boscomantico wrote:
Again, people never ask themselves when they get their PPL how they will keep interested
My experience is that a significant portion of students either never even ask themselves why they want to get a PPL in the first place, or get lured into it by false promises and overly optimistic assumptions about the possibilities of using GA aircraft for their family weekend- or vacation getaways.
For all practical purposes, most of the cool things people dream about when becoming private pilots require airplane ownership. Of course you can do the odd once-or-twice-a-year multi-day-trip with a club or rental aircraft, but then, in addition to that, one needs to do a lot of “bimbling around” to maintain proficiency and during that you will run into the same boredom issues you are describing.
Then our poor student or newly-minted private pilot realizes that the 172s and Warriors he is familiar with won’t do the job and that a suitable airplane will cost him 100k€+ to buy and a mid five-digit figure to operate per year. This is acessible only to a fraction of those who have saved up 10k€ for their life-long dream of getting a PPL. And buying and managing an airplane is not like buying a used Porsche and putting it into a garage for sunny weekends – it requires significant technical immersion and a lot of spare time on top of the flying itself.
And now we have not even talked about the limited enthusiasm of many significant others and kids for regular backseating on GA trips – “the journey is the reward” is mostly only true for the pilot himself.
I can think of quite a few forum contributors who fly regularly in four seater aircraft that can be bought in a syndicate of three or four and run on a reasonable flying budget (5-10 AMUs -aviation monetary units per annum per syndicate member and flying 200 hours plus for the group). Cherokee 150/180, Traveller/Tiger, 172 and Rallye’s all come to mind. Yes they are not suitable to pop down to Ibiza for the weekend, but they provide reasonable VFR utility and are relatively simple to maintain.
These types are robust and can be found in reasonable condition from 20-35 AMUs.
All very true Tobias.
A beginner’s ideas and reality are often quite far apart.
Still, Leonard does seem to have a family that is interested in flying and he does seem to be disposed to buy something after getting his PPL, so I think the basic conditions are met for a succesful continuation of his flying after the PPL is obtained.
RobertL18C wrote:
Cherokee 150/180, Traveller/Tiger, 172 and Rallye’s all come to mind
Robert, I fully agree that a whole range of very rewarding GA flying exists between renting a 152 and owning a FIKI-Cirrus. And just to make it clear: What I wrote is not my personal mindset, but rather an attempt at explaining the dropout rate of students and low-time PPL holders based on what I see in my environment.
Perhaps the family part is the most significant one, albeit people tend not to admit this publicly – none of the planes you mention carries a family of four and even minimal luggage.
My experience is that a significant portion of students either never even ask themselves why they want to get a PPL in the first place, or get lured into it by false promises and overly optimistic assumptions about the possibilities of using GA aircraft for their family weekend- or vacation getaways.
That has always been the case… We have had many past threads e.g. here and here
One has to think about the whole thing and try to structure one’s flying to make each flight deliver some “value”. The “value” will be different to different people but it needs to be there. I have been flying for 17 years and still think about this stuff. And what delivered value at the beginning is different to what delivers value today.
none of the planes you mention carries a family of four and even minimal luggage.
Very few 4-seaters will carry 4 people and much useful fuel, without operating them some 10-20% over max weight, which is illegal but “works” with a long runway and a clever pilot and is widely done on e.g. the PA28 scene.
tschnell wrote:
And buying and managing an airplane is not like buying a used Porsche and putting it into a garage for sunny weekends – it requires significant technical immersion and a lot of spare time on top of the flying itself.
It can, and should be exactly like buying a Porsche and putting it into a garage for sunny weekends. An experimental or microlight is exactly like that. An old Cub or similar is also very much like that. If you cannot do everything yourself, you can always find someone with the same spirit to help you. there’s also lots of things you can do for free. Towing gliders, becoming a part of a SAR team, flying parajumpers. Then there are competitions in all parts of flying. IMO, if you are genuinely interested in flying and aircraft, then you will always find a way, one way or the other. Lots of people around the world build experimentals, and sell them later for instance.
