NY Times looks at pilot decline
#1
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This seems like it will become a problem in a few years when there are fewer and fewer pilots for airlines to pick from. Let's hear what everyone thinks about this.
April 26, 2007
Up, Up and ... Never Mind
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Smoketown, Pa.
MATTHEW W. PHELPS was a natural candidate for flying lessons. A computer system administrator, he liked anything technical. He had a brother who had a plane and wrote about aviation for a magazine. And from the moment he got behind the controls, at a small airport north of Boston, he enjoyed himself.
“I liked it a lot,” he said. “It was fun, it was exhilarating.”
But Mr. Phelps, 42, embodies all the promise and crisis of general aviation. He gave up after 15 hours of lessons, probably about a quarter of the way to earning his license.
“At that point, I’d met my future wife and we were starting to save for the wedding, and then to buy a house, and then there was something else to save money for,” he said. That was in 1993. “I’m still sort of dreaming that it might get done, I just put it on hold,” he said.
Once, nearly every boy had the idea that he would slip the surly bonds of earth and dance the skies on laughter-silvered wings, as John Gillespie Magee Jr., a pilot in the Canadian Air Force, wrote in 1941. Plenty of people still go to school hoping for a job at the airlines flying the big jets, but experts fear that the hobbyist, who flies as an alternative to golf or boating, or perhaps to take the family 100 miles to a beach or maybe just an obscure restaurant, is disappearing.
The number of student pilots is down by about a third since 1990, from 129,000 to 88,000. The number of private pilots is down from 299,000 to 236,000, according to statistics kept by the Federal Aviation Administration. And they are aging.
Some longtime private pilots fear that an industry is withering, and a bit of Americana is slipping away, along with a bit of freedom and joy. And it is happening in part because of lack of interest; Walter Mitty doesn’t want to fly anymore.
The industry has recently launched a major campaign to lure people like Mr. Phelps back, and to recruit new students. But something has changed.
“It’s not a Gen X kind of thing,” said Paul Quinn, 62, with a smile, as he fueled up his 1942-vintage Army Air Corps trainer at the tiny airport in Smoketown, Pa. Sitting at the picnic tables overlooking the single runway, a variety of students, pilots and sightseers had gathered in the warm sun. Most, like Mr. Quinn, had gray hair. “Most of the people who are out here are in their 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s,” he said.
Ironically, an increasingly technological society is turning its back on a high-technology pastime.
One problem is fear, in an era when people describe their cars by the number of airbags, not the number of horses. In small planes, the statistics show that fatal accidents per 100,000 hours of flight fell by one-quarter in the decade ending in 2004, but some people in aviation fear that tolerance for risk is falling even faster.
ANOTHER is the shift of income and family decision-making to women. Industry leaders try hard not to sound like a former president of Harvard and attribute anything to innate skill, but women simply do not take up flying as frequently as men do.
“There’s been a big sociological and psychological change in the families of today, in where the discretionary dollars go,” said Phil Boyer, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. When the husband told the stay-at-home mom of the 1950s that he was going to spend a Saturday afternoon taking flying lessons, she acquiesced, he said. Today, he said, in a two-income family, she is more likely to say: “You are not. That’s your day to take Johnny to the soccer game, and what the heck are you doing spending our hard-earned money on flying lessons?”
Mr. Boyer’s association is trying hard to make flying more appealing to women, including offering training in how to read aviation maps, talk on the radio and provide other help in the plane, and maybe transitioning them to earning a license themselves. But 95 percent of the students are still male, he said.
At the airport in Smoketown, Matt Kauffman, the chief flight instructor at Aero-Tech Services, the only flight school here, said that the training system had not adapted itself to women. “Women learn differently from men,” Mr. Kauffman said. “If two men go up, they will scream and shout, and a transfer of knowledge occurs, and we’d get back on the ground and go have a beer, and life is good,” he said. “If you yell at a woman, she’d start crying, and she’d never come back.” He would like to hire a female flight instructor but can’t find one, he said.
