I recently attended an AOPA FAAst team seminar and I was genuinely surprised by the demographics of the attendees.
Back in stone age, when I was learning to fly and working through all my ratings, these seminars were attended by a wide cross section of the aviation community and attending was a great way to learn from an experienced audience.
Back then, the room was full of steely eyed missile men, military heroes and eager pups- and everyone had something to contribute to the conversations, mostly due to the massive amount of flying that was going on in those days...
Not so any more...
When polled, of the 100 or so people in the room, there were maybe fifteen Commercial pilots, four or five ATPs, and the biggest shocker was I was one of only three Instructors in the room!
The rest of the crowd were either student pilots, one or two Private pilots and a whole bunch of non-pilots.
Needless to say, the discussions were among the same six or seven people. The presenter knew most of them by name, so they must attend every seminar when they come to the area twice per year (or more often).
It's great to see people who are new to aviation attending these events, but without the graybeards, the exchange of experience, opinion and war stories just didn't happen.
The crowd looked more like the line for customer service at WalMart than a room full of the future leaders of the General Aviation world.
The one positive outcome for me was I got a cool, super bright pink pencil and a lime green ruler, as well as a calendar full of horrific refrigerator art. It wasn't a total loss...
Have any of you attended one of these seminars lately and had a similar experience?
Back in stone age, when I was learning to fly and working through all my ratings, these seminars were attended by a wide cross section of the aviation community and attending was a great way to learn from an experienced audience.
Back then, the room was full of steely eyed missile men, military heroes and eager pups- and everyone had something to contribute to the conversations, mostly due to the massive amount of flying that was going on in those days...
Not so any more...
When polled, of the 100 or so people in the room, there were maybe fifteen Commercial pilots, four or five ATPs, and the biggest shocker was I was one of only three Instructors in the room!
The rest of the crowd were either student pilots, one or two Private pilots and a whole bunch of non-pilots.
Needless to say, the discussions were among the same six or seven people. The presenter knew most of them by name, so they must attend every seminar when they come to the area twice per year (or more often).
It's great to see people who are new to aviation attending these events, but without the graybeards, the exchange of experience, opinion and war stories just didn't happen.
The crowd looked more like the line for customer service at WalMart than a room full of the future leaders of the General Aviation world.
The one positive outcome for me was I got a cool, super bright pink pencil and a lime green ruler, as well as a calendar full of horrific refrigerator art. It wasn't a total loss...
Have any of you attended one of these seminars lately and had a similar experience?