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Finding Time for Flying

This guy does it

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7oNZs4C_9GcJpZo7cBlc9Q

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7oNZs4C_9GcJpZo7cBlc9Q

Also possible in europe just takes more €€€.

Last Edited by Snoopy at 06 Sep 11:30
always learning
LO__, Austria

LeSving wrote:

People make up all kinds of excuses for why they “need” this or that, especially after they have got it, be it an UL or a SR22. OK, you have this nice and shiny Cirrus or a super hitech BW 600 RG You tell your wife that in case you get a heart attack, just pull this lever. What exactly is she going to think? She will start thinking about you getting an heart attack, and why you start talking about that while flying and not while driving. Is piloting an aircraft so stressful that you consider heart attack a likely scenario? etc etc. The whole concept is nonsense IMO.

Nope. Because this is not the way it usually works. Cirrus has become the only successful brand in SEP’s exactly because of the fact that many prospective buyers of an SEP get confronted with a brutal and clear “NO” by their spouses, which in many cases get into a “maybe” once they are told of the shute and eventual acceptance once they have a look at the interior and so on..

Heart attacks have preciously little to do with it unless of course they were recently exposed to someone who had one. Most relatives of heart attack victims get taken totally by shock and awe once it happens and never previously thought about it. They do think and read of light airplane crashes though. In my experience it is rather the idea that the guy who hit his thumb with a hammer or not being able to correctly fold the washing e.t.c trying to hang up a picture is trying to fly an airplane! The more confidence in the prospective pilot’s abilities, the less would a shute matter. It’s a simply psychological thing, flying for most people is scary, it’s a loss of control and therefore the need to trust a single person literally with your life. And many people are not good at that at all. Hence, the idea that there is that big lever which gets you home for free (and wrecks the darn airplane in the process) is a huge thing.

Whether Cirrus planned it that way or whether once they committed to the design with shute found out that they just had launched the publicity coup of the century of flight may remain open to long and futile discussion, the result can be seen in their sales figures.

Whereas UL’s are concerned, a lot of them are flimsy enough contraptions that preciously few pilots will sit in one which does not have a shute. Non-aviation people can’t tell that in many cases though, many of those airplanes look a darn sight better and more modern than legacy airplanes despite the fact that they have a lot less to offer in terms of safety and structural integrity.

Last Edited by Mooney_Driver at 06 Sep 13:25
LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Snoopy wrote:

Also possible in europe just takes more €€€.

LMGTFY:


On a smaller budget, for example EPKL (there is a PC12 based there, to the best of my knowledge):



Unfortunately those “registered non-certified airfields” in Poland don’t make it into the AIP; feel free to waste some time perusing https://lotniska.dlapilota.pl/ if you’re so inclined.

tmo
EPKP - Kraków, Poland

@tmo
The €€€ would be for flying a cherokee 6 in europe (avionics upgrade, interior etc… + landing/handling fees and double the fuel price).

A PC12 would be €€€€€€€€ more ;)

always learning
LO__, Austria

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Cirrus has become the only successful brand in SEP’s exactly because of the fact that many prospective buyers of an SEP get confronted with a brutal and clear “NO” by their spouses, which in many cases get into a “maybe” once they are told of the shute and eventual acceptance once they have a look at the interior and so on..

Just fairy tales IMO. Any facts to back that up?

There are always exceptions from the “norm”, but the exceptions doesn’t make the norm wrong.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

S57, seems to me the most important thing you need to do is get your wife to be comfortable to flying with you. This will solve a lot of the issues.

You could try various things:

  • have your wife fly with a really good instructor
  • then have the instructor join you and your wife for a flight or two
  • have your wife do a “Partner in Command course”, which teaches how to land a plane in an emergency
  • promise that you will take her on a flying holiday somewhere really cool and romantic together once she is ready – somewhere like Venice Lido airport for example!!

My wife has always been willing to fly with me, and we make lots of trips together each year and she even encouraged me to move to the country to a house with its own strip. So I am super lucky. But I didnt even start getting my PPL until I was in my mid 40s.

