Ungrateful pax?!
 

I expect all kinds of reactions from a first-time passenger -nervous, exhilerated, inquisitive - but this is a first. I took a friend flying and, to be honest I was a bit put out with his attitude – he didn’t even say thank you let alone express any interest! OK true, I had made him get up very early because he'd wanted to go to France, then when the weekend's cold front loomed I explained that we'd have to do something a bit less exciting this time, but still! I had warned him about the wx this time of year and he insisted he was fine with that and would take the risk.

He just sat there looking bored and unimpressed, not saying anything all the way and then made a comment about my (well-executed, incidentally!) landing to the effect of 'oh well, at least we got down'. Like to see him do any better!!! :* Private flying’s not as comfortable as BA I know, but most people don’t seem to mind!

I don’t expect people to be falling on their knees in gratitude, but given that I’d spent £140 on entertaining him for the morning, you’d have thought he’d at least say thanks and stand me a cuppa instead of making me feel guilty for getting him up early in the morning. Grr – it was like he was busting himself to be ‘cool’ about it and forgot his manners in the process. Or maybe he can't deal with being told what to do by a younger woman... :*

(disengage rant mode)

Anyway, deep breath. The reason I say all this is to ask if anyone has had a similar experience. And to get it off my chest. Feel better now! :O

The wife ;)

She said it was boring and wouldn't be flying with me again.

I suspect a bit of macho envy there Pppppenguina. ;) ;)

Divorce :E

Pengy - do the old "pretend to faint" trick next time on him (we laughed about the idea about a year ago ISTR)

:E

Two possibilities:[list=a][*]Scared[*]T*sser[/list=a]
Andy :ok:

Did an hour's worth of touch and go's a few weeks ago to get some practice in - the wife (NOT an aviator I hasten to add) decides to sit and watch from the touchline, and then after I came back in, get this...

Proceeded to give me a FULL de-briefing on each and every landing! Went something like this:

Cr*p, cr*p, cr*p.... ..... cr*p! I think I only did one landing which she was remotely impressed with!!!:{

Think we've just got to accept that not everybody shares the same passion for aviation as we do.

More than made up for it when it came to nocturnal T's and G's later that night though - full marks all round.... ;)

Could just be a personality thing Penguina, some people don't do "gratitude" very well.

It would be interesting to get your pax's view of events as told to others - could well have told his mates/colleagues whatever that he had a great time.

On the other hand Aussie Andy may be right, he could be either scared, a t*sser, or both :*

Had one lady throw up in my plane. Luckily she grabbed a headset bag just in time. Unluckily it had a mobile phone and wallet in the bottom. Luckily it wasn't mine.;)

I think you've hit the nail on the head there - I've had many a rant in the past about it, but it's just one of those things that you have to accept. After all, would we get excited at going to a stamp collectors convention? :D

Nothing wrong with collecting stamps by the way.

No, not experienced that sort of reaction.

Penguina, IMHO your rant is entirely justified, and his rudeness was not to be countenanced.

MikeeB - my wife is just the same. She actually went to sleep once, just as I was about to say 'Wow, what a great view of Brize - so good of the controller to give us a transit directly overhead!'

My son (aged nearly 2) is much more appreciative.

Tim

Mrs bcfc and #1 son are pretty ambivalent about flying, although like the bacon sarnies when we arrive.

#2 son is much more appreciative so long as we go cloudy dodging and have fun on the way. He's happy to come along for the ride anytime.

All in all, most people I've taken up like it, appreciate why I do it, but don't get the passion. Only fellow pilots really understand . I haven't had anyone as rude as Penguina had, but then no one else I know stares up at the sky mystically wishing they were up there. I spend half my day doing it :)

Should have done some Stalls , Steep Turns & unusual attitude that sounds appropriate as they seemed to have an "unusual Attitude" , ;)

I took my Dad after years of mithering him to come up with me , He seemed unimpressed and seemed glad the whole affair was over .

Maybe deep down he was a bit worried ( doesnt suit everyone)
I wouldnt worry about it , I tend to only take people now who seem genuinly interested in flying, some people just put it on their "done that " list !!

We love it anyway !! and they cant do it !!!!

nah nah na nah nah !!!!:ok:

EL:p

I shudder to think how many pax I've brought home after spending a couple of weeks on the North Sea. How many have taken the time to say thank you, or give me an appreciative wave, do you think? I could probably count them on the fingers of one foot.

Bad move. I tried this with the Mrs, and it put an end to my flight "I feel sick, I want to go home". She didn't appreciate it either when I said "I'm bored, you fly".....talk about freaking out....:D

I know what you mean. Some people just cannot get that exited about anything. What a sad life they must lead.

I take people on a similar trip most weekends, give them my best tourguide speech of the south of england, entertain them with steep turns, give them their first go at flying a plane themselves and just not impressed.

Others wear giddy smiles from take off to touch down. The best ones are the ones that just want you to make it go tippy all of the time (about 1 in 100 trips on average).

