Or should that be "empathy"?.... I wonder if there is a relationship between aircraft mechanical problems and longevity and their owner/operator's "mechanical sympathy". I suppose this means more than being gentle on throttle movement and would require a reasonably good understanding of the systems and how they should be treated....this is not something that people these days are exposed to in other walks of life - no one tunes their own car engines or even fixes a lawn mower much anymore....growing up on a farm in the wheat-belt in Western Australia I learned from a young age the ins and outs of machinery and engines and the like and how they should be treated and how to pull things apart and reassemble them....I learned a lot....from really basic things like how to start a nut on a bolt, how not to over-tighten, how a crescent wrench (adjustable wrench) should only be used as an absolute last resort etc... It seems that anyone can buy an aircraft, but successful operation must require a few of the basic skills....how do the non mechanically sympathetic folk fare?
how a crescent wrench (adjustable wrench) should only be used as an absolute last resort
The German word for a crescent wrench is "Engländer" (Englishman).
Which probably means that only Englishmen use such tools 
A variant of that tool is called a Franzose (Frenchman) in German.
Some people like spending their time working on oily machines, others don't. What really matters is your understanding of the systems. Remember the SR22 pilot that killed himself and a passenger in Zurich simply because he had no clue about the Cirrus electrical system?
When I had my first car, a Mercedes-Benz 190D I would spend a lot of time working on it. Now my car is a computer on wheels, everything encapsulated, nothing I can do besides changing tyres and doing an oil change (the latter only every 3-5 years!). How boring. That's why I love my Cessna, it's 1940s technology, everything typical American engineering -- big, solid and very little precision. A dream for hobbyists.
How interesting...generally people in the UK don't know what I mean if I say Crescent...but is an American invention, not English! Unless they mean a "Stilson" (pipe wrench) which was made by an English company...although it too was an American invention
Being well connected to physical reality is still a good thing... Some might even argue that widespread lack of it is a problem today.
Aircraft are designed to be very fault tolerant, so I think the ham fisted and disconnected have less problems that they might with other devices. On the other, one of the reasons my old motorcycle in Europe cost me about a weeks pay is that the previous owner was stranded by it quite a number of times... Since 2006 and over many 10s of thousands of miles its brought me back every time. I'm in tune with it as I think you need to be.
This reminds me of something.
I bought my aircraft from a guy who's owned it since the 80s and gave up flying age 63. The aircraft did not have an intercom and when I asked him how one could fly it without headsets he said that he'd never fly with a headset because he needs to listen to the engine and a headset would prevent that. Only a direct connection with the engine would allow him to feel how it is doing and configure it correctly.
Obviously, he's got hearing problems.
Well I own a Mercedes garage so I'd really be in the Sugar Honey Ice Tea if I didn't know how to handle a spanner! AnthonyQ: I spent a very enjoyable seeding season in Beacon in WA. There was an occasion where the tractor I was driving broke down due to a failed injector line. The farmer I worked for drove to Geraldton to get a new line and at 0800 the next morning his brother in law (co-owner of the farm who thought that he was king dick) turned up to attend to the break down just as I fired her up having already made the repair. He was most put out!
I'd say this relationship definitely exists, and not only in mechanical systems but also in electronics, software, or almost anything else. For example, computers serve me at least twice as long as they do in the hands of less technical folks in my vicinity. By the way, this ability to "feel" the machine also gives you the knowledge what undocumented (or officially disallowed) things you CAN safely do to circumvent a sudden problem. Many years ago I drove a very old and tired ex-military 4x4. When a clutch fork broke, it took me two weeks to find a replacement, but I just kept driving without using the clutch - the engine would happily start with the first gear engaged, and any further gear changes were just a matter of timing your hand and foot movements properly,
the engine would happily start with the first gear engaged
I used to do that in my Ford XR3i (boy racer, 1983)
Since 2006 and over many 10s of thousands of miles its brought me back every time. I'm in tune with it as I think you need to be
That is normally the case with a motorbike, isn't it? One is at one with the machine. Whereas in a car one can just go to sleep... Bikers get really cheesed off with car drivers who are evidently asleep. I did 100k miles on 2 wheels, but would not do it today due to the number of people on the roads who should not have a car at all.
I am absolutely sure such a connection exists. Haven't you flown (driven) with people who seem to have no feeling whatsoever for machines? And cars can take much more abuse today than airplanes can. Look at the enormous figure of SR22 engines that are beeing destroyed by their inexperienced (but rich) owners. More or less that's a pretty reliable engine that very often reaches TBO in the hand of experienced pilots. And that's only one example.
For some time I rented out my Warrior, but when I realized after three of four months how much the aircraft had suffered I stopped it. It was really CHEAPER to pay for all costs myself in the end than to constantly repair the damage ...
An adjustable spanner in Swedish is a whift nookel (phonetic spelling). I can also say in German, "my birthday is opposite the station". Not found a use for it yet strangely enough. Boy, we British are great at "foreign languages" arnt we???
