This slightly daft article in the UK Daily Trash got me wondering whether or how much of this is applicable to GA 
It seems an “established fact” that the more you tell your spouse about what can go wrong, the sooner she (or he) will stop flying with you
It’s not really headline news is it but I suppose most journalism is expanding minimal information into x number of words or column inches. It would be nice with some in-depth analysis rather than copy and re-word open source material. Almost as depressing as the comments underneath.
I quite often struggle to find grass airfields. The most useful bit of gps is not long distance navigation but the last 5 minutes when you know it should be under the nose but you just can’t see the runway
Night flying in built up areas can be difficult too, but the airport is usually the only dark bit. Turning the PCL off and on again helps, but might not make you very popular if someone is on short final
Too much information can be a bad thing. My explanation of VFR almost gave a passenger a phobia of clouds. I now definitely limit domestic discussion of my ‘learning experiences’: there’s nothing quite like having your own words quoted back to you.
Can you turn PCL off? I thought you could only turn it on, and it went off on a timer.
Being able to turn it off sounds open to pranksters (“Only kidding!”) or worse.
By mistake, I told someone that a PPL(SEP) means private pilot licenece for Single Piston Engines, he decided not to fly, later he told me that his commute bike has 4 pistons and was surprised that an airplane can fly with one piston only ???!!!
Lesson learned, never use acronyms, explain technical stuff or refer to concepts while in the air, a non aviation passenger would rather enjoy it if you speak about things happening outside the window (just keep the fun/stress for yourself)
I haven’t had any problem of that kind, especially not because of transparently explaining things.
Peter wrote:
It seems an “established fact” that the more you tell your spouse about what can go wrong, the sooner she (or he) will stop flying with you
That is certainly an issue when it comes to accidents, particularly if you knew the people involved. Our desire to find out what happened and to discuss accidents in quite some detail is not something I’d recommend doing with any non pilot, let alone your spouse unless she has proven the ability to see this kind of discussions as what they are: We want to know why our fellow pilot got into this situation so it won’t happen to us.
What may be the best thing to do in the case of an axious spouse is to have her attend a pinch hitter course or something like the “right seat ready” seminars that Jolie Lucas and Don Maxwell do in the US, involving them, teaching them how to operate the airplane hands on so flying gets more interesting for them.
What I have done from time to time is to take anxious passengers to a full flight simulator and let them try hands on what it is to fly a heavy jet. I took one young lady who was horribly afraid of flying into the fantastic Caravelle Simulator at Munich and got her to fly for an hour or so, it totally change her perception. She has since flown many times without fear and has flown in small airplanes including the Mooney with me and others.
Telling what can go wrong may be the wrong approach: Telling how things work and why you do them the way you do may be another. Clearly, questions like “what happens if this one engine quits” need to be addressed truthfully but down to earth (pun intended) and straightforward: We will land on the nearest flat surface which presents itself and the higher we fly the better chance we have finding one we like.
What gets people to fly with us is confidence. They need to feel that we are confident in what we do so they can be confident in trusting us to take care of them.
Our desire to find out what happened and to discuss accidents in quite some detail is not something I’d recommend doing with any non pilot, let alone your spouse unless she has proven the ability to see this kind of discussions as what they are: We want to know why our fellow pilot got into this situation so it won’t happen to us.
That’s the only reasonable approach to any accident. Otherwise anyone can be paranoid about any activity in today’s world, including walking on the pavement.
My wife used to get really scared by Traffic Service (Radar Information). Every time she heard a report of traffic at six miles she would get an anxiety attack.
The answer was to take her headphones away and have her sit facing backwards. She’s now happy as Larry.
Timothy wrote:
Every time she heard a report of traffic at six miles she would get an anxiety attack.
Still applies to me, I get disturbed by an “informative traffic” I can’t see, I prefer to know only about “danger traffic” but you can’t choose your own filter?
Alternatively, for a passenger, you can plug busy plug atc1 on com1, another busy atc2 on com2 and pilot aware on auxiliary audio and ask them to help with the lookout while you fly the aircraft?
(you will get same reactions if you bring along glider/grass-root pilots who used to enjoy silence/lookout in their cockpits 
)
Timothy wrote:
Can you turn PCL off?
Ibra wrote:
Single Piston Engines
Timothy wrote:
report of traffic at six miles
