AOPA claim 70% drop out rate

[Fuji Abound]

The weather over the Alps is not looking great though, and I can't go much above FL180...

I wonder why you think so .. .. ..

the front tracking south looks like it will clear the Alps during Tuesday as the high dominates. I would have thought Wednesday should provide a good transit, or certainly if not by staying further west and transiting along the coast the weather would seem pretty good.

[sternone]

Planning to go to Crete during the next week. The weather over the Alps is not looking great though, and I can't go much above FL180...

How was your other 3500nm trip into europe last weeks IO ?

[IO540]

Fuji - I agree. However, Monday's front might have lower tops by then than the current FL220. Otherwise we go Tuesday/Wednesday.
Stern - same trip, that's the first leg I referred to.

[ChampChump]

This is NOT a depressing thread, for Gawd's sake!!!!!

Whirly, I found it depressing that some seem to think we are obliged to perform some breast-beating when people stop flying, when it's clear to many there are plenty of positives, which was, admittedly very awkwardly expressed, the attempted point of my post. As has been evidenced since that page, there is a wide and happy diversity of experience, ambitions and activities amongst the flying fraternity/sororiety. I agreed that people move on, usually having enjoyed their flying immensely.

[sternone]

Whirlybird:

sternone,

I just went right off you

Sunday, 2 September 2007, 06:28 GMT 07:28 UK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asi...ic/6974687.stm

Australians cook up wild cat stew
By Phil Mercer
BBC News, Sydney


Wild cats eat marsupials, lizards and birds
Australians have come up with a novel solution to the millions of feral cats roaming the outback - eat them.

The felines are the descendants of domestic pets and kill millions of small native animals each year.

A recent Alice Springs contest featured wild cat casserole. The meat is said to taste like a cross between rabbit and, perhaps inevitably, chicken.

But wildlife campaigners have expressed their dismay that Australia's wild cat now finds itself on the nation's menus.

Cat stew recipe

Feral cats are one of the most serious threats to Australia's native fauna.


One of the competition judges found the meat impossibly tough and had to politely excuse herself and spit it out

They eat almost anything that moves, including small marsupials, lizards, birds and spiders.

The woman behind the controversial cat stew recipe has said Australians could do their bit to help the environment by tucking into more feral pests, including pigeons and camels.

But it was a recipe for feline casserole that impressed some of the judges at an outback food competition in Alice Springs.

Preparing this unusual stew seems simple enough.

The meat should be diced and fried until it is brown. Then lemon grass is to be added along with salt and pepper and three cups of quandong, which is a sweet desert fruit.

It is recommended that the dish be left to simmer for five hours before being garnished with bush plums and mistletoe berries.

Marinated moggie was not to everyone's taste. One of the competition judges found the meat impossibly tough and had to politely excuse herself and spit it out in a backroom.

Wild cats are considered good eating by some Aborigines, who roast the animals on an open fire.

This outback cuisine does come with a health warning.

Scientists have said that those eating wild cats could be exposed to harmful bacteria and toxins.

[MadamBreakneck]

Englishal wrote

I think one of the problems is that it is EXPENSIVE for the average punter.

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

When I started microlight flying I calculated that (post licence) my break-even point for owning a share in a microlight like a 'good old' Thruster TST compared with hiring a club aircraft like a C152 was something like 16hrs per year*. In my first 12 months as a licenced microlight pilot I flew something in excess of 30 hours and I've never flown less than 20hrs in a year since. I never could have afforded that in a club-hired machine.

The sad thing (in my view) is that the hotship microlights are commanding such a premium that most commercial schools and factories are forgetting the lower cost end of the market. I recently asked Thruster to quote me a price for the equivalent of their popular classic. They don't do it any more and the nearest to it was over £20k including VAT for an open-cockpit, two-stroke-powered taildragger - no wonder they're not selling fast, you can by a fully restored original for under £5k.

Meanwhile, most 3-axis microlight schools are moving over to Eurostars, CTSWs and C42s following the demand by those with the money to pay the prices which pay the wages. Because that's what people learn on, that's what they then expect to buy. So again the poor chap on average earnings is frozen out of the game again. Whatever happened to recreational aviation for 'the common man'?

