:

http://www.ktvb.com/video/index.html?nvid=195337

Jonathan
 
What do we do?

I suppose we could sit back and lament the death of something we love but don't care enough about to try and save. Things like aviation, liberty, freedom. When we as a people say " Oh well it was fun while it lasted, too bad it's gone" we have no hope.

Or, we could take our passion to the kids. The kids are our future. Sounds trite, but they are. We must present aviation to them so that they can at least be exposed to the wonder of it all. Will all of them become engaged? No, but some will. Let's include the 18-25 set in there too.

You speak of aviation being a rich man's game. True to an extent. I am by no means rich, and come to think of it my airplanes will make sure I never get rich. But riches are counted in terms other than money, and in that respect, because of aviation, I am rich beyond imagination.

In 1932 $4,000 was a lot of money. Maybe more than $500k today. But all airplanes dont cost $500k. All pilots dont own airplanes. All pilots dont need to own airplanes. All pilots never owned airplanes. Some did. FBOs did, and still do. Golfers dont own golf courses, race fans don't own race cars. Not owning an airplane doesnt mean you can't fly.

We dont fight. We simply share. Present aviation to the young people. As for cost, well, the cost of a pilots license isn't that great compared to the BMW Junior gets for his high school graduation. And the thing here is that if junior was interested in aviation, maybe that graduation gift would be a freshly minted pilots license and a Geo Metro to get to the airport in.

If we as pilots present aviation as dying, as a rich man's game, why should anyone else ever care?

Aviation has never been a game of sheer numbers, but it is a very real fact of life that there is safety in numbers. Simply put , we need more numbers.

The $1000 flivver plane has eluded mankind so far. A $24,000 Cessna 152 doesn't elude anyone, cars easily cost 2x that amount, computer gaming systems can cost a quarter of that amount.

An hour of flying time costs little more than dinner out for my family, probably less than a day out at the golf course, tennis club, movie theater.

My point is that flying is not an impossible goal. It is not unattainable, and doesnt mean a $600,000 investment.

My point is also that we lament the situation, but seem very reluctant to do anything about it.

We instead need to take our love of flight to those who have not been exposed to it in a positive way. We all know the feeling that makes us be here in the first place. Share it. Pass it on. Is spending an hour or so every once in a while in a classroom talking about what we love really such a burden? Is helping the local Boy Scout troop earn their aviation merit badge such a high price to pay for the future of our passion?

Now before you say that will never work, approach the school from the angle of what a love of aviation leads to academically-Physics, math, engineering pop to mind.

What do we do? We go out amongst the heathens and give them wings.

As for lawyers, well my statement on liberty and freedom suffice there...

No we will never see the post WW2 surpluses again. So what? Is the challenge the past or the future? I choose the future.

You with me? :)
 
I'm with you, Red...all of us are.

But first you need to get people to *want* to fly. Yeah, I tossed around numbers and their relation to so called disposable income. You're right - that's not it.

So here it is, then: how do we get them to want to fly? We need to get to them early, before they're seized by fear and a disproportionate sense of financial responsibility.

Jonathan
 
There you go.

I never knew I liked Pizza till I tried it. I never ever heard of retsina till i went to Athens, but I like it.

We need to spread the word.

Im not the best one to answer some of these questions, as it was never a question of if but when I learned to fly. So I ask those of you that decided to fly who werent born into it - How did you get involved?

I am very serious about figuring this out.
 
Just love it. One bring the challenge, the other possible solution.
JB and Red you're both right. I really enjoy reading you.

There is a guy here at the airfield that take all opportunities he can get to introduce people to aviation. He does not scare them with the heavy aerodynamic theory, He just bring them to his old 120, show them around, choose the day. Give them a ride, go for a coffee at another airfield and come back. He let them try it a bit while together up there. It's a 85 h.p., not a Stearman pumping 12 gal/hr. He is one good promoter.

I am not sure if civilian flying is completely dying. In Europe, to own an aircraft and fly it like we do here you have to be really wealthy. They have aeroclubs which members are owner of the airplane the club own. So 100 members can afford a 172 and a Cherokee and they take turns. Try to go on a week-end, you have to book a year in advance...for an hour. This is BS. And you have the brown noser of the clubs president that get to fly a bit more and all kind of political bs.

In Canada, very seldom airfield are municipal or get any financial help. All private. And with the population being 1/10 of the US you could think it is similar for aircraft population. Everything is more expensive. Nevermind the dollar value.