Yet stick me on a pole 2000 feet above the airfield and I'd never get bored looking out. Every time you go up you see somthing you've never seen before.

Anyway if they all wanted to do it imagine how busy it would be up there.

The most gaulling thing is you paid for it. I'd have at least got the cost share and lunch out of the miserable git.

I've not had that sort of thing happen. However, I do warn people that I fly a very ancient and tatty C150, that it won't be comfortable, that it won't be fast, and that they might not like it. (Though I do emphasise that, old or not, the aircraft is safe.) But it sounds like, whatever the reason, this chap has no idea of manners at all!!!!!

Nearest I've come to an experience like that? I took up two firends, husband and wife, cost sharing, one at a time. They both loved it, and asked if I'd take a friend of theirs. OK, I said. A couple of weeks later I got a phone call from their friend. She more or less demanded that I take her son flying for a birthday present. Well, I said, I might be able to, but I don't know when. That wasn't good enough; she wanted it soon, because his birthday was coming up, and she wanted it on a Saturday, as he worked in the week. I explained that I'm a helicopter instructor, and that I work Saturdays. "You mean you can't do it!", she said, clearly very annoyed. Having had enough by then, I said no, sorry, I couldn't. She was quite put out. The fact that I'd be paying for the privilege of taking her son flying didn't seem to occur to her.

I'm very careful who I take flying these days. And I tell them it'll be when it's convenient for me, and the fact we arrange it doesn't mean we'll fly, and I don't want any arguments if we don't.

After all, being pilots doesn't mean that we're aerial taxi services.

Complete lack of manners and common courtesy by the sounds of it.
Regardless of if they enjoyed it or not you took your time out for them and they should have been polite.
Manners maketh man so they say, thankfully most people would be delighted to go flying with you Penguina.

Penguina,

As a complete contrast, I took my neighbour and her 12 year old son for a 40 minute trip down to EBSP and back for a cup of coffee last Saturday. The son had flown with me once as a 6 year old but this was the ladies first trip in a light aircraft. The trip down was initally a little turbulent and, soon after take off, I glimpsed (she sat in the back on the way down) her white knuckles clutching the back of her son's seat. She managed to survive it and my ropiest landing ever.

Back at base I was kept high and thrown a threshold base into the bargin. The subsequent slowing down and getting down produced another couple of white knuckle moments for her. Despite this she appeared at the door a few hours later, with that silly grin on her face, to let me know how much she enjoyed the new experience.

So stress or not, I don't cut your passenger too much slack. My 2p worth .... unmannerly to$$er!

I'm with Stafford on this. If this person was a friend, the only thing that explains his attitude was pathetic macho envy. I mean, hell, if we're going to run with the stamp collection comparison: Stamps leave me cold, but if a pal has a fantastic collection and goes to a lot of trouble to show it to me, I'd show some enthusiasm, and it would only be partly fake.....

Airist

Stamp Collection ? Is that the best comparison you can come up with ? What colour is your Kagool ?:p :p :8

Er some people do go to such things you know ... well, about once every twenty years in my case actually, not quite time for the next one yet.

I take quite a few non-flyers flying and I always get a reaction:

generally it is - wow, I now know why you love it so much, what an experience, that upside down stuff is so weird!

or occassionally, "I'm really glad that we did it but next time take my sister".

I do have two rules and although generous with my invites (I pay) I assess the suitability of the pax before I offer. The second rule is that those that I have invited are given 3 opportunities to come flying. If they've turned down 3 trips because of personal circumstances, then they really weren't that keen at all!


Stik

Penguina,

I would come flying to France with you any day, and show you my appreciation too!

:p

Stik,you are indeed very generous and it certainly got a big "Wow!" from me.
Talk to you later about this evening.
Lister:D

Aussie Andy:
3rd possibility to add to your two:
Been offered a large sum to be a 'mule' that day...

Exactly ;)

My experience as a stude of others attitude, is that there are generally two types of people when it comes to flying:

1) Those who are very excited about the prospect of taking the skies in one of those "little plane thingies" and would love to come flying and;

2) Those who generally show no interest at all (which is fine by me).

I reckon there will be a third though, which will be those who have said they would love to go flying, but never do.

Oh and I hate it when people say "I would come flying with you but I would rather you have some more experience first" :mad:

Thanks to flower, 1Mclay & all; good to have a bit of solidarity from the 'right sort'! :)

mazzy, I know where you're coming from and no doubt an original 19th century penny black or whatever is a fascinating historical artefact, but... I'm sorry! The boringness of most people just astounds me! They would rather be lurking around getting all excited over a new series of ER or a day's shopping in the high street when it is possible for most people (medical permitting) to fly! People just don't want to be different.

