I don’t know it this is precisely on topic or not, but it is certainly related.
Many of us are very concerned about the next generation of pilots and aviation enthusiasts…and the generation after that. (I am 58, and at many aviation events I am one of the younger pilots there. To me, that is kind of concerning.) Many – maybe most – people lay the blame on the high cost of aviation. There is certainly one factor, but aviation has never been cheap. I think that the more important factor is that over the last 20 years, the government AND PRIVATE ASSOCIATIONS have done everything they can to take the fun and adventure out of flying. People fly because it is FUN. Adventure implies taking on a certain amount of risk – and accepting the personal responsibility to manage that risk and come home safely. I am not implying that aviation should be more risky. I am pointing out that the fun is gone.
One reason I became active in my local chapter and the Young Eagles program is because my other aviation adventure – Civil Air Patrol – quite successfully sucked all of the fun out of participation. It has become work. More, the things you have to do to fly is drudgery, every facet micromanaged and covered in paperwork, real and digital. Heaven help you if you make one administrative mistake. I found EAA to be a return to simpler aviation. The joy of flight and the YE program, as managed by my chapter, brought the fun back: for the pilots, the ground team, and especially the kids. Even if these kids never become a pilot or fly in the pointy end of an airplane again, they will have learned that flying is fun…and a GOOD thing.
Now EAA senior management comes along and decides to suck the fun out of anything to do with attracting youth to aviation. We now see that this is not restricted to YE, but there will now be comparable fun sucking efforts for chapter activities and AirVenture. Instead of some very reasonable proposals for effective risk management, EAA management imposes a heavy handed, cumbersome, poorly thought out program (I can say “poorly thought” based on all of the revisions they had to make since rolling it out). The only justification cited is that everyone else is doing it. If one were just a little more cynical, one could say that it looks like it was intended to chase pilots away and otherwise make the YE program unmanageable. The direct effect on the youth we are trying to attract is less severe, but the second order effects are huge. It will certainly affect the access of youth to aviation.
The YE website includes this line: “Hard work and dedication of volunteers is the primary reason why the Young Eagles continues to be a success in building the next generation of aviators.”
In the Army, I learned that there were two considerations: the mission and the men. Of the two, the mission comes first. The catch is that you can’t accomplish the mission without the men. Right now, EAA management seems to be willing to sacrifice the men and women to accomplish the mission. To lose that “dedication of volunteers” necessary for the success of the program. As a result, they will fail in the mission of “building the next generation of aviators.”
Originally Posted by vettdvr
