Flyer59 wrote:
Of course a beginner can start flying in an SR22. It is a typical european attitude that this is a problem.Hundreds of US pilots have learned to fly in a SR22.
Oh sorry, that isn’t the crowd I was refering to. I had those people in mind who don’t fly for 22 Months and then do all their flying within two weeks to keep their license current, and then pause for another 22 Months. Let’s call them infrequent flyers. (I think I should have said so… )
Although I haven’t flown an SR22, it is a 170 kts aircraft and many of the people I thought of have just a 100 kts brain. They are fine with a C172 or PA28, because they are that easy to handle. Plus, I think many people of these kind are easily intimidated by anything faster than a C172.
Subjective observation, though.
If you want to fly 100 kts in the SR22 you simply pull back that black lever on the center console. Ok, you have to pull it WAY back :-)
Of course people who only ever flew 172s, Warriors and 150s will first have a problem in the SR22. But it’s really no rocket science, a week of training and the average pilot can fly it. When i first brought it home i was 2000 feet too high when i approached the pattern and arrived there at 190 kts in the descent … but if you learn to plan your descents, which nobody does in a Warrior, your problems are quickly over.
When I took some old and experienced guys from my club for a ride in the SR22 they later all asked about “how i learned to handle such a complicated machine so fast” … but I think that’s ridiculous. If you want to learn it and have some interest for the technology (glass cockpit) then it is really not hard. I bought the plane just because of that, to learn new stuff.
The “problem” is that most pilots are really not very ambitious, probably like most nonpilots too :-)) I am really not the greatest of all pilots. And definitely more careful than most, but after boscomantico taught me to fly it for two days i could safely bring it home.
But, yes: the “infrequent flyers” as you call them, should stay away from it.
One could train ab initio in anything, right up to the Lunar Module, but as the systems complexity goes up, the % of people who get to the end reduces.
I heard from a military pilot that some countries’ air forces are skipping the SEP stage (a “waste of time”) and going straight to turboprops. But then most air forces chuck out nearly everybody long before they reach that stage. The UK RAF used to advertise that they chuck out 99% of applicants for fast jet jobs (I applied in 1973, no kidding, but they turned me down instantly, presumably because they thought I was KGB 
). Plus the candidates are very young. And a univ degree is required.
If you train in a C150, perhaps 99% of those who can pass the PPL exams could get the PPL. In reality those who would not mostly drop out because they don’t enjoy it. A few do it after 100-150hrs.
If you train in a TB20 with basic avionics (and some schools in the “east” used to) then the % will be lower. Maybe 75%?
If you train in an SR22 with a G1000 and all the gear, then the % will be lower still. My wild guess would be 50% would make it. Not because of the speed (170kt is irrelevant once you are well off the ground; I have seen 220kt GS and it looks just the same) but because of the need to grasp a different way of flying (by the numbers). Same for any plane which does significantly above 100kt, actually.
if Peter has some leaflets left, I could hand them out to every new (and old) member of our flight school / aero club, aswell as on flight safety meetings and on the upcoming FI course.
@mh I sent you an email; if you let me have your address I will send you some Thank you.
It’s the classic catch-22. No users, no content. Content requires users. Users only come with good content. You won’t get around a more professional promotion campaign to break the deadlock. A few folks distributing leaflets here and there, once awhile, does not scale. So you won’t get around ads, not for profit but for the greater good of operating the site and fostering quality content. But it can be done in a way that works for everyone and is euroga specific.
For example, you could cut deals whereby ad space is given away for free, for promoting euroga.
The ads would need to be hand selected so they are super targeted, as opposed to selected through an ad serving algorithm, and geo-specific (though not hyper local). So Google AdSense would be a disaster. A good example is the way beechtalk does it. Examples of advertisers that could distribute leaflets for free ad space:
Interesting, Lucius…
One challenge is the scale.
Beechtalk is a huge-readership (99%-American) site, with tons of advertising income. There is no way we can do ads elsewhere to promote EuroGA, which is a free to use site. Who would pay for it? I already spend a huge amount of my time on here, keeping an eye on it and keeping an eye on the operation behind it. And same for David, looking after other aspects.
One could easily increase postings by 10x, by allowing drivel (postings with no information). One UK site, which I won’t name because our Ts&Cs don’t allow disparaging other forums, is about 90% drivel (not joking about the 90%). But they run adverts and get a lot of advert clicks-throughs.