Upper Harford private strip UK, near EGBJ, United Kingdom

I tried learning to fly when I was out of university. My first job didn’t allow me to do it, neither enough money, nor enough time.

I gave it up, until later, many years passed, including those with kids where time is too sparse to even think about flying or spending time in the air. If didn’t even play golf anymore.

But, then, a couple years ago, I restarted the project again after I got smitten by a flight with a friend over the alps – PPL(A), half of a Bonanza, then IFR. I now use it regularly. My wife doesn’t like it but my Kids do, my friends do, and I do have excuses for using the plane. Such as flying my daughter from one university application interview from a western part of Germany to Vienna in the evening to be in time for the test there the next day. Kids are old enough, wife doesn’t like it, but to be honest – I don’t want to lie there one day, shortly before the last breath, and say to myself, ah hell, if I only I had..

So it does sort of balance itself, somehow. And the flight over the alps yesterday I wouldn’t want to miss in a thousand years.

Last Edited by EuroFlyer at 06 Sep 15:51
Safe landings !
EDLN, Germany

This thread should be called “Finding Money for Flying”.

Buckerfan wrote:

promise that you will take her on a flying holiday somewhere really cool and romantic together once she is ready – somewhere like Venice Lido airport for example!!

Or somewhere one wouldn’t go by CAT. Or hopping from nice place to nice place, small aerodrome to small aerodrome.

LeSving wrote:

The only way you are going to calm your spouses nerves, is to convince her up front that you and the plane are in top shape, and that you have 100% control of the plane no matter what happens, firmly on top of the situation

I don’t completely agree, but also don’t completely disagree. My method, which works well for me and my social surroundings, is to be honest and explain things in simple yet accurate terms. Yes, stuff “can” happen. It rarely does, and I know what to do if it does; I’m specifically trained for it. I freely discuss what to do in what scenario. I constantly explain what I do; if they are interested, they listen. If not, then that’s just my checklist, my theory revision and my continuous education, in a somewhat more chatty form. E.g. my pre-takeoff safety briefing is made in terms they understand: any non-normal behaviour or alarm light (I point at their location) on the ground, I’ll have sufficient runway length left, so I won’t takeoff, I’ll cut engine power, break and exit the runway by the next intersection (when alone or with a pilot, that’s “any malfunction on the ground, retard throttle, break, inform ATC” but that’s not palatable to a non-pilot). Any malfunction after liftoff, if I have sufficient runway left and the gear is still down (point at the lever), I’ll land back on the runway; first action is push the yoke. Anything minor after liftoff (such as having forgotten to close the door), today no low clouds, so I’ll just do a visual circuit around the airport and land back. Anything major after liftoff, I will land on a possible location within about a 30° turn; here in Luxembourg on runway 24, the best locations are rather on the left,where we have grass rather than buildings. You will open the door on your side while we are still in the air, so that it doesn’t get stuck in a rough landing. After the landing is assured, gear is down and flaps fully deployed, I cut the electrics (point at the master switch), cut the fuel (point at mixture and fuel cut-off). After the plane is fully immobilised, we each take the child sitting behind us, and scamper away from the plane. If the door is stuck, use the other one; if both are, open the window and kick it out. We regroup making a wide arc to keep a lot of distance between the plane and ourselves. Tower will have seen us go down, and where we went, so help will arrive quite fast.

E.g. I explain that engines stop, but rarely. Just like a car engine. But that a plane with its engine off is just a glider, and I will glide to a chosen place. When travelling, I explain I fly high, so bigger gliding range, so usually that will be an airport. When on a low level “look at the scenery” bimble, I point out the vast emptiness and the many fields, without getting into details on which ones are more adequate than others. Compared to the time my car engine stopped in the middle of the autobahn, with cars zooming past me left and right, the situation is frankly far more manageable.