Time and money drive others away. The prospect of taking months to earn a pilot’s license is less appealing now. It is also expensive, $5,000 to $7,000. Renting even a tiny two-seat plane runs $75 an hour, and an instructor, $40 an hour or so. Fuel costs money, too, but its recent price increase is not a major consideration, because small planes burn only six to seven gallons an hour.
David Ehrenstein got his pilot’s license in graduate school in the early 1990s, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “I’m a little bit of a closet technie nerd,” he said. He liked flying because “there’s a bunch of technology involved,” and that using it “to do this great cool thing was exciting.” But he had to give it up when he moved to Washington about three years later.
“My impression is that when people grow up and have kids, they no longer have time to fly,” said Mr. Ehrenstein, now 40. “When I quit, the major demographic of pilots was retired white guys.”
Even people with money find flying a guilty pleasure. Ron Janis, a lawyer in New York who specializes in mergers and acquisitions, wants his license so he can fly to a house he and his wife bought in Provincetown, Mass. And he loves to fly. But, he said: “I certainly work longer hours than when I started. And I do get in trouble with my firm for taking this time off” to fly.
The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, did not help, nor did the crash deaths of prominent private pilots like Cory Lidle or John F. Kennedy Jr. Nor did the bumbling flight of two men from Smoketown into the District of Columbia in May 2005, in a two-seat Cessna, that paralyzed the federal government.
“We’ll be paying for that for years,” said Mr. Kauffman, the flight instructor. (The men were not his students and it was not his plane, he quickly pointed out.) Mr. Kauffman said his business has held constant, mostly because his only competitor went out of business last year.
Indeed, airports like this one show signs of stagnation. At any general aviation airport, the cars in the parking lot are usually new but the planes on the field have vintages more like the taxis in Havana. They are all well maintained, some private pilots say, but carburetors are still in common use.
Vern Raburn, the president and chief executive of Eclipse Aviation, which is seeking to sell a new generation of tiny jets for general aviation use, observed in a speech that the Beechcraft Bonanza is now 60 years old. “I challenge you to find another industry in the world today that celebrates building 60-year-old products,” he said.
But Mr. Raburn’s product costs over $1.5 million, and thus is not likely to revitalize the lower end of the spectrum.
Some industry executives say the reason is that America is no longer a do-it-yourself, take-charge society, and that includes fly-it-yourself. Mr. Boyer’s group, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, tried putting ads on the cable TV channels that run do-it-yourself home improvement and electronics programs. The campaign did not work very well, he said. Now his organization has a new marketing campaign, Project Pilot, with a smoothly produced video narrated by Erik Lindbergh, grandson of Charles, who flew the Atlantic solo in 1927 and electrified the world of aviation.
“It gives me a rush every time I go up,” he says on the DVD. But he adds: “Just as my grandfather’s flight created a huge interest in flying, we need to create that same groundswell today. We need a new generation of general aviation pilots, because without more pilots, even A.O.P.A. can’t keep general aviation strong, and that will ultimately have a big effect on every pilot.”
BUT some veterans fear the magic is gone for good. Men who returned from World War II having seen the Mustangs, Corsairs or Thunderbolts might have wanted to fly their own propeller planes. In the wars in the Middle East, the A-10 Warthog has not inspired the same ambitions.
The F.A.A. last year introduced a new kind of license, sport pilot, to try to lower the barriers to entry and draw more people in. The license limits the pilot to very small planes, and, at first, daytime flying, and staying within 50 miles. It also requires fewer hours, and costs about half as much to get.
Many flight instructors say the license is so limited that there is no reason to bother. Hal Shevers, who owns a flight school near Cincinnati, is pushing his students to get the license. With it, he said, “I can take my mom and dad or wife and kids up on a nice afternoon or sunny Sunday, and show them the sights.”
“I can show them a sunset, a sunrise.”
But to work, some people in the industry say, it will require a major manufacturer to build a new class of plane, one that can be sold for less than $100,000, and insured for less, so it will be less expensive to rent.
To be able to offer cut-rate prices for the new sport license, Mr. Kauffman went looking for a small, simple, inexpensive airplane. He ended up with an Aeronca Champion, which was built in 1946. So far, nobody is building a new plane to match the F.A.A.’s program.
