Where Have All the EAB Aircraft Gone?

[dougbush]

The operators will not have to learn the arcane skills necessary for control of elevator, aileron, rudder, and throttle to reach a destination.

Arcane? I think that's the easy part.

My dear sir, if it's so easy, why is failure in these skills the leading cause of aircraft accidents?

Interesting question. I don't know why there are many loss-of-control accidents blamed on the pilots, despite having previously proven their skills to a CFI and DPE. I suppose one might review the reports of some accidents in this category to seek an explanation.

The irony is, that if you were to poll the folks who have chimed in on how much they like to fly, they'd all agree that the fun is in exercising those same arcane skills. None of us daydream in meetings thinking about programming our GPSs, none of us watch the evening news blank-eyed, considering the challenges of fuel management, none of us geek out over the joys of ATC communication.

I fly our T210 for transportation, never for fun, not that there's anything wrong with flying for fun. While flying it, I feel more like a flight engineer/meteorologist/navigator than a pilot. My challenge is to make trips (that are too long to drive and too short to ride an airliner) with family safely, and without anyone having an unpleasant experience, economically. It requires a lot of weather study and flight/trip planning, never the slightest forethought on how to manipulate the controls.

The physical control of a small aircraft is simple to learn, but takes a lifetime to master. My first flight in a Fly Baby was in 1986, and, except for BFRs and an 18-month dalliance with a Stinson, I've been flying one Fly Baby or another for the past 33 years. Why am I not bored to tears by it?

BECAUSE I STILL HAVEN'T FRICKIN' GOT IT RIGHT!

Oh! Well, maybe it just seems easy to me because the T210's CG is forward of the main gear, which have fairly large tires and spring steel legs with a long travel, its nosegear has an oleo strut and is steerable through bungees, its wings have washout such that they stall progressively from root to tip, and its nose never blocks my view of the runway.

I can imagine how a Fly Baby would be a challenge, not because the pilot had not mastered the controls, but just because it is an unstable vehicle on the runway, subject to invisible gusts. It would be like pushing a garden cart at 50mph.

And that's where the fun is...the challenge of the smooth takeoff, keeping a stable attitude, watching for traffic, and managing to land that hard-mouthed SOB smoothly regardless of the winds, regardless of the runway, regardless of the loading, regardless of my own physical state.

We all appreciate a graceful landing!

But you see, that's where the split lies, when we start talking about autonomous aircraft. Most of the participants here are pilots because it's fun. But the majority of the world treats aviation like I do cars: The vehicle's job is to haul my rear end to places I want to go.

General Aviation is hurting; I'm hoping the rise in autonomous air vehicles will bring a flood of new people into aviation, even if their interest is in mere transportation.

GA is hurting because we don't treat it as mere transportation. When more people want to drive places, we expect the government to condemn property and build more and wider roads. But we are destroying airports in the most popular destinations and whenever we build a new one, it is way out in the boonies. For GA to thrive, we need to ask for airports to be built where we want to fly from and to. And we need to solve the problem of ground transportation at the destination. If GA were only sport, how could we justify the need of any particular airport infrastructure or airspace?