Jujupilote wrote:
today, we the husbands would even think about leaving the family to spend the weekend at the club.
My experience exactly. With a 3-year old child, relatively long commute to the airfield, a job which restricts flying to weekends, and weather limitations, I am lucky if I can dedicate 2 days per month to flying. My hope is to take my son with me to the airfield when he’s a bit older, in a year or two or three. This should remove the (only to some extent self-induced) sense of guilt of leaving my wife alone with the kid while I’m having fun, and possibly increase my flying to 3-4 times per month. But now, she’s trying to talk me into having another child… The race is on :D
Peter wrote:
I think the Big Thing is that the people who were flying a lot in 2000 were in their 50s or older. Now we are 20 years down the road and they would be 70+. Nearly all of them will be formally retired, and most retired people have pretty limited funds.
In my experience this is the same all over. It’s the same for UL, experimental and certified. In the UL scene this is particularly visible, because most started 20-30+ years ago. UL had a big boom 20 years ago, and with few exceptions, it’s the same people today. Average age has increased almost one year per year, and this cannot for obvious reason, continue forever. There is a good deal of certified training, but less than 5% continue afterword doing any flying of any sort.
IMO the line you draw between people “going places” and people not “going places” is pure fiction. Some like to fly straight and level for hours, others don’t. Those that do, do it in all kinds of planes, and around here it’s mostly ULs or experimentals, simply because those planes gives most bang for the buck. My impression of stuff is like this:
)Then there is another small category of people with lots of money. They get whatever they want, and usually have 3-4 planes for different tasks.
Three guys here (in close vicinity) have ordered themselves a Shark UL each They will use them exclusively for travelling. All three of them could also have got themselves a very decent certified “touring machine” for that kind of money, but chose not to. One will get his next month I believe, the other two have to wait several months more. They are in super high demand, and the factory can only produce so many of them.
Myself I’m not a touring guy. I actually stopped flying altogether for a few years, partly because I had no fun flying straight and level to places I didn’t actually need to go to. I came back via UL in 2004-2005. Then Cub (a bit bushy flying), then glider towing an a Pawnee and so on, and has had a blast ever since. My niche is airsports, aerobatics and bush (as well as experimental building). However, I must confess I do feel the urge more and more for some “exploration type” journey requiring actual preparations and some balls. Flying to Iceland or something out of the ordinary (Oshkosh, Canada, Alaska is the ultimate, but the urge isn’t large enough perhaps, or the balls too small ) Flying to another airport, just like the one I came from, only to log into a hotel and have a beer, no way. Don’t get me wrong. I think touring is great, if you like that kind of flying. It’s not like I hate it, it’s more the lack of fun/purpose/challenge to me personally. I believe that more people are like me, and I think people stop flying because they simple haven’t discovered the fun parts of flying (which to some indeed is touring btw, like those Shark guys). This I believe is in large part due to:
LeSving wrote:
The training scene. Populated with young FIs straight out of a “sausage factory” with no GA experience whatsoever, focusing on “sausage factory” flying stuff instead showing what GA can be all about. It’s not fair to blame every FI here, but when the majority of those FIs won’t fly to any of the smaller fields in the vicinity, quoting “sausage factory safety aspects”, this speaks for itself. CRIs on the other hand is a very different bunch.
That’s very true. At my club, we make sure that any new FI actually understands what club flying is about and not expect students wear a uniform and follow airline-style SOPs.
The club scene in Europe equating activity with number of PPLs out the door each year.
The club scene being run in large part by people who is no longer actively participating or flying at all.
I’m not sure I agree with either of these statements. But it is indisputable that training is very important for a club, not just money-wise but to provide replacement for those members that leave – for whatever reason. Generally speaking in Sweden clubs with a flight school prosper while those without slowly wither away.
MedEwok wrote:
I can afford to spend 1000€/month on flying each month, which I think is a lot,
For what it’s worth, MedEwok, my budget is the same and I also think that’s a lot! I would not have my share in an aircraft had my (second) long-term partner already have her mortgage paid off (I moved in with her).
I find all this very topical for me because I am currently trying to decide what to do wrt flying. As some of you know, I lost my beloved TR182 in an accident earlier this year – otherwise the question wouldn’t arise, I’d just have carried on flying it until one of us got too old and worn out.
For sure Europe is very different from the US. In the US, there are loads and loads of privately owned planes. Walking round the ramp at Palo Alto, probably 80%+ are in this category. Some don’t fly much, but they’re there. In France, not so much. At Cannes Mandelieu there are probably 30-50 small privately owned planes (not counting bizjets and serious turboprops). And that’s a pretty wealthy area with a lot of people with time to fly.
I have my eye on a very interesting plane, but do I really want the commitment of ownership? I’m lucky, I can afford it – both the capital and the operating cost which I estimate as $20K/year (or euros or pounds) – if nothing goes badly wrong. Still, it’s a lot of hassle. Unlike the US, I can’t share my woes with fellow owners – because there aren’t any. Maintenance is a headache, differently depending on N or F, but still a headache.
But realistically, if I don’t buy a plane, I’ll probably stop flying. Aeroclubs are often painful to deal with, and I’d end up flying too little to feel confident and safe. So the choice is between (a) way too much plane and (b) way too little plane.
I kind of suspect, here in France (and not counting prospective professional pilots), people do a PPL as an “interesting thing to do”, they carry on flying club planes for a year or two, and then the interest fades away and they stop.
@johnh I feel similar. My thought is that it’s going to cost you the maintenance every year, but you’ll get the capital back. I don’t have any other (expensive) hobbies, so that helps justify it to myself.
I’ve considered buying a plane outright and then advertising for another one or two owners to try to tease them out of the woodwork – this might be an option if you can stomach the costs solo for a while. I’m in a wealthy area, so the co-owners probably exist, but of course my fear is: “what if they don’t?”
I’ve considered buying a plane outright and then advertising for another one or two owners to try to tease them out of the woodwork
I agree this is very tempting. The ideal setup would be a partnership of 3 or 4 like-minded pilots, who agree about everything. Fat chance, though. As we often discuss here, the kind of pilot who’d be interested in sharing a capable IFR tourer is incredibly rare in Europe (probably half of them are on this forum!). And what happens when A, who only does local VFR hops, doesn’t want to pay for a fancy new autopilot, say, while B, C and D all do?
my fear is: “what if they don’t?”
And an even bigger fear, what if they DO? And then after a few months you discover you don’t agree about anything, don’t really get on personally, or one of them does some serious damage and the plane is down for a year while it gets fixed.
johnh wrote:
And what happens when A, who only does local VFR hops, doesn’t want to pay for a fancy new autopilot, say, while B, C and D all do?
I’m in this, but not with an autopilot. You have 4 choices:
(1) B,C and D override A, and then everyone feels bad about it;
(2) nothing happens, and everyone feels bad about it;
(3) B, C, and D share the cost between them and everyone feels bad about it;
(4) A, B, C and D talk about it, pick one of the above 3, feel bad about it, talk about feelings (yuck), and then all feel they can live with the outcome.
We’re somewhere between 2 and 4 at the minute, but every time a bill comes in I imagine whether my feelings are worth multiplying the bill by 5. They aren’t, and then I feel better!
the operating cost which I estimate as $20K/year
On the plane I think you refer to, that would include a LOT of avgas.
On pitfalls – I’m very very happy in the current group. Good people, a nice aircraft, but of course we don’t all agree all the time!
