Thanks. That as a good read. But a big point was missed.

Post #283,398 by mmoffitt 4/30/07 1:45:48 PM Reply	Thanks. That as a good read. But a big point was missed. It's been four or five years ago since I said this in response to some one asking me why I thought GA was dying. I said, "Young people today prefer virtual life to the genuine article. Why go to the airport and fly a real two place piston airplane when you can sit on your couch at home, eating Cheetos and fly a 747 from New York to Paris all with your thumbs." I remember riding my bike to the airport as a tot, dreaming of the day I'd get the chance to fly. I spent hours of my youth prone in my backyard staring up at the sky and watching small aircraft fly overhead. I never thought I'd ever have enough money to do it, and it took me until after my 40th birthday to start, but I am extremely happy I did. GA's not going to survive if the 40+ crowd forms the only student pilot base. And the generations following the 40+ crowd are completely devoid of imagination, a desire to lead a genuine life or anything that doesn't involve spending hour upon hour of mindlessly staring into some sort of video display. Not to put too fine a point on it, but even Todd's reply suggests that "there just isn't enough new fangled electronic gizmos" in GA aircraft to make flying appealing. We.are.finished. bcnu, Mikem It would seem, therefore, that the three human impulses embodied in religion are fear, conceit, and hatred. The purpose of religion, one might say, is to give an air of respectibility to these passions. -- Bertrand Russell
Post #283,402 by tuberculosis 4/30/07 2:18:42 PM 8/21/07 6:00:56 AM Reply	Its not the gizmos - its price per thrill and I think skiing is dying for the same reason. I can't afford to go anymore. We posture as apostles of fair play, as good sportsmen, as professional knights-errant-- and we throw beer bottles at the umpire when he refuses to cheat for our side...We save the black-and-tan republics from their native [statesmen]--and flood them with "deserving" democrats of our own. We deafen the world with our whoops for liberty--and submit to laws that destroy our most sacred rights...We play policeman and Sunday-school superintendent to half of Christendom--and lynch a darky every two days in our own backyard. H.L. Mencken, 1914 Edited by tuberculosis Aug. 21, 2007, 06:00:56 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #283,407 by jake123 4/30/07 3:26:38 PM Reply	Thank $diety that guitar is still reasonably priced.
Post #283,415 by mmoffitt 4/30/07 4:48:44 PM Reply	Believe me, I feel that pain. ;0( Even in my lowly 172 at 8 gallons/hour, with AvGas between $4.50 and $5.00 it makes you hesitate to fly - even if you can find the time. Not that long ago I was spending a lot more on hangar rent ($140/month) than fuel. Now, it's completely reversed and up here where a VFR day is a rarity, I only fly about 70 hours/year. I seriously do not know how Cessna can sell any new 172's. At a starting price of $160,000, who can buy them? bcnu, Mikem It would seem, therefore, that the three human impulses embodied in religion are fear, conceit, and hatred. The purpose of religion, one might say, is to give an air of respectibility to these passions. -- Bertrand Russell
Post #283,405 by inthane-chan 4/30/07 2:52:19 PM Reply	Gee, thanks. :P
Post #283,408 by tonytib 4/30/07 3:38:50 PM Reply	My thoughts - Maybe GA can survive (but not flourish) with 40+. I recall a talk about a symphony. They were concerned that the average season ticket holder was 50+ years old. So they tried, unsuccessfully, to lower the age. They finally realized that the average age stayed about the same - there was a certain age at which people who loved classical music had the time and money to support them. - But if we don't "kill the lawyers" (and bureaucrats), then the future of GA is dim (e.g. Andrew's comment, and below): - affordable acrobatic aircraft would really put the thrills back in, but is impractical until we put the lawyers back into their cage (see the example of skateboard parks). --Tony
Post #283,442 by Ashton 4/30/07 7:24:09 PM Reply	Yes, and 'virtual' is not confined merely to transistorized 'games', ersatz for ever doing/trying anything with an actual risk (of failure.) General Aviation is a ways down the list, in priority - but the administration of it is apt to be done by someone who's never flown in a light plane - why, it's Admin Policy that you'd be dangerous if you knew anything. Virtual now comes to replace, rather than supplant -- the difficult work of assembling credible information about many difficult topics. Like, take 'Iraq' - - I recall, from amidst too-many recent rehashes of the Quagmire, an author who pinned down the er, sourcebook for imagining that "Torture! (especially: sexual humiliation) could work on 'Muslim men'" - the very model for the adoring office drones like Alberto, employed as justification for Abu and all the rest.. It derived from a '72,3? psych treatise (whose title I scribbled somewhere) which, if read in haste, can seem to suggest this 'as a policy' until.. until you get to the part about: except that [~] "..you will also assure that the families of each tortured shall henceforth kill as many of you as they can find.." The shallow, sallow neoconmen have proven that transistorized gaming for merely the usual escape from the daily toxins of a moribund society.. is trivial -- you can also construct a fantasy world for political purposes: not from your experience of a planet-full of cultures + the maturity to have some idea of their exceedingly complex interactions, to date - Simply, sell your fantasy with a few What-If?s whispered into the shell-likes of a Shrub - ever so malleable to grandiose plans, as only a one possessed-of a special internal deity Will Believe, uncritically. [His Legacy\ufffd] - and this-all Will Be. (Think Speer - architect for the Fuehrer's Bigger-than-'man' Berlin for The Next Thousand Years. An ugly, massive intimidating construct, had it ever come to be.) ie. it does seem to be coming True: The now widespread experience of What-if games, launched as recreation - appear also to have facilitated the creation of more effective propaganda by the scurrilous: wherever they can count on an uncritical/incompetent audience. Like say, ____ Death via the imaginings about All Those'God'(s) proves - how much more motivated by fantasy, are our fellow inmates. We kill from allegory! every day. ie. Fly while you can. ..Everybody else is out shopping, or dreaming about when they can, next.

Welcome to IWETHEY!