How do you find passengers?

On the other hand passengers tend to pay for the experience if they want to do it and if you offer them a good deal. A sightseeing flight of 1 hour with me would cost them 3 to 4 times less than the same with the local club which makes the flight for profit after paying the pilot.

Yes, but how many people willing to pay for sightseeing flights are really out there? And apart from that, I don’t want to eat the (meager?) lunch of those clubs/companies that offer the flights. I am just a happy private pilot who gladly shares his passion with people who may be interested, but I’m not “marketing” my flying.

pilots don’t want to pay unless they fly and can log their hours which would be mostly when they organize the flight and you go along.

If you ever come my way with the Seneca, I will be very happy to cost-share with you ! I need to make some use of that twin rating anyway …

How do you understand that in the case of flying with another pilot? My thoughts: the airplane is rented, i.e. you cannot officially pilot it and you cannot log any times but you can fly it if the fellow pilot (PIC) trusts you. However in that case you can fly it with or without a twin rating.

I think you are right, although in the past (prior to JAR-FCL?) things have been different at least in Austria. Wether logging the hours or not, I gladly take the opportunity to fly a twin, as I consider renting this aircraft just for myself horrendously expensive.

Passengers are a sore subject for most pilots, particularly new ones.

Most people are simply scared of flying. The more they know you, the less they trust you. Co-workers must have seen you blunder in something or the other and will remember every time you did something wrong as a reason against it. I’ve seen even cases where bosses forbade their employees to fly with their fellow employee “because he could afford to loose one in a plane crash but not 2 or 3”.

When I restarted flying I did not expect anyone to join me other than my wife, which she did. Other than that, I have flown with some pilot friends and with one or two non pilots who knew me from the flight simulation business and therefore had seen me operate much larger (simulated) airplanes regularly and were without any doubt that I could manage this one. Co workers, so far two have flown with me, both came away raving to the rest.

Fact is, most people regard small airplanes as death traps, particularly after reading in the papers about incidents and accidents. While fatal car accidents will usually be mentioned in two liners without pics, airplane crashes will get front page cover with vivid details.

My conclusion has been that I will fly for myself and if at all my wife. If someone wants to fly with me, he is welcome to, but I won’t actively look.

I think that simply some poeple like flying and some don’t. I once went out (briefly) with a girl, about 30, who nearly freaked out at the sight of a GA aircraft. Obviously she was a Grade A bunny boiler (serious psychological issues) but there many levels of madness within the Homo Sapiens species… Most people like the odd flight on a perfect day around the Isle of Wight (and you should pick a perfect day for that). Very few like doing long trips, even if the destination is really great.

I also think that the GA scene does itself no favours. Just look around the average airfield and what do you see? How many of you pilots would climb into a certain % of what you see?

Been a while since I went out with a Grade A Bunny boiler. We all have the Tom Cruise vision of aviation. Hair blowing in the wind, blue sky’s, daring do’s, hopefully you get the picture. Reality is somewhat different. A porta-cabin filled with library types in Rohan, drinking mugs of tea, rain pissing down, hands dirty with oil, talking utter drivel. My wife, unless it is the Signature Business Aviation Centre, wont go near the plane. She has lived the former, and is starting to class me in that genre….Please, hopefully no one is offended, but all too often that is the picture. It is even threatening to existing experienced pilotsPeter wrote:

I also think that the GA scene does itself no favours.

And maybe this is the decline issue. Not the planes, not the sport, the image….

IMHO the image is a huge factor. Peoples’ expectations have risen a lot over the last few decades.

Peter wrote:

Then your “market” is reduced by 50% because if you are say a guy and married or in a relationship, you can’t keep flying with a woman without eventually p1ssing off yours. More than 50% actually, because there are statistically more women who have free time during the day…

So true and I have faced this !

In general I have found friends who have gone before up with other pilots flying rental dirty, stinking, still with 60’s or 70’s equipment, aircraft and do not seem to have had a good time. I for one if I weren’t a pilot and just an aviation fan I would be demotivated by the average flying club aircraft nowadays of 40 year old fleet.
This and their (non) availability for rental and return time when you want to was the prime reason for purchasing a TB20 with another 2 friends in 2004.

Also the average person as stated above does indeed consider light GA, especially single engine, a deathtrap. This you cannot fight. Its their instinct.

boscomantico wrote:

As pilots (and thus passenger haulers) it is also our job to make it is comfortable as possible.

VERY true. I have found that we as pilots have a tendency to disregard this issue because we are so accustomed to “rough” flying tought during our training days and experiences later in flying. Steep turns, bumps from wind turbulence, sudden turns, rough landings, scorching heat at aprons while waiting and the list goes on.

In my early PPL days I got the chance to fly positioning flights (no PAX) with a Seneca belonging to a friend’s Air Taxi company.
I was doing the flying but not logging it (commercial flight) and he was next to me watching closely.
The MOST valuable thing from these flights was things he tought me like NEVER to do nervous turns or pitch changes, never to act trigger happy in the cockpit because the “vibe” is simply transfered to the passengers and in general not to talk a lot ! Look cool. The last was about never to look back towards the cabin, unless needed, for PAX privacy reasons but thats irrelevant to GA. In general he tought me exactly what @boscomantico wrote, to make them feel comfortable and that is a totally different kind flying and attitude inside the aircraft that is never tought in pilot training courses. (correct me if I’m wrong, humble PPL IFR here.)

Back to the subject.

I find it hard to get people to fly along for the reasons Peter wrote. Especially family people are too engaged in obligations and commitments.
Most of my coflyers are pilot friends who are not flying often and simply like to come along for the 100 Euro coffee.
I never ask for money but do inform them (most know anyway) what it costs me.
50% contribute voluntarily since when they ask me I simply answer them “you are not here to pay, you are for the company, but if you wish to, by all means do”.

Hence when I fly just for the flying part, the getaway in the sky, half of my flights will be alone. It does cost but it pays back subjectively when this becomes my “fix” for the bad week which just passed or is coming up.

I have a steady group of 5~6 friends (4 pilots , 2 stopped PPL halfway) who I inform with a message few days before or the night before (the later you inform the more reliable it is actually for a NO to remain NO and a YES to indeed be a YES). Sometimes it works sometimes not. I always do the flight though because this is MY thing and nobody else’s.

Being a married father of two does not help. Peter covered me in most aspects on this front.

When my wife became afraid of flying few years ago on a bumpy ride, that was a matter of bad lack and not bad vertical navigation planning ahead, she simply seized any flying activity with me and hence I have lost my right seater (never was a copilot!) for what was 50% of my flights. For the same reason she is not happy me flying with both son and daughter on board and I simply respect that since when flying I want to have a clear mind. One of the kids will come along but I don’t provoke it; it happens maybe once or twice a year.

So to conclude, I believe we should fly for the cause or the mission or whatever initially drives it and not to rely or being hopeful that we will often have PAX (sharing cost or social companion, or safety copilot) on board. This is a totally unstable and unreliable factor. You know what it will cost you, you take the “worst case” scenario for granted and if for some reason you find a partner its just a bonus, not the norm, not even a average chance. That’s how I see it.

If we need to go somewhere my wife will come, in the back and only in something with 2 engines and kerosene fuelled. She doesn’t like flying for it’s own sake, she enjoys the destination. Having said that she loves to see a Spitfire, Eurofighter/Typhoon or the mighty Vulcan!

She has been with me in an SEP, but isn’t really interested and I don’t want to push it. As a contrast, enthusiasm has been shown for a ride in a Tiger Moth with me, and that will happen some time soon.