Sell Transportation Plus Recreation!

In recent months we’ve experienced an ever-increasing alarm about the dearth of new pilots in training. There have been more than a few solutions offered, and here is mine.

First, we must accept two facts:

1) Buying and flying a private airplane for transportation is expensive and most people can’t afford it.
2) Buying and flying a private airplane for recreation is so much less expensive that many more people can afford it.

We have pushed the transportation value of general aviation (GA) far too often, the recreational value far too seldom. Truth is, we need both.

When non-flying people ask me about the cost of flying, I tell them it is expensive if you use an airplane for transportation, but not expensive if you use it for recreation. They are often surprised by my answer, but, by golly, they do ask a lot more questions than if I told them what a Bonanza costs!

I met a young working man recently who avidly sought info about buying an airplane and learning to fly. He had planned to buy a used Cessna 150/152, had checked the prices and was pleasantly surprised. (This young man maintains a fleet of school buses. He understands mechanics.)

Then a “real” pilot suggested he not “mess around” with a two-seat airplane, but buy a C-172. The young man and I talked for over an hour, during which he decided the smaller airplane would do everything he wanted right now. He could afford it and he was interested in recreational flying. He did ask me if he could fly it on trips occasionally, and I assured him that he could do so and enjoy it.

We have LSA aircraft now. No medical required and one can buy a qualifying Cub, Champ or Taylorcraft for peanuts, comparatively speaking. Maintenance, insurance, fuel and upkeep will be much less expensive; and with only one passenger, he is much less likely to get into trouble. Any one of the above airplanes can be purchased — used, of course — for far less than the avionics installed in a bona fide transportation aircraft.

All too often, nobody tells the neophyte about the recreational use of aircraft. During my first lesson back in the 1960s, the CFI told me that I should buy a Mooney. Today, the aviation neophyte may hear the same thing about a Cirrus, Bonanza, or Mooney. Many of my happiest hours aloft were spent in bare-bones, no-radio airplanes!

It is true that such low-budget aircraft probably won’t be based at large airports, but on little airports, possibly with grass strips. That’s true, but be honest — do you really want a Champ at your airport? Besides, I’m not saying eliminate transportation aircraft, but saying let’s do encourage recreational aviation also.

Somehow, somebody has to train a lot of new pilots. Recreational flying will help do that.