Let's hope the sub-115 single seat category revitalises this lower-cost end of the sport.
MadamB

*This did include the cost of servicing the loan to buy my share

[NorthSouth]

in some cases I have seen, £10/day or even zero, when not flying

What do you mean "even"? I've never been paid a cent other than for flying hours in 6 years of instructing, and believe me the hours spent farting around on the ground WAY exceed those spent in the air. I know CFIs in their 50s "living" on less than £12,000 a year.

Coming back to the original thread, prompted by the article in AOPA General Aviation claiming a PPL dropout rate of 70% in 5 years, I reckon this is the usual playing fast and loose with statistics:
1) Do we know what the dropout rate was before JAR? No, because there was no 5-year renewal. So you can't assume from a snapshot that it's worse than before.
2) We are in a period of unprecedented boom in commercial pilot jobs. Huge numbers of people who started with a PPL 5+ years ago are now flying airliners on a CPL or ATPL. Do they renew their PPLs? No, of course not, why would they? But a fair few of them will still keep up a single engine piston class rating on their ATPL. Do they appear in the PPL renewal stats? No.

NS

[Compton Flying Club]

Hi Tim,
I've only just found your post so wasn't aware that you had an issue with organising a cross channel flight. If you have any "frustrations" let someone here know directly and we'll deal with it straight away. Had I not found this thread by chance we would never have known!
There is no reason whatsoever that you can't hire one of our "spamcans" for a trip to France or beyond. With 3 warriors we should be able to find a suitable time for you to make this trip. We also have a 172SP and an AA5 both capable of lifting four people and fuel specifically for these kinds of trips. Not sure if you've had a look at either of these but I'm sure that you'd agree they come with a lot of extra spam i.e. GPS, leather seats, auto pilot etc etc.
With regard to crap excuses I can't think why we wouldn't want you or any member to go flying to France. All I can think you must be referring to is the club's cross channel check flight. Which is there purely for professional and safety reasons. I can't imagine many pilots or syndicates that would be happy making a cross channel flight for the first time without having a suitably experienced pilot alongside.
Give me a shout and we can sort it out for you next time you're in.
Happy New Year,
Saul
"I belong to an incredibly frustrating flying club (Compton Abbas) that won't let you take their rental planes across the channel. They just drag their feet giving one crap excuse after another. I'm at the stage (past it, really) where 1.5 hour journeys to other airfields in the south of the UK don't sound quite as exciting as a proper channel crossing and experimenting with another country.
I was under the impression you didn't save _that_ much money by flying in a syndicate as opposed to renting, but this thread suggests otherwise. Thing is, I would hope to join a syndicate for a plane rather better than the rental spamcans I've been accustomed to flying at CA. Obviously, since that is my local airfield the plane would need to be based there too."

[machel]

I've just found this thread. It makes interesting reading. I've had my PPL-A for two years now and have just done my SEP revalidation.

I can't imagine a time when I'll ever want to give up flying! I just love being up there. I love the freedom, the peace, the views, the three-dimensional challenge. I fly amongst or above the mountains most of the time. There's the constant challenge of reading the wind and the weather.

I fly just for the sake of it, although I have gone to a few different places. I never get bored. The views are constantly changing where I live, the light constantly changes, we can fly as high or as low as we want - more so on the weekends when the danger areas aren't in use and there's less chance of low-flying jets.

I own a share in a ULA, which only costs me around £18 an hour to run. It's only a very small, 2-seater, but as I like to fly on my own - for the peace and quiet - then it's not a problem. So, I can fly as much as I like because it is so cheap. I couldn't afford to keep hiring club aircraft, which was what I did for the first 50 hours or so of my flying.

When I was hiring club aircraft, there was a 30-day currency rule. With the weather in this part of the world, that was hard to keep up, and so I ended up having to do currency checks with an Instructor before I could fly. Getting an instructor at a weekend was difficult. Then there is an annual currency check that must be done every year. Again if you've only got a weekend, it's difficult. With my own aircraft, I have the freedom to fly as much or as little as I want.

My ambition is to go touring further afield in 2008, possibly to France. My aircraft is a Permit aircraft so I know the limitations, but that's all part of the challenge.