So lots of them airfield died. Volume of small aircraft is lower but the homebuilt market is helping to fly. Partnership and association are starting to show, they buy one aircraft and put a schedule together so people can keep on fying. But definitely, the antique market is dying. Requiring more money to keep them flying, Gaz going crazy at 1.60$ a liter (a quart) Still cheaper to run a 14-13-2 than a 23 ft cruiser. But I wouldn't pass a week-end in the bellanca with the family. It a question of accesibility too and family activities.

Common sense. Is it still worthed to spend nearly the same money on a old bird or equivalent on a nice sail boat. Culture thing. And it's to us to keep promoting the one we love whatever is the end result when we kick the bucket. You put your mouth were your money is. At least when I go, I will be happy for 2 thing. One because I enjoyed my passion while I was there, and the other, even if no relief, it's not because we did not tried. So whatever happen, I choose to be happy and to get this passion known by a max of people and if they don't want to get in, too bad. I'm in.
 
I wasn't born to it. I didn't start taking flying lessons until I was 41. I don't know why I always wanted to fly - not a clue. As a little kid I'd raise my knees in bed, pretend the blanket in front of me was a cockpit and though if I concentrated hard enough I would fly in my dreams.

At 14 I became ill with cancer. By 16 my right leg and pelvis were gone. I spent the next two decades essentially lost, pissed off at God, angry. For awhile I simply thumbed around the country, taking minimum wage jobs when I ran out of money. I slept in a furnace room for awhile. When I had money I'd drink so much that one friend found me passed out with my eyes frozen open. He thought I was dead. These were not times of dreams.

I met a gal, fell in love for the first and only time in my life and began to build hope and focus. One day I walked into the office of the editor of the local newspaper, said I had an idea for a story, he said okay, I'd write it, and I kept repeating the process. Things turned ugly with the parents of the gal. She was the only child of holocaust survivors: the brother and sister in laws of families annihilated in the camps. I was far from their idea choice for their daughter, and she was laden with an obligation none of us can fully comprehend.

I found myself working on Capitol Hill in D.C. (no way I was going to stay in Massachusetts). It wasn't for me so I became a writer again. I discovered online computer gaming back in '86, and went to the only place that made them back then. My game was Air Warrior, our company was acquired by NewsCorp, and I had the gall to apply for flight lessons as education to further my career in flight simulation for games. They went for it...well...they agreed to pay one third of it, which was plenty.

Four years of fighting the Feds followed. Some of this was due their bigotry, some was due to my inability to hide my loathing for and barely controlled rage at authority.

Intimacy is not my event. I love people but refuse to let them get close to me. In the air, and only in the air, do I feel safe, joyful, and at peace.

In short, I hardly fit the pilot profile. And, to this day, I cannot fathom a yearning to fly that reemerged after so much had happened. Mine is not a story suited to any sort of promotional material aimed at getting people off this damnedable earth.

Jonathan
 
Jonathon,for what it's worth, in my opinion yours is a very inspiring story. It proves that the human spirit can do wonderful things. You have overcome what most cant even begin to comprehend.

I don't know you, you dont know me, but we are comrades through aviation. Through aviation we have similar interests, desires, experiences. What drew us here is a love for aviation which we cant explain.

I watch my children for clues as to what makes us tick. My son is fascinated with sharks. How can this be? He has never seen one in it's watery world. Until we took him to the aquarium he had never known they really existed, other than in the pictures and stories in his books. Still they fascinate him. He can tell you anything you can ask about sharks. He is six. What makes him love sharks?

My daughter has a similar passion for dance. Through dance she expresses her love for life, who she is. I think it is much like we feel when we fly.

At some moment in time we get a glimpse of something that strikes us. For some it is cars, others sharks, and for the truly lucky airplanes. The seed is planted, and in some it takes hold.

I think there are more of us like airplanes that we realize. How else do you explain the sheer numbers of people who visit NASM when they visit D.C.? Attendance there is higer than the other museums, and there are some pretty interesting things in those other buildings lining the Mall.

Alains friend is doing as much as anyone can to bring people into flying. A sane ride for coffee, smooth, no "thrills" and people are hooked.

So I guess the attack is two fold. Take it to the kids, present aviation as we know it to be, then take their older relatives for a ride.

We all can do what we can. Some live for the personal contact others work behind the scenes. Both are equally important.
 
Hey Red,

I follow the Alain Theorem of Aviation Proliferation myself. Young Eagles - that's cool - but I like to take up folks, including kids, when I have some time for my passengers to relax, feel comfortable with the controls, talk them through climbs, descents, turns and such before we had back and grab a bite.