------
I think the Bonanza comment is the most unresearched statement in this article. Just because the airplane is still being made, it still has the most advanced engine/avionics/etc.
I was in general impressed with the article...it was well-written, well-researched, and generally informative.
April 26, 2007
Up, Up and ... Never Mind
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Smoketown, Pa.
MATTHEW W. PHELPS was a natural candidate for flying lessons. A computer system administrator, he liked anything technical. He had a brother who had a plane and wrote about aviation for a magazine. And from the moment he got behind the controls, at a small airport north of Boston, he enjoyed himself.
“I liked it a lot,” he said. “It was fun, it was exhilarating.”
But Mr. Phelps, 42, embodies all the promise and crisis of general aviation. He gave up after 15 hours of lessons, probably about a quarter of the way to earning his license.
“At that point, I’d met my future wife and we were starting to save for the wedding, and then to buy a house, and then there was something else to save money for,” he said. That was in 1993. “I’m still sort of dreaming that it might get done, I just put it on hold,” he said.
Once, nearly every boy had the idea that he would slip the surly bonds of earth and dance the skies on laughter-silvered wings, as John Gillespie Magee Jr., a pilot in the Canadian Air Force, wrote in 1941. Plenty of people still go to school hoping for a job at the airlines flying the big jets, but experts fear that the hobbyist, who flies as an alternative to golf or boating, or perhaps to take the family 100 miles to a beach or maybe just an obscure restaurant, is disappearing.
The number of student pilots is down by about a third since 1990, from 129,000 to 88,000. The number of private pilots is down from 299,000 to 236,000, according to statistics kept by the Federal Aviation Administration. And they are aging.
Some longtime private pilots fear that an industry is withering, and a bit of Americana is slipping away, along with a bit of freedom and joy. And it is happening in part because of lack of interest; Walter Mitty doesn’t want to fly anymore.
The industry has recently launched a major campaign to lure people like Mr. Phelps back, and to recruit new students. But something has changed.
“It’s not a Gen X kind of thing,” said Paul Quinn, 62, with a smile, as he fueled up his 1942-vintage Army Air Corps trainer at the tiny airport in Smoketown, Pa. Sitting at the picnic tables overlooking the single runway, a variety of students, pilots and sightseers had gathered in the warm sun. Most, like Mr. Quinn, had gray hair. “Most of the people who are out here are in their 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s,” he said.
Ironically, an increasingly technological society is turning its back on a high-technology pastime.
One problem is fear, in an era when people describe their cars by the number of airbags, not the number of horses. In small planes, the statistics show that fatal accidents per 100,000 hours of flight fell by one-quarter in the decade ending in 2004, but some people in aviation fear that tolerance for risk is falling even faster.
ANOTHER is the shift of income and family decision-making to women. Industry leaders try hard not to sound like a former president of Harvard and attribute anything to innate skill, but women simply do not take up flying as frequently as men do.
“There’s been a big sociological and psychological change in the families of today, in where the discretionary dollars go,” said Phil Boyer, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. When the husband told the stay-at-home mom of the 1950s that he was going to spend a Saturday afternoon taking flying lessons, she acquiesced, he said. Today, he said, in a two-income family, she is more likely to say: “You are not. That’s your day to take Johnny to the soccer game, and what the heck are you doing spending our hard-earned money on flying lessons?”
Mr. Boyer’s association is trying hard to make flying more appealing to women, including offering training in how to read aviation maps, talk on the radio and provide other help in the plane, and maybe transitioning them to earning a license themselves. But 95 percent of the students are still male, he said.
At the airport in Smoketown, Matt Kauffman, the chief flight instructor at Aero-Tech Services, the only flight school here, said that the training system had not adapted itself to women. “Women learn differently from men,” Mr. Kauffman said. “If two men go up, they will scream and shout, and a transfer of knowledge occurs, and we’d get back on the ground and go have a beer, and life is good,” he said. “If you yell at a woman, she’d start crying, and she’d never come back.” He would like to hire a female flight instructor but can’t find one, he said.