Everyone has different reasons for getting their licence but for me, it was the achievement of a lifetime ambition and, now that I've got it, it's better than I ever thought it would be.

[mostlytossas]

Well here in australia the drop out rate is also high though don't think it would be as high as 70% like stated in the UK. After reading the above posts I'm not surprised going on your charge out rates and landing fees. My sympathies with you all and please don't send them down here. I am in a syndicate who own an Archer and we charge ourselves A$120/TACHO hr wet. Landing fees average around $10 for most non major airports( such as Sydney,Melbourne etc) but each capital city has at least 1 GA airport so it doesn't matter. Still we all complain about that as up untill about 10yrs ago they were free.
Happy New Year to you all anyway.

[Henry Hallam]

"the club's cross channel check flight. Which is there purely for professional and safety reasons. I can't imagine many pilots or syndicates that would be happy making a cross channel flight for the first time without having a suitably experienced pilot alongside."

I made my first cross-channel flight solo with a little over 50 hours total time, and have made several crossings since. On a good VFR day and with some help beforehand with the paperwork there is absolutely no need to bring an instructor along. It is not any different or more difficult than any other cross-country.

[BackPacker]

Agree completely. I had something like 75 hours total time when I did my first crossing (Rotterdam-KOK-DVR-Blackbushe and back in one day for a business trip). I did talk things over with a fellow pilot who had done the crossing a few times, had a good read of the various AIPs and so forth, got me and my passenger a lifejacket and off we went.

Proper Planning Prevents etc.

But I have to say I'm glad I was flying a fully IFR capable DA-40 with 2xGNS430 (with the flightplan properly put in), autopilot etc. It's just easier to maintain situational awareness with a moving map and a magenta line, and in the perfect-VFR-is-almost-the-same-as-IFR conditions having an autopilot to keep the plane level while the pilot attends to other duties also helps.

[GLGNDB]

I fall into the PPL-A drop out category. Did the PPL in the USA in 99, and joined a club when I got back. A combination of factors - weather, instructor leaving, aircraft I was trying to get checked out on requiring extended maintenance and a lack of cash led to my licence lapsing. I joined a different club a couple of months before the licence was due to lapse with a view to try and keep it current - however the weather put paid to that.

In the time since my licence lapsed, I have considered going and renewing it - even asking for advice on this forum, but to date have done nothing about it.

Would I like to renew my licence? An unequivocal yes to that.

Can I afford to renew my licence? Yes, as I am in a better paid job than I was when I first got my PPL.

Will I renew my licence? Undecided on this last question. I have made enquiries about doing a re-validation package at the school I first attended in the US, as I can save money and get the licence re-validated in the next few months. I have also made tentative enquiries about getting the medical renewed. However I still have some nagging doubts - do I really want to spend the sums of money required to re-validate the PPL and keep it current? What will I do with the PPL once I re-validate it, spend ages trying to get checked out at a club again and lose interest or get a check ride and actually make use of having the licence?

At the moment I am edging about 60/40 towards re-validating the licence.

The only regret I have is that I spent in excess of £7000 getting the licence and at the moment have very little to show for it.

[mostlytossas]

strike a light mate....just how far is it across the chanel? Checkrides, safety pilots? You wouldn't be out of gliding distance for more than a few minutes would you? In any event even if the big fan did stop there would be dozens of surface vessels at any one time below wouldn't there?
Pick one and ditch next to and infront of it. We cross the bass straight regularly 100nm with only King Island about half way and often not a ship to be seen. Just take a lifejacket (mandatory) and portable ELB in your pocket and off you go.

[IO540]

I think there are basically two kinds of uses for a license: pleasure and utility.

Of course these can be combined on any given flight.

But all the time one is doing flights without utility value (the proverbial £100 burger runs, most of which could be driven in a similar time) one is going to be questioning whether the fun part is worth the money and the hassle.

I think most pilots who give up - other than for purely financial or pressing family reasons - do so because they got into the £100 burger rut and eventually ran out of interest.

So, bring a bit of utility into your flying. This is easy enough in the southern UK from where you can fly into France in an hour or two but a drive would be a huge hassle (farting around through the channel tunnel or worse still queing up shoe-less at some big airport) so there is great utility value. Many day trips can be done which would never be possible otherwise, and which are a great pleasure for passengers too.