With the Luscombe I pretty much have to stay on the rudders in turns and climbs but I keep that a secret. I just pretend to look at the scenery out the left window to give them the sense that they are really flying on their own, knowing I can take over if they feel uncomfortable.

I knocked on my neighbor's door when their grandkid turned five, announcing it was time for Elijah to go up. We'd spoken about this before, of course, and his entire family turned out. There's something unbearably cute about a little kid in adult gear: headsets with microphones, four point harnesses...all that. All he needed to feel okay about the whole thing was a can of soda. He never had to open it...it was just that little piece of life on the ground he needed to take with him.

One fellow I hopped a ride for had no tools to react to it all. The winds were favorable that day so I did the Mt. Rainier circuit. He just shook his head at such extreme beauty, perched upon it in a small cabin held up by a large wing. All he could do was laugh.

This is what truly puzzles me. Not once, during all the rides I've given over the years, regardless of the age of the passenger, have they felt nothing short of wonder. How in blazes can something so utterly captivating, something that invariably inspires such awe, be slipping slowly into obscurity?

I can't get my mind around that. A 15k Champ can take you places no 40k SUV can go, and take you there amidst three dimensions with six degrees of freedom. Take that difference in cost and, hell, man - you've got yourself a ticket. Plus, achieving it takes us all through so many profound emotional moments and rites of passage most people of adult age have not experienced for years or even decades.

Fine a way to deliver *that* message, and the trend will turn. If we have to do it one person at a time, and that's all we can do right now, then that's plenty.

Jonathan
 
I love that incredulous look when you tell them that, yes, they really are flying the machine, and the smile that creeps across and lights up their face as you hold your hands up in proof.
 
That remind me last year, I was preping the airplane to go for a little hour ride around. There was that guy walking around looking at airplanes on the field. Saw him a few time before, Just said hi, never had big conversation but knew he was not a weirdo. I am.

So that day, I had a very saturated schedule for the day. As I walked to the car to get the headset, he start chatting with me. Blah, blah ,blah all kind of question on airplanes. I said to myself ''this guy is shortening my flight.'' So I turned around and threw him a pair of headset and told him, Your stories are very interesting so not to interupt you, you will carry it on in the airplane, we're going up. :shock: The face he had. It was a nice day, ceiling at about 3500. My airfield is at 175 asl. It was covered except for a huge hole over our zone, so we took off, climb in the clear and went flying over the top of that not too thick layer for a while. Nice and steady, just trimmed and hand off, Vis wasperfect. Could see the Adirondac to the south and the Laurentides to the north. Was just perfect. I turned toward him a little and asked him to carry on his story. He was looking at me like if I was a kind of a God or something. The effect you can have on people. And how sad if I did not had this airplane, I would have never met him. But that's another story.

Today, he completed his private and shopping for a small bird.
Maybe he was about to do it, but I feel that day, I just kinda of helped him conclude.
Don't ask me what story he told me, I don't remember. But I remember his face when I threw him the headsets, This worthed a million,

Another time I brought someone in my Bakeng Deuce for a ride. This one had fear of flying. I sat her in the front seat, let her relax, spoke to her and explained what was all around her. And how she would feel etc. Then went in the back seat, came on the intercom. Started the engine and slowly taxied while chatting. When we were back, I seen a million dollar smile on her face. She still thanks me not too long ago. The Open Cockpit Deuce was good for that. It was putting a smile on all the people's face that came in it. I miss this one.

A young guy ended up in the cockpit of a CF-18 for a career. He was 14 when he came in a rented 152 with me for his first flight. He then entered in the Cadet and so on. Saw his parent 5 or 6 years later, and not too long ago. He is still flying. He is an airline pilot. I might be partly responsible for that, me , that low wage guy in the field playing with old wooden wing toy.

So just for this, if I ever ask myself if I have to have regret or be happy and concider myself lucky when I'll kick the bucket! I know it . I will be happy I've done it. But especially to have know old classic birds. I leave the Sonex and Lancair for richer than me. They don't know what their money cannot bring back... those old classic slowly going away and the price of gaz down. They can't do that. :wink:
 
:lol:

I love the heck out of that too, Red. I was based at Harvey Field in Snohomish for awhile, meaning mountains and water were equidistant, giving us time to perform the familiarization exercises prior to when the serious distractions arrived.