Time and money drive others away. The prospect of taking months to earn a pilot’s license is less appealing now. It is also expensive, $5,000 to $7,000. Renting even a tiny two-seat plane runs $75 an hour, and an instructor, $40 an hour or so. Fuel costs money, too, but its recent price increase is not a major consideration, because small planes burn only six to seven gallons an hour.
David Ehrenstein got his pilot’s license in graduate school in the early 1990s, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “I’m a little bit of a closet technie nerd,” he said. He liked flying because “there’s a bunch of technology involved,” and that using it “to do this great cool thing was exciting.” But he had to give it up when he moved to Washington about three years later.
“My impression is that when people grow up and have kids, they no longer have time to fly,” said Mr. Ehrenstein, now 40. “When I quit, the major demographic of pilots was retired white guys.”
Even people with money find flying a guilty pleasure. Ron Janis, a lawyer in New York who specializes in mergers and acquisitions, wants his license so he can fly to a house he and his wife bought in Provincetown, Mass. And he loves to fly. But, he said: “I certainly work longer hours than when I started. And I do get in trouble with my firm for taking this time off” to fly.
The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, did not help, nor did the crash deaths of prominent private pilots like Cory Lidle or John F. Kennedy Jr. Nor did the bumbling flight of two men from Smoketown into the District of Columbia in May 2005, in a two-seat Cessna, that paralyzed the federal government.
“We’ll be paying for that for years,” said Mr. Kauffman, the flight instructor. (The men were not his students and it was not his plane, he quickly pointed out.) Mr. Kauffman said his business has held constant, mostly because his only competitor went out of business last year.
Indeed, airports like this one show signs of stagnation. At any general aviation airport, the cars in the parking lot are usually new but the planes on the field have vintages more like the taxis in Havana. They are all well maintained, some private pilots say, but carburetors are still in common use.
Vern Raburn, the president and chief executive of Eclipse Aviation, which is seeking to sell a new generation of tiny jets for general aviation use, observed in a speech that the Beechcraft Bonanza is now 60 years old. “I challenge you to find another industry in the world today that celebrates building 60-year-old products,” he said.
But Mr. Raburn’s product costs over $1.5 million, and thus is not likely to revitalize the lower end of the spectrum.
Some industry executives say the reason is that America is no longer a do-it-yourself, take-charge society, and that includes fly-it-yourself. Mr. Boyer’s group, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, tried putting ads on the cable TV channels that run do-it-yourself home improvement and electronics programs. The campaign did not work very well, he said. Now his organization has a new marketing campaign, Project Pilot, with a smoothly produced video narrated by Erik Lindbergh, grandson of Charles, who flew the Atlantic solo in 1927 and electrified the world of aviation.
“It gives me a rush every time I go up,” he says on the DVD. But he adds: “Just as my grandfather’s flight created a huge interest in flying, we need to create that same groundswell today. We need a new generation of general aviation pilots, because without more pilots, even A.O.P.A. can’t keep general aviation strong, and that will ultimately have a big effect on every pilot.”
BUT some veterans fear the magic is gone for good. Men who returned from World War II having seen the Mustangs, Corsairs or Thunderbolts might have wanted to fly their own propeller planes. In the wars in the Middle East, the A-10 Warthog has not inspired the same ambitions.
The F.A.A. last year introduced a new kind of license, sport pilot, to try to lower the barriers to entry and draw more people in. The license limits the pilot to very small planes, and, at first, daytime flying, and staying within 50 miles. It also requires fewer hours, and costs about half as much to get.
Many flight instructors say the license is so limited that there is no reason to bother. Hal Shevers, who owns a flight school near Cincinnati, is pushing his students to get the license. With it, he said, “I can take my mom and dad or wife and kids up on a nice afternoon or sunny Sunday, and show them the sights.”
“I can show them a sunset, a sunrise.”
But to work, some people in the industry say, it will require a major manufacturer to build a new class of plane, one that can be sold for less than $100,000, and insured for less, so it will be less expensive to rent.