There is a big crowd in GA which slags off utility flying but ultimately this is what keeps you from chucking it in.

The hassle on the ground will never go away. That's how aviation has been structured over many decades and countless thousands of jobs have been invented around it. One can chip away around the edges, one can certainly get better organised (electronic route and weather planning, web-based flight plan / GAR filing), one can improve the general arrangements (buy into a syndicate operating something nice) and one can make the flight a less stressful experience (by using a decent GPS) but ultimately the flight has to deliver something which you can't get by jumping into a car.

Getting an IMCR or an IR also helps greatly but this is another subject because one needs access to a decent IFR plane, plus the budget for currency, to make the use of it.

[rotorfossil]

A very interesting thread, but a little depressing. I have been exceptionally lucky in my flying career; fixed wing and helicopter training and interesting flying paid for by Her Majesty, instructor and examiner paid very well by large commercial school, writing flight test articles for major aviation magazines so lots of different types. Now retired, but I love flying as I always have and keep the faith by helping out by a bit of helicopter instructing and examining, PFA coaching and flying a parachute aircraft. BUT, I also have a share in a PFA aircraft and I see that last year I flew it for about 6 hours. All the events that I wanted to go to were weather effected, and whenever I planned to just go somewhere the weather or the crosswind or non aviation activities interfered.
I suppose what I am saying is that if the latter was the only flying available to me, I might be asking if it was worth the effort. And maybe this scenario is typical of some of those that drop out.
I agree that some of those that drop out have simply moved on to other licences. When the company that I worked for was offering sponsored training, a requirement for even getting an interview was to have a PPL. It was quite apparent that a fair proportion of the interviewees only got a PPL to be eligible for the sponsored CPL/H training.

[Whirlybird]

Things you can do when you get bored with £100 burgers.

I think most pilots who give up - other than for purely financial or pressing family reasons - do so because they got into the £100 burger rut and eventually ran out of interest.

I agree with IO540 (doesn't happen often ) However, there are a number of things you can do when the novelty of the £100 bacon buttie wears off...

1) As IO540 says, use your flying for something useful, that would be a hassle any other way.

2) Especially if you're low hours and/or short of cash, find another PPL to fly with. Half the money, half the work, twice the fun. If they have more experience than you, that's even better.

3) Get into flying touring....related to above but not necessarily the same. Buy a share, or find a school/club that will let you take an aircraft away for at least a couple of days. Quite a few will do this, especially if you go during the week; if yours won't look elsewhere. Then airfield hop, and stay somewhere overnight. Northern France, Scotland, and Ireland are great for this, but even closer to home (wherever that is for you) brings a whole new dimension to your flying. Suddenly you're an aerial wandering minstrel, finding a place to stay and eat, and setting off in the morning to go...who knows.

4) Get more qualifications - IMC, night rating, taildragger conversion, etc.

5) Learn to fly something new - helicopter, microlight, glider etc. Each of these is a whole new world, apart from the flying skills.

6) Get into aerobatics. I know at least one person who says he'd have given up by now if he had to fly right way up all the time. Not my cup of tea personally, but it might be yours.

7) If you find studying interesting and/or a challenge, work slowly towards a CPL and FI rating. It's interesting and useful, and gives you something to aim at. It might eventually give you a really great part time job - you'll get paid to fly...or at least to let people who can't fly try to kill you. Never mind if you'll never recoup your investment; you're doing this because you want to.

8) Take flying holidays. British instructor Sue Burgess-Virr in France more or less specialises in flying with Brits, and offers accommodation too, see www.almostheaven.com. Or you can go practically anywhere you (and maybe the family) want to go, and just book some duel flying for a day or two or ten.

9) Get into air racing. I don't know much about this, but I think you only need 100 hours P1 to start...and it's a whole new world.

10) Bear in mind that you don't have to revalidate by doing 12 hours every 2 years; you can do it far more quickly and cheaply by doing a test with an examiner. Friends who've done this assure me that it's usually quite quick and painless...though if you're really rusty it might take a bit longer.