As I'm sure you've all experienced, the moment you cross a knife edge high ridge, the entire earth falls - plummets - beneath you. Although you're still flying straight and level the sensation can feel like falling and I made sure I was ready to take the controls and let them know the :shock: was coming. I worried at first this could ruin the surprise but you cannot imagine this until you see it. Thus, you cannot be prepared :p

There was a large abandoned Ranger Station right on one end of a knife edge ridge. How the heck they ever got the building materials up there, much less how the Forrest Rangers got up to and down from there I'll never know. There was no helipad. I'd take folks by that, and around it...well...the ones I knew would not be afraid: I relied on that "Things are farther away than they appear" effect.

One guy, though, concerned me in a way opposite the norm. He'd ask for the controls at times like that; I had to take them back. He'd get genuinely close...too close...much, much too close. He had no fear at all and should never get his ticket. You need fear to learn to fly - the kind you learn to convert into knowledge and appropriate caution. Few things in aviation frighten me like the pilot with no fear, no caution.

We've all met those guys :!:

Jonathan
 
Absolutely JB we all met them, and sometime read about them in the newspaper...about their last flight.

A.
 
I'm on both sides of this issue, but what could possibly give the kids in the video 1/10th of the pleasure, nay, one iota, of that I get buy flying my Cruisair on a cool, clear morning, or even looking at her parked in her hangar? Riots in retail? These kids are empty inside. We may never save aviation, but we can pass it on until we can no longer breathe or until the government shuts us down. We can help fill youth up with big dreams: of freedom, of travel, of history, of flight.

I had my first Cruisair 10 years before I had my first house. Priorities, people, priorities! :wink:

If we can't spark people's imaginations, who can? That said, I do believe that the sun is setting on aviation as we know it. Soon, new technologies will make the airplane obsolete, maybe even in my lifetime, but flight will go on!
 
Ahh priorities. When I was dating my wife ( she wasnt my wife then of course) she once asked me what my priorities were. I honestly answered her: First priority is money. Not that I care about money but I need money to buy gas for my real first priority my airplane. Then theres women because you cant fly at night anyway.

Needless to say she didnt appreciate my answer. She didnt pay attention to it either, which lead to a rather large surprise when after the wedding I went flying. :lol:
 
I read this discussion with great interest and perhaps a different point of view. Up until January of this year, I was the General Manager for one of the last Part 141 Flight Schools in the Twin Cities Area. We had a large operation with 20+ aircraft - everything from Piper Tomahawks, Warriors, Archers, Arrows, Seminoles, Cessna 172SPs even a Mooney M20J and a Decathlon for Tailwheel, Spin and Aerobatics. The core of our new customer sales approach was the Discovery Flight. We focused all our marketing around getting potential customers in the airplane. We would sell the Discovery Flight as a "Gift Certificate" and we sold hundreds of them at Christmas time. We gave them away at charity auctions and donated them wherever we could. I would do presentations at "career days" at local high schools and give out a Discovery Flight in a raffle. Once the person came out and did the Discovery Flight, we would show them the costs, how the course was laid out and (of course) why it was in their interest to learn to fly with us. This laid to rest many misconception the neophyte had. We probably did 10-20 Discovery Flights weekly and landed new customers at a rate of about 20-25% of those that did Discovery Flights. we averaged about 6-8 months for someone to earn their Private and they typically spent from about $6,000-$8,000 from start to finish. Most completed our 141 course in 50-55 hours. Some took longer and some really motivated ones finished in about a month with around 40-45 hours.

I'm not ready to sing the swan song for GA just yet. We had new customers from every age group, race, gender, income level and nationality. There are means out there to finance pilot training if you want to get it done quickly but many people pay as they go and take their time with it. Despite our size and customer base, profits in a GA flight school were sometimes hard to come by. But we got by and nearly everyone involved in the business was there for the love of aviation and the desire to see it grow.

What I've come to believe is the driving force behind peoples' passion to fly (and my own) is something beyond the wonder, thrill and beauty of it all. I believe those that choose to fly have a deeply rooted need for achievement. Flying is one of the few activities for contemporary humans where life or death is truly dependent on your decisions and performance each time you take to the air. It embodies the unique combination of physical skill, scientific knowledge, decision making and respect for the sometimes volitile nature of earth and sky. The risks can be high for failure and that necessarily determines the payoff for successful performance - a payoff unmatched in contemporary society. I don't know if you feel the "buzz" or "afterglow" after a particularly challenging or enjoyable flight but I sure do... makes me feel alive like nothing else...
 
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