EAA cuts

[steveinindy]

In my lifetime the EAA has been populated older people. This is okay so long as young people step in as they get older. Flying has definitely gotten so expensive that only a choice few can participate.My folks used to rent planes for $40 an hour(1980's). Nowadays you are lucky if you can find a rental for less than $100 an hour. We used to have EAA meetings, the works, I miss those times.

The only problem with that idea is that it basically implies that folks as they get older naturally become interested in slower aircraft or rag wings or whatever you wanna call it. I don't believe that is the case. I believe it is more that those now in that age bracket (the older members) simply have a strong sense nostalgia for their youth and the aircraft that were popular at that time.

[martymayes]

This is one of the main reasons my wife and I do not have kids and never will. We have a list of things we want to do during our lives and kids just don't fit in that equation.

Wow, that can be considered somewhat selfish. What about families that don't fit that model?

[Bill Greenwood]

Chad, I am not so sure what you mean by "every issue since 2008 had a survey done on it". I am not aware of any such survey unless it was by someone at the top looking down.Maybe I missed something, I have only been a member for about 30 years.
What I have never seen and what I am asking is to have a poll of our members, let each member vote on what he/she wants to see the magazine and EAA focus on . The best way I could think of is to put a mail in card in the next issue. And no slanting the questions by the management. You could have a category for each division of EAA, and maybe a few specialty ones like Safety or novelty like the blimp. Just let it be a fair vote, and let the reader rank these in the order he wants. The top officials can always come up with some claim that such a vote would be too expensive, but if they do, I think it shows that they don't value imput from the member up.
Your Learjet experience was a little different than mine, I can't recall being impressed by much of it, but I was amazed that anyone would pay that much for a corporate passenger plane that you couldn't even stand up fully in and which didn't even have a real toilet.
As for writing about T-6 flying, do you think the guys from the Aeroshell team or the instructors at Warbird Adventures might have some good info to write about them?

[scottf]

Chad, my hats off to you guy. While I am shuddering at the direction that it appears things are going, I think you are doing a great job fielding comments here. While this has to take a ton of time on your part, I really appreciate the organization promptly and professionally commenting like you have been doing.

[Bill Greenwood]

Treetop, as great as flying and sport flying in particular is, it is not it the same category as having kids.
However, having kids is an enormous amount of work and requires more patience than one can imagine.
So if you don't want kids, don't have them.
And it is great that you help kids in Young Eagles or scouts, etc.

[Treetop_Flyer]

Wow, that can be considered somewhat selfish. What about families that don't fit that model?

Yes, it is selfish. But it's my choice not to have kids and it really doesn't matter to me what society thinks about that. There's no rule saying you have to have them.

But...

For the families that DO have kids, we as EAA-ers need to figure out how we can get them involved. That was my ultimate point...though after re-reading I didn't make it very clear in the initial post. If we can get the whole family involved and make it a family event, the spouse that isn't that interested often comes around. If we can make EAA a family event, social club, call it what you want...we can and will grow membership. Our chapter is seeing that firsthand.

Treetop, as great as flying and sport flying in particular is, it is not it the same category as having kids.
However, having kids is an enormous amount of work and requires more patience than one can imagine.
So if you don't want kids, don't have them.
And it is great that you help kids in Young Eagles or scouts, etc.

Thanks Bill. I've just never had the interest to have my own kids. My wife doesn't either. But we sure love Young Eagles and all the other activities we support. Everybody is different and I sure can appreciate the amount of work people have to put into kids. I really appreciate all my parents did for me.

[steveinindy]

Wow, that can be considered somewhat selfish. What about families that don't fit that model?

Its odd because even as a parent I see nothing selfless about human spawning or dealing with the aftermath. Choosing not to have kids is a rational decision and one that is less selfish than forcing others to deal with your progeny who have at best even odds of being cute,smart, funny, talented or whatever other traits parents like to delude themselves into believing that their kids possess more than any other.

[Chad Jensen]

Chad, I am not so sure what you mean by "every issue since 2008 had a survey done on it". I am not aware of any such survey unless it was by someone at the top looking down.Maybe I missed something, I have only been a member for about 30 years.

This has been an electronic survey done thru email by random member draw for internal use for shaping the magazine content.

What I have never seen and what I am asking is to have a poll of our members, let each member vote on what he/she wants to see the magazine and EAA focus on . The best way I could think of is to put a mail in card in the next issue. And no slanting the questions by the management. You could have a category for each division of EAA, and maybe a few specialty ones like Safety or novelty like the blimp. Just let it be a fair vote, and let the reader rank these in the order he wants. The top officials can always come up with some claim that such a vote would be too expensive, but if they do, I think it shows that they don't value imput from the member up.

The problem here, and I'm not saying it's a bad idea by any means, is the fact that if we sent out 150,000 cards (not all members get SA) for example, and we get even a conservative response rate of 20%, that's still 30,000 cards that someone is going to have to process and do data entry on. I believe this is the reason that each month, the electronic survey goes out to the random draw.

As for writing about T-6 flying, do you think the guys from the Aeroshell team or the instructors at Warbird Adventures might have some good info to write about them?

Absolutely! But like I said, a fresh perspective can still be interesting and entertaining.

[Chad Jensen]

Chad, my hats off to you guy. While I am shuddering at the direction that it appears things are going, I think you are doing a great job fielding comments here. While this has to take a ton of time on your part, I really appreciate the organization promptly and professionally commenting like you have been doing.

Thank you Scott! Being an integral part of the homebuilder community is something I've always enjoyed, even prior to coming on staff at EAA. It certainly takes some time, but it's important to be a part of it.

[kscessnadriver]

because young people need to pay college debt, houses, and kids and don't have money to build airplanes.

No they don't. If that's your position, you are clueless to what some people make straight out of college today. There are young people out there who would be involved. Heck, I don't even make a lot of money, but could afford to start building or buying right now if I wanted to, and I'm just over a year out of school.