And if none of that lot even remotely grabs you...then maybe it's time to give up and take up golf or tiddlywinks.

[micromalc]

never mind the "drop-outs'

Well, what an interesting thread.Lots of wise words being expressed. Okay,lots of people give up flying but more importantly, how do we attract new young blood to the sport? I've been flying on and off for 30 years and now have become one of the grey haired members of the flying world and when I look around around my local flying club 80% of my colleagues are also grey haired. Lets face it, it is hard to compete with activities such as hang gliding, snow boarding, surfing, paragliding etc etc etc.and a fellow club member was whining about his lack of "love life" the other day, so I recommended that he should give up flying for a while and take up horse riding and ball room dancing.(thank God my wife also enjoys flying).
We have to find a way to make taking a PPL more fun and less expensive.
(maybe include basic aeros in the course) if not WE become the dinosaurs.

[IO540]

how do we attract new young blood to the sport?

This one has been done to death here also.

Most people posting on pilot forums are aviation anoraks who have been hanging around the GA scene for years and they have come to accept the present scene (rotting spamcans mostly) as normality. They will never accept any suggestions on this topic and indeed many of them fear change because it threatens their flying environment.

It's obvious that a big change has taken place in our society over the past 30 years or so.

In 1970, a new Vauxhall Viva or a Hillman Hunter was a symbol of having made it. A new Ford Capri drew a massive crowd - practically the whole school piled into the car park to see it.

Today, nothing short of a Ferrari driven through the middle of a council estate gets much notice and then only to get the wheels nicked.

Almost everybody with a job can afford to buy anything they want for a basic lifestyle: a car, furniture, TV, VCR, gadgets, etc.

So, peoples' expectations and standards have gone up a LOT. The Youth Hostel Association has had a crisis because people are no longer interested in roughing it 1960s style in unheated huts.

But GA is still in the 1970s rut. Just look around. You see a load of pilots in their 60s and 70s and I can tell you they didn't learn to fly last year. They learnt to fly 20-30 years ago.

You do get young people in occassionally. Many are just dead keen - my son would happily fly anything just to fly. But most are pleasure flight customers who get into a 1970s Cessna on the basis that it didn't fall apart on the last flight so it will be OK on this one. And the keen ones are usually people who haven't got the money to hang in there for long.

To draw new blood you need to raise standards all around. New planes, clean well organised schools/clubs.

This is not easy because their is little choice of training planes that are modern and can be banged around without breaking. Also most airfields already have a school which operates the old wreckage and they won't change, and they will always undercut any newcomer.

One also needs a modernised syllabus. Anybody who can work a PC will just fall over laughing at the sight of map+compass navigation and the stupid circular slide rule. The determined ones grind through it and buy a GPS as soon as they can, while the rest just find it all too much, the risk of getting lost and busting airspace etc. Most pilots have a constant fear of getting into trouble - supported by all the threatening and patronising flyers and literature which is rammed down everybody's throat - which makes flying stressful. One needs a modern syllabus where you learn to do things in a modern way. Very few pilots actually want to replicate WW2 methods.

Anybody with the funds to really fly is going to be earning above national average, although much obviously depends on one's situation (family etc). And these people are not interested in roughing it. They have high expectations everywhere they go. If you get them to climb into some piece of wreckage which has a pool of water on the floor and stinks like an old phone box, they won't like it at all.

A lot of it is catch-22. The decrepit scene drives women away and the lack of interesting women keeps most young men away, which in turn ensures the social scene is made up of a lot of old men moaning about landing fees. Men will (to a degree) participate in a decrepit environment but most women won't - one needs a very slick clean organisation to draw them in. IMHO the lack of women in the GA social scene keeps vast number of potential male customers well away. Most men earning the money are quite busy and they will spend their weekends where they get a reasonable "return"

I am sure things will change 10-20 years from now, purely through attrition of the old guard and scrapping of the old junk, but by that time yet more airfields will be threatened with closure and avgas will cost god knows how much.

[robin]

>>>>>>We have to find a way to make taking a PPL more fun and less expensive.<<<<

Agreed, but the way things are going, less expensive is not an option.... at least as far as EASA and CAA are concerned.