To be able to offer cut-rate prices for the new sport license, Mr. Kauffman went looking for a small, simple, inexpensive airplane. He ended up with an Aeronca Champion, which was built in 1946. So far, nobody is building a new plane to match the F.A.A.’s program.
------
I think the Bonanza comment is the most unresearched statement in this article. Just because the airplane is still being made, it still has the most advanced engine/avionics/etc.
I was in general impressed with the article...it was well-written, well-researched, and generally informative.
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#3
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But to work, some people in the industry say, it will require a major manufacturer to build a new class of plane, one that can be sold for less than $100,000, and insured for less, so it will be less expensive to rent.
flightdesign are ~$100k........... but why would a school get one of these when they can have multiple older cessnas for the same money.
Last edited by AndreS; 04-27-2007 at 02:44 AM.
#6
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When I worked at an FBO, I remember non-pilots just coming out to the airport to look around. The airport used to be a hang-out. People would leave work and then come to fly. I know rated pilots, one commercial, in my town that haven't been to the airport in years.
You people who live in Florida may find this hard to believe, but I can see flying has dropped off in a big time way over the last 15 years. It has become a rare sight to have a single engine flying near my house. Events that used to fill the ramp to capacity are now only a four airplane affair.
There are no "pilots in the pipeline" here either. If Bill BigBucks buys a C-90, he will have to hire Joe Millionair's King Air pilot, because there aren't 5 Baron pilots ready to make the leap like there were back in the day. I know of one pilot getting his commercial certificate in the past two years. People are going to the "academies", graduating with 500 total time, coming back with visions of flying a bizjet---only to be heartbroken. There are no corporate Baron jobs to build time with anymore, so they have to scratch around any way they can.
You people who live in Florida may find this hard to believe, but I can see flying has dropped off in a big time way over the last 15 years. It has become a rare sight to have a single engine flying near my house. Events that used to fill the ramp to capacity are now only a four airplane affair.
There are no "pilots in the pipeline" here either. If Bill BigBucks buys a C-90, he will have to hire Joe Millionair's King Air pilot, because there aren't 5 Baron pilots ready to make the leap like there were back in the day. I know of one pilot getting his commercial certificate in the past two years. People are going to the "academies", graduating with 500 total time, coming back with visions of flying a bizjet---only to be heartbroken. There are no corporate Baron jobs to build time with anymore, so they have to scratch around any way they can.
Last edited by GauleyPilot; 04-27-2007 at 05:06 AM.
#7
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The number of hobby pilots is declining but career minded ones are on the rise.
Every year since the 1970's the percentage of commercial versus private pilots has climbed. The reason is that if you do wish to fly most realise that the only way to do it is through following a career. University programs and pilot factories have flourished over the years while home town FBO's are fading away. In 15 years virtually every student pilot will have professional intentions. The results are and will continued to be an increasingly flooded pilot market.
It is a fact that people will accept status and position over pay. After blowing 150K on a wasted college degree and flight training most will take any airline job just to save face with their old college friends and to show mom and dad that they are successful.
LoL
Wages will continue to decline. Work rules will get worse.
SkyHigh
Every year since the 1970's the percentage of commercial versus private pilots has climbed. The reason is that if you do wish to fly most realise that the only way to do it is through following a career. University programs and pilot factories have flourished over the years while home town FBO's are fading away. In 15 years virtually every student pilot will have professional intentions. The results are and will continued to be an increasingly flooded pilot market.
It is a fact that people will accept status and position over pay. After blowing 150K on a wasted college degree and flight training most will take any airline job just to save face with their old college friends and to show mom and dad that they are successful.
![EEK!](https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/images/smilies/eek.gif)
Wages will continue to decline. Work rules will get worse.
SkyHigh
#8
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When I worked at an FBO, I remember non-pilots just coming out to the airport to look around. The airport used to be a hang-out. People would leave work and then come to fly. I know rated pilots, one commercial, in my town that haven't been to the airport in years.
You people who live in Florida may find this hard to believe, but I can see flying has dropped off in a big time way over the last 15 years. It has become a rare sight to have a single engine flying near my house. Events that used to fill the ramp to capacity are now only a four airplane affair.
