got the TSA feeling you up and down before you can fly your own plane,

 

That's never happened to me. One of the reasons I love flying GA is that there is no TSA to deal with. You drive up to the airport, walk to your plane, get in and go. Maybe where you are flying, but I've never seen the TSA at any GA airport I've been to.

 

$6 a gallon fuel. Yeah, that will keep a fellow flying FSX instead.

 

Eddie

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Welcome to Avsim, Tim. Your survey ran just fine and didn't take long. Good luck with the results. :smile:

Agree, money. A PPL was never cheap, but it's particularly unaffordable with both the rising costs and lower income (unemployment, etc.).

Definitely cost for me.

Hi Tim, Here is some background for you to consider from someone who lived it.

 

General and business aviation grew and thrived from the end of WW2 until the early 60's when the airlines began flying jets.

Until then most aircraft were as fast and went places that the airlines did not go.

Most of the airline fleet cruised in the 200 - 300 mph range, a speed that most business class aircraft could match and you could fly on your schedule, not the airlines.

In the early 60's the airlines started flying jets from their major hubs and business executives started flying to the hubs to board the jets for long cross country flights and using their aircraft only for flights to non major airports. This was the start of the death of affordable corporate aviation that so many mid sized companies operated. Many a corporate pilot I TRIED TO USE A PROFANITY HERE - AREN'T I STUPID!ed their head off when the boss stopped using them for long haul flights.

When the airlines started flying jets into smaller cities it all but nailed the coffin shut on corporate aviation which of course reduced the demand for commercial rated pilots hurting the entire non airline aviation industry.

After the jets came the tort lawyers who in the 80's all but destroyed general aviation in America. Things got so bad that Cessna quit producing 2 and 4 seat aircraft in 1986. It was the 1994 General Aviation Revitalization Act that saved the industry.

When the Light Sport Aviation rules were adopted in 2004 everything changed. Aviation is once again affordable and more people are learning to fly.

 

I am now 76 and fly only Flight Sims which I find more enjoyable because there is no flight surgeon, no limit to what I can fly and try and all aircraft repairs are free as are the ambulance rides to the hospital plus I can turn off that pesky ATC and go back to what it was like flying in the late 40's and early 50's when almost every town and ranch had a strip and before radios were required and all towers used signal lamps and wing wags to communicate.

Like I said at the start I lived through it all starting with my first ride at age 7 in 1944, being a hangar brat at 11, 12, and 13, flying with the Navy 1954-57 as a Combat Aircrewman, and staying close to and working in aviation until 1976 when I decided I had to start making some money for a change. It was hard to make a living in an industry where people will work for flight time instead of money.

Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

~~Gypsy~~

I did time with their pretentious over-priced flight training too. Help the guy out, the survey is only one question.

I don't know why anyone is trying to have a conversation with the OP. It's his only post on this forum. I don't think he's a simmer. He just joined to ask people to take the survey. I doubt he'll ever be back to read any of this.

 

I didn't do the survey, because I have a license, but I think that excluding simmers who have a license doesn't make much sense for what he's trying to figure out.

 

I come across these kinds of surveys in my line of work all the time. Not worth much of anything. And it's not like people haven't been trying to figure this one out for a while now and all we needed was to get some forum members to answer a few questions and, viola, knowledge!!

Hi Tim, Here is some background for you to consider from someone who lived it.

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

For me, its operating/ownership costs because I can't justify the cost just to tool around the homestead; we'd have to travel around so that means keeping the plane for a few weeks at a time. I can maybe swallow a one time $15,000 expense to get a multi-engine PPL (about the cost of another used car) but I can't drop yet another $10000 to get into a flying club and then a few thousand again every year to keep the plane in shape. And would a club let me take the plane on a two-week vacation? Not likely. Plus I'd want the safety and ease-of-use of a modern plane like a Diamond Twin Star so that's $600,000 right there. I'm not risking my family in a 40 year old single engine aircraft.

I flew for 15 years with private ticket. My first flight cost $14 WET! My last flight cost $50. This was during the years of never ending gas cost ( for the car we had ODD and EVEN days based on you car license plate numbers - do any of you remember this? Also airplane insurance cost were out of control, and of course it was passed along to me. It was so bad Piper quit producing single engine airplanes! COST drove me out.

Jim

It's not just costs, it's a sign of the times. Kids who grew up in the 40's, 50's and 60's helped spur the golden age of general aviation because of their wonderment of flight-- just like the popularity of Westerns in the 50's and the desire to be a cowboy. I mean look at what has happened to the auto industry. Guys used to pride themselves on fixing and customizing their cars. Now cars are purely utilitarian.

<br /> I'm not risking my family in a 40 year old single engine aircraft. <br />

 

You do realize those 40 year old airplanes have to undergo annuals just like newer airplanes, don't you?! There's no more inherent risk in flying an older airplane.

You do realize those 40 year old airplanes have to undergo annuals just like newer airplanes, don't you?!

 

Sure. But I don't have that much faith in 70's manufacturing.

Today, nice winter day hear those pipers, cessna flying . Never see 57 Chevy taken out in Midwest winter. Walk outside see ga out hit subzero nothing flies or drive. The small flyers need protection they should give old Cessna and Bonzana exemption from license fees like old cars would be a start.

Yes fuel costs!

 

Regard

jja

I actually find more faith in manufacturing from years ago, as a friend of mine found when he bought a new baron and had so many problems both manufacturer and owner agreed the best thing was just to ditch it. On my Baron ( a 1974 model) -we never had any Problems until we put new engines on it . Seems the new starters are poor quality in compare to the older ones and prone to breaking-which they did three times with under 100 hours on the engines.

 

As for expense, there are always ways to make flying affordable-at least in the same league of other expensive hobbies like boating, golf etc.