The International Cessna^® 170 Association

Miles,

Good article. When I started flying the place to go in the afternoon after school or on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. There were always somebody hanging around the FBO, young people, and if the weather was good there was always something flying. Saturday afternoon when I went to the airport, there were three other people there, hanging out. One was two or three years younger than me, I am 66, and the other two were older than me. Two of us no longer have our medical and the other two fly occasionally in a J-3 and a home built. It was beautiful weather but nothing was flying. We are the types you mostly see around airports in this area. I know, high cost of fuel and high rental costs, but, in our area, there is just no interest among the younger persons. Our FBO manager is also a part time CFI. Very few students. I think he generated two Privates last year and both of those we either upper 40's or over 50. The article mentions females. I personally have not known a female student in probably over twenty years. I don't know what the answer is, but I don't think it is private jets. Something has to get the interest up for normal middle class people to become interested in basic General Aviation flying.

Harold

Miles,
This is just my own observation. The kind of flying we do is difficult to promote for several reasons:
1. People today want instant gratification. You can buy a boat, a hot car, a motorcycle, etc. and just go out and show it off. It takes a lot of time and money to fly, and many don't want to invest that kind of time.
2. Speaking of showing it off - hot cars, motorcycles, etc. can go to events around town. Airplanes are at the airport, where most of your friends aren't. They would have to cultivate a new set of friends that fly.
3. Our kind of planes are old-fashioned. When kids think of planes today it is airliners or military jets. A 40's to 70's prop plane doesn't interest them.
4. People today want to go to a big resort and play golf, lay around the pool, and drink. Camping out at Osh Kosh or Sun-n-Fun doesn't make it.
5. There aren't any other young people around the airport. It's all old guys like us. They need their own peer group.

What can we do?
1. The TIC170A group does include the kids. I think/hope many of them will go on to be aviators.
2. Do our best to keep expenses down. Defeating User Fees is one thing.
3. Include our families and friends in our flying excapades. Let them know how much fun it is, AND make it practical and useful. Don't just go to a fly-in.

Well, that's sort of three for, five against. What ideas to others have?

I sure wish all reporting on General Aviation was this good, but it's too bad the picture is so bleak.

It's not without hope, though. I'm currently working on a CFI ticket with a young female instructor, maybe 30-ish. There's another young woman in Minneapolis who started flying in January 2005 with a ground school our EAA chapter offers, earned her CFII/MEI last summer, and now has several students keeping her busy (http://www.aeronautrix.com). She really wants to fly MU-2s, for the challenge.

GA needs this, and more. EAA's Young Eagles program may be the best long-term investment to keep it going. I give those rides whenever I can. Often it's the girls who seem to enjoy them the most. I'm a "start-over dad" with a nine-year-old daughter, and my message to her every single day is that she can do anything she wants to do if she wants it enough.

Yes, there are airports that are closing, and some that are awfully quiet, but in my neck of the woods there are at least a couple with very active community support that are expanding with longer runways and commercial development. There are glimmers of hope here and there.

Best Regards,

John

Good article and very important question. I think it would help a lot if we made airports more park-like; a place where families can hang out and watch the airplanes. Between the fences and the business-orientation of most airports, they don't exactly invite little boys and girls to wander in and out of the hangers. I can still smell the turf of the grass field where I grew up, and still picture the old airplanes tucked into rickety hangers. No fence, no gates, heck, most of the hangers didn't have doors. It was a less fearful time....

jrenwick wrote:I...She really wants to fly MU-2s, for the challenge. ...John

Try to talk her out of MU-2's. She'll live longer...and we need to keep pilots around...

Those are all good points. I think that one of the problems is that there is nothing in popular culture now that captures the romance of flying. Most of us grew up in an era where flying was something that young people fantasized about. We had Sky King and Penny to show us the way!! http://www.americanflyers.net/entertainment/skyking.asp

Back in the day (let's say the 50's & 60's), flying and airports were high tech. When I was 1st introduced to flying, color televisions were not available, let alone VCRs, computers, video games, IPods, Pocket PCs, monorail roller coasters, etc, etc. Kids today have all of this at their fingertips. Those of us lucky enough to be raised in a rural setting have found that computerization of the farm is now possible and, necessary to make a living. In short, things have changed quite a bit; to the extent that there are far more distractions and choices for a kid today than in the aforementioned era.

The point is flying hasn't changed much in relation to how a kid's world has changed in the past 50 years, except for the relative cost. And what do we do at flyins and other gatherings that would interest today's youth aside from getting them in the cockpit and handling the controls? We sit and eat and talk and eat and talk some more. What topics are discussed? Flying? Aches & pains? "Old guy" stuff? Are the kids invited into the conversations? Kids would rather 'do' than sit & watch - it's what captures their interests.

So maybe the things that need to change aren't the kids, but the attitudes of those of us who can make a difference in getting kids excited about flying; who can impart to them the 'romance' of flying.