There is no way I can convince my passenger that the ratty, smelly, noisy, creaky, visibly old and damaged interior, club aeroplane is in “top shape”. But I explain that the important stuff is maintained properly: engine, gear, wing attachments, etc. The interior is old and damaged to save money… Yes, the second nav radio may not work, but we still have one, plus we have GPS plus my iPad has a GPS. I show them that I inspect the whole aircraft before starting; I audibly call out my checks (checklist) once in the cockpit, and time permitting explain them.

I actively explain, before the approach, to a first-time passenger that if I’m not happy with an approach (due to wind gust, due to having applied the “long wide runway” technique to a short narrow one, …), I will add power, climb away from the ground and fly a rectangle circuit back to a new approach. That this is the safe thing to do. In this way, even the passengers whose first question entering the plane was “where is the parachute”, forget to be scared when I do go around.

I point out the glide range ring when crossing the channel, and how it never really stops intersecting ground. The first time it gets a somewhat worried “why do you mention that now”, but I explain that it is just part of my planning. My “before flight” planning, and the reason we are not already wearing life vests. My “continuous planning” that I’ve been taught to always have my plan prepared, and that at each moment I know, taking into account the wind, whether I will glide back to Great Britain or glide forward to Belgium, turning slightly right to take the closest point of the coast, and the airport of Koksijde (or somewhat later, Oostend), or a beach.

My life partner from back when we started the PPL? She loved the idea. That was luck. The others, they just self-select. My blood family (that is, the people in my life I didn’t choose), either they are OK with it and fly with me, or they don’t fly with me (and we still meet during family events). Dates and friends, well, when I go fly, either they want to come, or they don’t. If they want to come, they spend more time with me. Those that do are not faint of heart. That is somewhat luck and somewhat self-selection. I’ve had various “stuff happen” with various passengers. Green gear lamp not on, accidental flap deployment (my hand brushed the control while turning the cabin heat on…), icing-induced loss of airspeed display, … My mother stayed calm all the way through a mayday, hearing ATC indicate me the closest aerodrome. I had a generator failure (alone), but I freely talk about it, and about the many, many options I had: one hour in the battery everything on (even more when turning non-essential equipment off), the engine works without electricity (as long as there is fuel), I can land on any aerodrome using my portable radio, or even non-radio. It is an event, but I still had the luxury to fly back to my homebase instead of rushing to the nearest aerodrome, which was just under my right wing.

Those that fly “a lot” with me learn that as long as I wonder out loud what is wrong (like in “waa? how short is this runway?”), or am visibly annoyed (like in “crappity crap, they were supposed to have frobotzed the quux”), it means it is, safety-wise, small stuff. When they see me very silently inspecting lots of stuff, they know I’m actually considering serious stuff (but it can still be minor in the end… like an accidental flap deployment…).

ELLX

lionel wrote:

The only way you are going to calm your spouses nerves, is to convince her up front that you and the plane are in top shape, and that you have 100% control of the plane no matter what happens, firmly on top of the situation

I don’t completely agree, but also don’t completely disagree. My method, which works well for me and my social surroundings, is to be honest and explain things in simple yet accurate terms. Yes, stuff “can” happen. It rarely does, and I know what to do if it does; I’m specifically trained for it.

I agree with that part, and I’d keep it at that. If a passenger asks questions, answer them positively and honestly, but with no more detail than is needed to provide an honest answer. I don’t go overboard to explain the details, it could seem like I’m trying to defend something that even I don’t believe. The reams of detail for emergencies should be in your mind, not your passenger’s – unless they ask in detail.

If your significant other chooses not to fly, or conditionally, that’s okay. Respect their preference, and make them know you’re okay with their preference. A significant other is more important than going for a flight.

My wife flew with me on our earliest dates, and through 25 years of being together, crossing the continent with me three times. But her interest in flying has certainly declined. She’ll still go along for a short flight for lunch, but not in my flying boat. After my student crashed me in his, she decided that she’d rather not be landing on the water anymore. I’m fine with her choice, as she’s more important to me than flying, and she’s still okay with me landing on the water.

learn to read your passengers, rather than read to them…. Some things are more important than going flying.

Home runway, in central Ontario, Canada, Canada
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