Help with survey for Master's thesis

[Bob H]

One way to get around the avgas cost and the A&P mechanic requirement for certificated planes is to own an experimental plane that uses mogas and allows owner to do most maintenance. If you build it yourself, you can obtain a Repairman's Certificate that's good for life on that plane. If you buy one second-hand, you can still do the maintenance work but need an A&P to do the annual condition inspection, still much cheaper than paying a mechanic for routine maintenance. My Pulsar with a 912 Rotax engine burns 4 gal mogas/hr at 135 mph cruise. And I do all the maintenance on it.
Bob H

[ssmdive]

Lets look at the data for Florida just to keep it manageable......

OK lets look at the number of TFRs in 1970 and number of TFR's today. That's manageable. Further you want to talk about logical fallacies, you took an example of a larger issue and tried to make it the TOTAL issue (Straw man).

I mentioned as examples:
1. TFR's
2. "Next gen" transponders
3. FAA medical issues
4. FAA employee attitude against GA

Yet you ignored almost all of the examples I gave, and they were just examples, and instead focused on one issue instead of the larger point.

Then lets talk about another logical fallacy.... Ad hominem: This is an attack on the character of a person rather than his or her opinions or arguments.
So instead of discussing the topic you decided to make a personal attack claiming:

What I've learned from these discussions is that some people aren't happy until they're unhappy. If a ten of a percent chance of encountering a TFR impedes your fly, then just do the same calculation for the Florida weather and see what you get. The problem with these sort red herrings is that they distract us from the real problems and their solutions.

You want to talk red herring? You just did that by bringing weather into the equation. The weather factor is about the same today as it was in 1970. So weather as a factor has not INCREASED the places and times not able to fly like TFR's have.

1. You ignored the examples and the INTENT on the examples and instead focused on one specific example (strawman)
2. You made personal attacks claiming some people will never be happy (Ad hominem)
3. You brought up weather into a discussion were weather is not a factor being discussed (FAA, not nature) and where it is relatively constant (weather in FL has not changed significantly in 40 years).

Care to try again without all the logical fallacies and sticking to the whole topic and not cherry picking one example?

[Ron Blum]

Well, now that you have seen the good/bad and ugly/beautiful. You need to make your own conclusions. The best you can do is to be there. As an example, in college, one of our group got to fly right seat in a Learjet. All of the others complained. But Bob was a flight instructor, and he was at the airport all the time. He got a lot of those opportunities. In other words, if you are out there flying, you will know why people are flying or not. Surveys will only get answered by those of us that are more aggressive ... and definitely not by those that are no longer flying. Thanks, Ron

[Frank Giger]

One way to get around the avgas cost and the A&P mechanic requirement for certificated planes is to own an experimental plane that uses mogas and allows owner to do most maintenance. If you build it yourself, you can obtain a Repairman's Certificate that's good for life on that plane. If you buy one second-hand, you can still do the maintenance work but need an A&P to do the annual condition inspection, still much cheaper than paying a mechanic for routine maintenance. My Pulsar with a 912 Rotax engine burns 4 gal mogas/hr at 135 mph cruise. And I do all the maintenance on it.
Bob H

This points to a notion I have for the future of general aviation, which looks an awful lot like the 1930's.

Aviators will be the rich with the planes that cost more than the average house and the clever who either nurse old aircraft or build their own. With some overlap in the Venn diagram, of course.

Simple governmental inertia will keep the rural county airport open, though I can also foresee restrictions that are related to maintenance issues on an airport-by-airport basis - like a "no night operations" when the money for lighting upkeep dries up.

Guys like me with an aircraft that is closer to ultralight than the top end of LSA without lights (let alone a transponder, glass panel, automagick bubble pump actuated engine leaning propellor trim boosters, or doors) are, and will be, invisible to the FAA.

Plus it's a lot cheaper to run and maintain a 1915cc VW engine than a Continental A-65.

Then again, we aren't pilots because it's an inexpensive, easy hobby.

[Bob H]

Maybe potential pilots have too many alternate interests to occupy time and money and flying a plane isn't one of them. I think the desire to fly starts at an early age as a kid, and grows with time until funds are available later in life to fulfill such dreams. But if the desire was never instilled when young, there is no compelling force to fly as an adult. The Young Eagles program tries to do this and EAA has hands-on programs to teach kids plane building. Yet my own grandkids don't have a great push to fly on their own and get involved with planes. When I was a kid, I couldn't wait to see planes up close and hopefully flying one someday. Made free-flight models of balsa and doped paper with small engines or rubber bands and most got lost somewhere so we scrounged up materials and built more. And that led to an enginering career in the aerospace business. I don't regret any of it. Just wish I could pass it on.
Bob H

[Ron Blum]

Just wish I could pass it on.
Bob H

I think that you hit the nail on the head with "pass it on." This topic comes up a lot between me and the older EAA generation (I'm an "old school" 50-year-old that is considered a youngster within EAA circles). Building wooden wing ribs is a thing of the past ... unless you look at (non-labor) cost. Few younger people know who Charles Lindberg was, airline travel is every day transportation today and World War II ended nearly 70 years ago! (Sidebar Note: WWII airplanes don't thrill me either. Don't get me wrong, I highly respect what was accomplished. My dad took a swim in the English Channel when the Leopoldville troopship he was on was sunk, killing 900 on Christmas Eve 1944.) But if we only teach the youth what we think is cool and what we did as a youth, they will checkout long before we get to what excites them. We need to capitalize on other industries' products to lower our costs. The iPad is a great example. For a $600 device and $60/year in maps, you have all the VFR navigation that you need. I think that it's long past due that we ask the next generation what they want, and then use our knowledge and history to make the road easier for them to get there. Radio-controlled, electric model airplanes and quadcopters are cheap and easy; perfect for an introduction to flight. BTW, the T-38/F-5/F-20 excite me ... and are from my generation. Though I have a little over 15 hours in a T-38, I will never own one :o( I do love to dream about it, though. :o)