If I want to go flying then I go flying, If I think of it I might call someone who is not a pilot and invite them along but if they accept they will invariably want to “have a go” which is fine and part of me relishes the opportunity to allow someone else to experience the pure joy of handling a Falco. However, the other part of me doesn’t want to give them a go because I am enjoying so much myself!
My co-owner and I do quite a lot of shared flying hut that is because we are both still learning the finer nuances of our rather complicated glass cockpit.
i hate cooking :-)
To my life all things I do are relevant, and my personality is the same, whatever i do. I did not mean to compare flying and music. it was just another example of something i like to do alone just aswell.
A friend jokes that the best part of flying his aerobatic single seater is the social experience 
I have often thought that one of the best parts of riding motorcycles on alpine trips with friends is that you’re in a group, having fun, but without having to talk continuously, only at stops and meals.
That said if I have somebody on the ground wishing for my company I’d rather we were flying together. Solo flying is great for focusing the mind, but its a lot more fun to have company when you get where you’re going. Its also fair to say that I’ve learned a tremendous amount in both left and right seats flying with people have been flying their whole lives. You can learn a lot even without discussion – just watch, see how things flow nicely, and learn!
Flying an SEP over rough areas, water, and close to mountains is something I’m not willing to do with an “innocent” pax, who cannot give informed consent to the risk.
With any pax, I’m inhibited by the fact that I’m banking their life on my judgement of where downdrafts will be. I fly differently with pax.
I’d prefer to fly with other people rather than alone, but it suits me if I go somewhere on my own in order to meet someone there (friends, family or work). I think it’s just like in real life, if you like company, then it’s better and if you like to be alone, then fine.
In my own oppinion, I prefer to fly with friends, even if they are not experienced pilots. Most of the work in a cockpit has to do with maps, paper, as well as the pilotage itself, and some friends, even non pilots, can handle a map, and do as they are told when it has to do with paper, and that is a huge help (I don’t fly with an iPad but I have some electronic aids, however I like to use the map instead of the eMap).
It’s also a lot better to fly with someone else so you can talk about it later. My last flight was on top of clouds, that’s my favorite place on earth (and it was only 1500ft above the ground) and it was a great thing to be able to share it with my passenger, even if it was his first time on a plane !
“Driving alone is a total waste”
“Walking alone is a total waste”
…
“Windsurfing alone is a total waste”
Really?
I love flying alone. It enables me to focus entirely on the flight. Nailing airspeeds, nailing altitudes, doing procedures timely and meticulously. Maintaining excellent situational awareness at all times. Whilst enjoying the ride.
Mind you, I fly mostly with paying passengers.
Family and friends a very welcome, distraction. (two adjectives). It’s great to offer people the enjoyment and thrill of a flight, but I admit it invariably ends up being just a little distracting too at times…. because you want to give them a good time, explain what they see etc. I love doing that nevertheless.
So, how about this: “Flying with friends or family is unsafe?”
I admit it invariably ends up being just a little distracting too at times…. because you want to give them a good time, explain what they see etc. I love doing that nevertheless.
Me too. I think its quite simple: If you’re unable to handle the responsibility of a flight with a passenger on board, you should still be flying on a student license that restricts you to solo flight. Of maybe flying solo to regain your 90 day currency, per legal requirement.
So, how about this: “Flying with friends or family is unsafe?”
Life is unsafe, and everybody on earth will die. Adults are exactly that, legally and otherwise, and if in my judgement its a safe flight and in their judgement its something they want to do, that’s good enough. Questioning the judgement of adults based on my somehow superior knowledge about what’s in their interest is arrogant, and I think symptomatic of a 21st century societal illness in which altogether too many people think they should meddle in managing others lives.
Even though GA is statistically less safe than CAT, typical GA pilots fly little enough that the marginal risk is perfectly acceptable.
Even the dreaded “SEP over water” thing has negligible effect on the marginal risk for a typical private pilot since the amount of over-water flying is small.
It would be a different thing if you were based on a small island with the airport situated so that every approach/departure was over water.
The thread title is obviously and purposefully polemic to heat the discussion.
Having said that, I did most of my post license receipt flying with passengers. Yes – I do enjoy that more! I enjoy the company, I enjoy sharing the experience, and I hope I can ignite enough enthusiasm in some to take up flying, too (getting close with some folks here…). I enjoy taking the 10th and n-th person up on a local sightseeing flight and pointing out the great sights in the local area more than flying alone. Probably, at the lower end of what makes up my psyche, it’s also about something more or less unique (within my reference group of people who do not fly) I can do. In social situations, I’m not usually the kind of person who needs to be in the center of attention, but there’s some enjoyment in being “in charge” for a wonderful experience for more or less close friends/acquaintances, for which you’d otherwise just be someone else they know. It’s probably also got to do with my lifestyle, I have a lot of “loose” friends, people I hang out with, meet for a beer and then you meet their friends too and it goes on… and invariably, in a group, someone is going to bring up the flying topic (to the extent that it sometimes annoys me – “You know my friend Patrick? He’s a pilot…” (I’m also a normal person and like to talk about normal things sometimes) and in most cases, someone will suggest to fly somewhere and I’ll always happily agree. So far, I still have a bunch of people who’d like to go to places but with whom I haven’t gotten around to it yet – that’s next to those close friends and family who like to come more often.
All in all, this got me to think about whether I fly with people TOO much – with respect to safety and taking time to practice maneuvers. I do it, of course. I fly alone, I do circuits, I go out and fly steep turns, slow flight, stall recoveries – but in relation to the passenger carrying “going places” or “sightseeing” (i.e. “enjoyment”) flights, it’s marginal.
On another forum (and I hope Peter doesn’t mind me posting the link here, though the other way around, it would be deleted by mods in the blink of an eye), there was a post arguing passionately that EVERY trip should be about identifying and fixing any holes in your currency (using an elaborate spreadsheet to account for that) in the sake of being the safest possible pilot. This sounds extremely reasonable to me, but also dampens the enjoyment of flying (like avoiding mountains, water, or flying altogether… much safer!).
I also enjoy flying with other pilots. It has been a great experience so far and I haven’t met the whiners yet. Still, Jan…
I am willing to take comments, and learn from them, but then from qualified pilots or instructors, not from a chap I saw touching down in the last three quarters of the runway last weekend.
Disagree. Isn’t that a fallacy of the ad hominem type to dismiss an argument on the grounds of the person making the argument? (In contrast to the argumentum ab auctoritate to advocate an argument on the basis of authority (e.g. of a qualified pilot or instructor) regardless of it’s factual validity). Sorry – * annoying know-it-all mode off *.
In the first year after getting my licence, I took along quite a lot of friends and family members for a flight. The sensation of “oh, how exciting” quickly wore off for them, however I’m absolutely sure this wasn’t due to my way of flying 
…
By now, I do about 70 percent of my flights alone. That’s partly because I have little time and find it hard to plan ahead, partly because my wife only comes along to “interesting” destinations, and partly because owning my own aircraft has limited the points of contact with other local pilots. Most of them are of the “30 minutes coffee run type” anyways, so our flying profiles are quite different.
What I really enjoy are the occasional flights with an examiner-turned-friend. There’s a vast amount of things to be learned from a more knowledgeable and experienced “co-pilot”.