So while I have to accept on the evidence that you're right, I will never, never understand it! :confused:

But I still maintain that in the case of my 'friend', I'm liking Aussie Andy, Stafford and 18greens hypotheses the most... :p

A slight Twist on the macho male thing. I've been helping with the PFA Young Eagles/Aviator experience flights for a few years now and I've noticed that there's a big difference in the way the Boys and Girls react.
The Girls are very open about the whole thing. Most enjoy the experience and let the world and his wife know about it, a few are scared and therefore are a bit diffident but do show proper gratitude.
The Boys all try to act cool 'n' hard so apart from the poor unfortunates who get airsick and get the living !!!!! ripped out of them by the rest there's very little response just grunts and incoherent mumblings.
This has led to a number of pilots saying stuff the ungrateful little sods I'm not doing that again.
However it transpires that on the ride home in the minibus the general and fairly loud concensus of opinion is that it was really cool. Apparently showning enthusiasm for an organised activity in front of the olds is not the done thing.
There are exceptions though, we've run a few scout camps and them little beggers have no qualms about showing their enthusiasm both boys and girls.

Mind you, the if ain't on telly it aint real factor seems to be quite prevalent these days!

during my training (still going on atm) i had someone ask me 3 times if they could come up, so after great expence, i managed to talk my instructor to all someone to come up for a lesson. (a lesson where its safe or easy to have someone in the back), and even arranged a good time, all they had to pay was a £10 insurence thing, which they said no problem to. the day came, and they said, na i cant afford the £10 this time, and dont really want to pay £10 to go.

(i was thinking i told you weeks ago you would have to pay this, and you still wanted to come)

i mean i was paying £140 for the lesson, which i made at a time more to suit them, and had arranged a lesson that would allow them up in the back.

needless to say, even when they asked again i just said no.

Audio, that sounds particularly infuriating!

Penguina - get him to take you along to something he likes doing (even if it's only popping down to the local Taj Mahal).

Get him to pay for everything, then moan your t**s off for the entire time.

Revenge is a dish best served cold - unlike lamb madras.

Pen,

That's terrible. When you go to the effort of bring someone flying, then they should should some appreciation for your efforts, even if it turns out not to be something that they enjoy.

When you actually cover the full costs of the outing, given the very expensive nature of flying, then if they don't really enjoy the experience, good manners dictates that they should fake the excitement! :rolleyes: The appreciation of course should not require any faking! ;)

If it's any consolation, I really enjoyed our day flying together! It was great fun, and I learnt a lot too :cool:

dp

When I got my licence my father expressed an interest in flying with me. It was quite a while before I was ready, the weather was good (at both Brimpton, where I am based, and Leicester where he lives), my aircraft was serviceable and my father was available all on the same day. Anyway, I flew up to Leicester and took him bimbling around places he would know from the ground. We overflew places he used to live or work, places we used to go to walk when was young etc and were airborn for about an hour. I offered to let him have the controls but he was too busy looking at things that you would never notice when on the ground. When we landed back at Leicester I could see by the big grin that he had enjoyed it. He didn't need to say anything.

A couple of months later my sister let slip the fact that my father is having flying lessons! He is also talking about building an aircraft from a kit. Not bad for a 74 year old. I wonder why he didn't do it sooner.

Andrew

Just a passing thought.

Twice I can recall taking up a pax who passed virtually no comment about it, but later I heard them enthusing greatly at anybody who'd listen about how great it was. I think that in each case they were so overwhelmed by the experience they couldn't actually express themselves at the time. I think that having become familiar with and comfortable in the airborne environment we tend sometimes to forget how special it can be to somebody unused to it.

G

Ungrateful PAX....
 

Penguina ..

Well what can I say ! I can perfectly understand your frustration
especially as there certainly was a cost to your goodself..
I bet this miserable sod has a real boring job ,something in the construction of software for papermills I would wager ! - There are those that would show their heartfelt gratitude of flying with
you at any time and treat you to a cuppa afterwards or even a night in a country hotel I should'nt wonder ! (although I'd want more than a slice of granary bread and a banana- for breakfast that is ) I would just ADORE the thought of being even asked to go flying with you !

I hope you've thawed our and caught up on the shut eye .

FFRIDAY

PS I have an asian grooved marrow and a couple of pomegranites

ready for you .....

Don't worry ppruners, he's not a dangerous internet nutter...





... he's just an ordinary dangerous nutter! ;)

dublinpilot:

I also enjoyed our day and also learnt loads from you - like, how to navigate in places like the Republic of Ireland and East Anglia and how to fly a proper deadside join without pussy-footing around in a girly manner such as I do! :)

strafer:

I like it! Also like the 'fainting fit' and 'unusual attitude' approaches mentioned earlier on! :E

I absolutely agree with Genghis. I took a uni friend up once and he was very quiet and relaxed, in fact he dozed off during a one hour flight while I was having fun in a near new DR400. He didn't show much emotion on the ground afterwards either, but ever since then he says how much he enjoyed it and tells people about it when we are in the pub together. He can't be just saying that eiher because he came up again and often asks me if I have a spare seat going.

Nah, writing software that is going to throw very large pieces of metal about is not boring, particularly if you work for the sort of organisation which makes the programmer stand in front of the machine the first time they turn it on. (Writing software to calculate salesmen's bonuses, now that's boring.)

hey thanks for that :P