There are no "pilots in the pipeline" here either. If Bill BigBucks buys a C-90, he will have to hire Joe Millionair's King Air pilot, because there aren't 5 Baron pilots ready to make the leap like there were back in the day. I know of one pilot getting his commercial certificate in the past two years.
You people who live in Florida may find this hard to believe, but I can see flying has dropped off in a big time way over the last 15 years. It has become a rare sight to have a single engine flying near my house. Events that used to fill the ramp to capacity are now only a four airplane affair.
There are no "pilots in the pipeline" here either. If Bill BigBucks buys a C-90, he will have to hire Joe Millionair's King Air pilot, because there aren't 5 Baron pilots ready to make the leap like there were back in the day. I know of one pilot getting his commercial certificate in the past two years.
Why would anyone waste their time in a Barron when they could be flying an RJ? I predict that in ten years steam gauge piston guys will be worth more than RJ captains.
SkyHigh
#9
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The number of hobby pilots is declining but career minded ones are on the rise.
Every year since the 1970's the percentage of commercial versus private pilots has climbed. The reason is that if you do wish to fly most realise that the only way to do it is through following a career. University programs and pilot factories have flourished over the years while home town FBO's are fading away. In 15 years virtually every student pilot will have professional intentions. The results are and will continued to be an increasingly flooded pilot market.
It is a fact that people will accept status and position over pay. After blowing 150K on a wasted college degree and flight training most will take any airline job just to save face with their old college friends and to show mom and dad that they are successful.
LoL
Wages will continue to decline. Work rules will get worse.
SkyHigh
Every year since the 1970's the percentage of commercial versus private pilots has climbed. The reason is that if you do wish to fly most realise that the only way to do it is through following a career. University programs and pilot factories have flourished over the years while home town FBO's are fading away. In 15 years virtually every student pilot will have professional intentions. The results are and will continued to be an increasingly flooded pilot market.
It is a fact that people will accept status and position over pay. After blowing 150K on a wasted college degree and flight training most will take any airline job just to save face with their old college friends and to show mom and dad that they are successful.
![EEK!](https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/images/smilies/eek.gif)
Wages will continue to decline. Work rules will get worse.
SkyHigh
If this helps you go to sleep at night, then by all means its true. In reality the pilot groups of all the majors are getting tired of their post 9/11 contracts and pay all the while the CEO's are walking away with millions.......................This is not going to last forever, look around Pilot groups are going to get back what they lost after 9/11..............
Look at the millions of dollors CAL is making, you don't think their pilots are going to stay with that sub-par contract they have do you?
#10
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When I worked at an FBO, I remember non-pilots just coming out to the airport to look around. The airport used to be a hang-out. People would leave work and then come to fly. I know rated pilots, one commercial, in my town that haven't been to the airport in years.
You people who live in Florida may find this hard to believe, but I can see flying has dropped off in a big time way over the last 15 years. It has become a rare sight to have a single engine flying near my house. Events that used to fill the ramp to capacity are now only a four airplane affair.
There are no "pilots in the pipeline" here either. If Bill BigBucks buys a C-90, he will have to hire Joe Millionair's King Air pilot, because there aren't 5 Baron pilots ready to make the leap like there were back in the day. I know of one pilot getting his commercial certificate in the past two years.
You people who live in Florida may find this hard to believe, but I can see flying has dropped off in a big time way over the last 15 years. It has become a rare sight to have a single engine flying near my house. Events that used to fill the ramp to capacity are now only a four airplane affair.
There are no "pilots in the pipeline" here either. If Bill BigBucks buys a C-90, he will have to hire Joe Millionair's King Air pilot, because there aren't 5 Baron pilots ready to make the leap like there were back in the day. I know of one pilot getting his commercial certificate in the past two years.
I think all of this highlights the importance of coming up with an innovative response to how to fix this problem. AOPA's Project Pilot program seems like a good initiative. It seems to me we need a more comprehensive and aggressive approach. Any ideas?
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