These are just musings and are 'from the hip' at this point.

The point is flying hasn't changed much in relation to how a kid's world has changed in the past 50 years, except for the relative cost.

Yep. One word: money. Actually two: money, and money. Who the heck is crazy enough to lay out the average of $6 to 10 grand to get their training anymore? Besides me, that is?

Microsoft flight sim is the best selling game ever. The money involved
in flight training and operating an aircraft is higher today on relative
basis however the cost has always been high. the cost of a
new 170 was 5 times the cost of a new car. Other factors such as
the fact in the 1950's going from LA to Sacramento on 99 took much longer
than the same trip on I5 today. Modern cars and interstates are a factor.
My primary reason for wanting to learn to fly was
to shorten the length of time it took from my home in Lynwood
to The Eastern Sierra. Light aircraft do not seem to be thought of
as a practical alternative for transportation by Generation X. Flight
sim seems to satisfy any curiosity they have for flying.

When I was a kid and got interested in flying, ...part of it was doubtless the fascination of the challenges involved. I'd never been in the air and there were such vivid and recent depicitons of WW-2 with all it's aviation-oriented activity.
Flying an airplane was a rare and unique thing and I had to have it!

But after 40 years of telling everyone that "anyone" can fly, and "if you can drive you can fly"... and with the disrespect that has developed over recent years for aviation and it's professionals... things have a very different perspective for the average traveller. No one dresses in their Sunday clothes anymore....(or maybe they do! ) ... The bus company's suffer because even tramps travel via airline these days. The airlines are the present-day bus companys. Whoever aspires to be a bus driver? (Airbus anybody?)

And the elite of the flying community, the airline pilots, have become a generally disrespected and suspect lot in the view of the travelling public. They no longer are the crisp, uniformed hero's of yesteryear. They are now the overpaid, morally-lax, slackers who whine about their six-digit salaries and their stock option plans. (I may never get the vision out of my brain of the last SWA crew I flew behind...two slovenly, dishevelled "buitch"-women with unkept wild hair, wearing black leather "aviator" jackets and barrelling up the jetway elbowing their way past passengers.) Anyone who ever rides from the hotel with airline crews will not hear about airplanes and flying and exciting destinations. They'll listen to whining about "the bid" and the duty schedule, and the failure to get a free crew lunch yesterday, and about the stock market and the golf course. The glory is gone or never existed for many of these types. (And union-busting airline execs with golden parachutes and huge salaries...who've never had any love of aviation... but are merely former stockbrokers and biz-whizzes are part of the problem. They don't love the airline. They don't love the airline business. They don't love the airline employees. And they hate the GA airplanes in "their" airports.)
(I still can't get over the airline pilots who, having traffic pointed out to them, had no idea what another poplular aircraft-model was....had no concept of what to look for.)

Even the hero's of recent past, the astronauts, are now seen as a bunch of psychotic diapered misfits on a mission of selfish and bizarre revenge within sordid relationships.

Before we can recapture the imaginations of youth, we're going to have to re-establish why this activity is respectful, challenging, and can lead to a rewarding career. Cost is certainly a part of it, but when I look at a typical 19-foot runabout boat and see the price tag at $60-Grand!... I can't believe anyone would spend that kind of money on a foolish pastime with such a short-term recreational life and no prospects of career. (And I'm a boat owner and lover!)

If Harley Davidson can inspire an entirely new generation of enthusiasts...surely we can!

gahorn wrote:...If Harley Davidson can inspire an entirely new generation of enthusiasts...surely we can!

Cirrus has been doing pretty well in that regard....

gahorn wrote:They are now the overpaid, morally-lax, slackers who whine about their six-digit salaries and their stock option plans. (I may never get the vision out of my brain of the last SWA crew I flew behind...two slovenly, dishevelled "buitch"-women with unkept wild hair, wearing black leather "aviator" jackets and barrelling up the jetway elbowing their way past passengers.)

Ouch! Quite a rant George. Did you get turned down for an airline job?

We had our monthly airport commission meeting tonight. Our airport manager/flight instructor said that he has two new students which now give him three students. The one he has had a while is a 40 ish male but he said, believe it or not, his two new students are girls, one is sixteen and one is seventeen. They are from a neighboring town and he says they are both very enthused about General Aviation. Maby there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Damn! Somebody really did hook into some sour grapes.

When I was flying a DC-6 for the airlines, we had a simulator instructor who could fly the simulator a lot better than most of the pilots could and he was always gripeing about how overpaid we were. He couldn't learn to fly well enough to pass a flight check for a private certificate but loudly begrudged us our overly generous compensation. My pay as a Captain was $18.38 per block time hour and $.70per hour per diem away from the domicile. That's $16.80/day and we paid $8.40 for our hotel. The company had to pay anything over $8.40 but it was amazing how often they could find a "hotel" that would put us up for the $8.40. Even in Miami.

I wonder if simulator instructors are still that way?