Close to 1000 people (actually interested in aviation, looking at the content they are accessing) read EuroGA each day, and I wondered if a weekly digest would be a good idea. Some sites do it, and usually I find it highly irritating! But it does give people ideas on postings.
Ultimately, however, Europe is a small GA scene compared to the USA.
I’m with Peter here…
Lucius wrote:
It’s the classic catch-22. No users, no content. Content requires users. Users only come with good content. You won’t get around a more professional promotion campaign to break the deadlock
But there already is content (good content!) and users, I don’t feel euroga needs to break through a deadlock (like those dozens of flight sharing platforms that never really seem to suceed due to that problem). As Peter pointed out, what makes the site special and worthwhile for all of us to come back regularly is the quality (not so much quantity) of content. I feel that if you increase users/content by means of those ad schemes, it would be harder to keep the level of quality.
I’m member of a Facebook group (won’t name it either so Peter doesn’t have to moderate this very post because of a T&C breach 
), which is entertaining enough because sometimes people post really interesting stuff, sometimes funny, some beautiful photos. However, it’s not the right platform for serious discussion. Sometimes, people try to discuss topics and it usually turns into chaos. I often thought about posting a link to euroga but then I didn’t because I felt there’s a lot of “idiots” in that group, getting very personal and all and mocking other people, the moderator being one of the worst in that sense (several times I thought “now is the time to leave this group for good…”). I did not want to be the one who invited them over here. I’ve only ever referred euroga to individual people that I know and that I’m confident would post good stuff if they joined.
Having said that, I still have some leaflets at home that I’ll happily place at the club restaurant next time I’m there. The last few times I forgot to bring them along.
Peter wrote:
If you train in a C150, perhaps 99% of those who can pass the PPL exams could get the PPL
There is an article in the newest Sport Aviation about the Little Dipper, designed by John Thorp. Only one was made by Lockheed in 1944. The idea was to build thousands of them, and it should be so easy to fly that every soldier could do it. A single seat tiny little plane with 45 hp and 90 mph cruise. The purpose was to let soldiers fly these aircraft into enemy territory creating confusion, landing everywhere. But, the war ended before the production started, and Lockheed had other things to do than making these planes. The prototype was flown successfully by a soldier who had never flown before, just given some cockpit familiarization.
A couple of guys have built a new one from scratch, which is what the article is all about.
Given that this is at least 3/4 informative material, I would say EuroGA is doing very well. And you can’t have 4/4 informative because then we wouldn’t have any fun
I think the leaflets are a good way to promote it. They cost very little, and some forums have got big by their association with a printed magazine from the same publisher, with the magazine being left lying around flying school/club coffee tables. This is important because the people at these places often get no other exposure to aviation “knowledge” than what they get in that room.
won’t name it either so Peter doesn’t have to moderate this very post because of a T&C breach
I think you would get complaints from others A lot of people are on FB but it’s very age dependent, with the older ones much less so. FB does a bad job of communities; there is no “depth” to it, no way to build a long term community; it’s all about instant this and instant that, throw-away messages, etc. I am on FB but – like a lot of parents – initially did that only so I could keep an eye on what my kids got up to I would caution against creating a FB profile for no good reason because since their takeover of Whatsapp they now have the mobile numbers of all WA customers and these are fantastic for cross-referencing people and tying up who knows who and who might know who and there is huge potential for breaches of privacy. And that’s even if you don’t do what a lot of people do and upload your entire email contacts book to FB! WA already had your name and phone # and now FB gets all that… so even if you are on FB under a bogus name, your profile will be presented as “someone you may know” to people who know you in real life.
Peter wrote:
Who would pay for it?
Peter, Nobody would pay for it. That’s why I mentioned that the ad space would be free. No integration of payment required. It’s a trust-based system, where you trust the advertiser to print and distribute the leaflets in return for free ad space. Since GA is a small community misuse of trust would quickly be uncovered. All you need to do is putting up an html page that explains how to upload an image with a campaign start and end date, that you rotate in.
Since investment, both in time and development is tiny, there is no reason to experiment and see what works and what doesn’t.
Do we really want advertising on euroga, though? I think it’s nice and clean now.