Problems only begin if you are not really into it, but only have vague “dreams” of holiday trips with your core family. The main problem with that, is the price for those trips will be insane, and your wife and kids would much rather spend that time and money on a nice beach, in a nice hotel, or a nice cruise ship, or just about anything else.
Recreational flying is deep down a dream of freedom, to fly like a bird. The fascination of everything flying, and the fascination doing the act of flying, also the fascination of building an aircraft from small pieces with your own hands and flying it later. That’s the Spirit of Aviation. Nowhere is that spirit represented better than at the EEA. If you manage to cut all the crap like “mission profile”, “dispatch rate”, “utility value” etc. Things that are only of importance for commercial operators, then you will be a happy recreational pilot.
If you manage to cut all the crap like “mission profile”, “dispatch rate”, “utility value” etc. Things that are only of importance for commercial operators, then you will be a happy recreational pilot.
Mission profile = the sort of flying being done (short, long, aerobatics, etc)
Dispatch rate = out of the flights you wanted to do, what % were you able to do (usually limited by weather or the plane being broken)
Utility value = the value of the plane for getting from A to B for a purpose other than just flying
The above applicable to commercial operators only???
The experimental/homebuilt community is a part of GA but to present it as the Great Solution is equivalent to claiming that everybody loves lying under their 1972 MGB GT all weekend, changing the gearbox. Sure that is a big part of the vintage car scene, too. But it will do as much for your marriage as owning a homebuilt, especially one you bought from somebody else (and I am not going to post real stories I know because I can’t, but way above 50% are really scary).
Peter wrote:
One has to think about the whole thing and try to structure one’s flying to make each flight deliver some “value”. The “value” will be different to different people but it needs to be there. I have been flying for 17 years and still think about this stuff
Absolutely correct. But it helps a lot when a wide variety of aviation aspects appeal to you – and my observation is that most of the people starting a PPL are mostly into the “looking out of the window” part (gets boring rather quickly) and the “going places” part (doesn’t work the way they imagined or were being told). Such people are all over PPL clubs and schools. The topics on EuroGA might suggest they are in the minority, but then these people do not tend to find their way here – because they find all these discussions rather boring.
LeSving wrote:
It can, and should be exactly like buying a Porsche and putting it into a garage for sunny weekends. An experimental or microlight is exactly like that. An old Cub or similar is also very much like that.
It is not – and whether it “should be” doesn’t matter as long as it isn’t. See, I drive my car about 500 hrs. per year. In the past three years (1500 hrs.) it has required absolutely zero unscheduled maintenance, and for scheduled maintenance the dealer picks up the car at my workplace and delivers it back in the evening. Try that with any airplane… We can complain all day long that this is not the way aviation works and that people should pony up with this, but IMHO as long as this does not change substatially, we are not getting the Porsche (or the Harley) crowd into flying.
LeSving wrote:
Recreational flying is deep down a dream of freedom, to fly like a bird
Well, not for me at least. This would definitely not have kept me in flying for 25 years…
@tschnell
I simply don’t agree that 172/Warrior class aircraft are not suited for long international VFR flying. Shortly after getting my ticket, I flew a rented 172 from North Germany to Urbe (Rome) via the Rhone Valley. I hadn’t a clue what I was doing, but ATC was quite decent to me along the way. I should write up that trip.
I made multiple such trips later (granted, usually summer), but it is possible to travel long distance in a plane that will cost you 20-35 k EUR to buy and about 1-1.5 K/month to operate (100 hours/year) include fuel, hangar and annuals in Europe. I know because I’m doing it now. That’s not cheap, but it is doable for many professionals if they want it.
I agree that PPLs often have fantasies about what they will do with a ticket. I also agree that it’s tough to get real utility without ownership (a 2-3 person syndicate could be the solution here). But there are ways to do it if you are careful and figure out how to buy a plane in good shape.
WhiskeyPapa wrote:
I simply don’t agree that 172/Warrior class aircraft are not suited for long international VFR flying.
That is not what I said. Of course they are – BTDT and always had a blast. But these are trips you and I are making for the sake of the flight, not as a substitute for airline or any other mode of transportation (which newbies invariably have in mind). Also: How many non-pilot-pax are you taking on such trips and how often do they say afterwards “hey, let’s do this again next month”?
