Social experiment? Enlighten us, Adam!
Ha. From another thread:
I have a social theory in regards to aircraft ownership, and it's firmly tongue in cheek, but with a dollop of truth, me thinks:
Many young private pilots become pilots because they want to impress and be cool (I've certainly met more of those than any other category amongst the younger hopefuls) and I probably - although I'd never admit it - might have belonged to that category myself when I got started.
You will find that most PPL candidates are normally in the "nerdy" category and presumably might not have had the same pull as the school jock or rock kid in a band with the ladies, so this is in their minds a good way to even the field a bit, firmly ignoring the fact that 99% of the women I've met are;
a) not impressed, and
b) don't want to ride in the damn thing anyway.
One is much more likely to impress another nerdy bloke by mentioning it than ever getting some female admiration out of it. That's my experience, at least. Not that I ever mention it, of course.
Part of this desire to be a ravishing pilot takes the form of being seen as flying in an aircraft that resembles the big iron as much as possible, for maximum admiration. A bit like attaching a Halfords wing to a Corsa, or putting fake carbon fibre weave tape to your wooden Allegro dashboard or building a kit car replica of a Lamborghini. And since most of the big iron is low wing, this is what people like and emulate. Cirrus owes it's entire sale to this very sentiment. They also associate high wing with their days slogging around the circuit in that dog of a 172.
Further evidence - whenever someone comes along this forum asking for what aircraft is best to buy for a given mission bla bla, the answer pretty much always ends up being a C182. Notice the huge resistance to those answers from most of the people that ask that question. Why? Because it doesn't look like a cool, slick airplane. In fact, it looks like a damn C172!
I will now endeavour to start a petition and campaign to stop the racism against high wings! They're airplanes, too!
