Biggest Barrier to Entry for Becoming a Pilot?

What do you think is the biggest barrier to entry for becoming a pilot?

  • Time

    Votes: 25 12.8%

  • Money

    Votes: 177 90.3%

  • Ability to Pass a Medical

    Votes: 10 5.1%
  • Total voters
    196
ClimbnSink said:
If that is the crowd we are talking about fear is the only answer(fear of a brutish wife counts as fear)
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I would think that to truly make a man fearful of her, his wife would have to be nasty, brutish AND short.
 
Cowardice on the part of the prospect may be a contributing factor, but complacency and indifference from within GA has played a bigger role in my opinion. GA pilots have not exactly represented the sport very well when every other week we hear a story about a pilot crashing in 300' ceilings after logging minimal time in IMC or killing his family while attempting to depart in tropical storm force winds. I'm sure many of you have shared my disbelief after having read NTSB reports and wondered what were they thinking. Unless we do a better job of protecting ourselves and our passion's reputation, no mother is going to encourage her child to fly a plane; it's really that simple. Just think of how many children of licensed pilots have never stepped foot inside a GA aircraft with the motor running. I can name at least two.
 
Pilots do dumb things and airplanes crash that is the norm, folks be cowards for not rolling the dice.
 
WakeNCAgent said:
Cowardice on the part of the prospect may be a contributing factor, but complacency and indifference from within GA has played a bigger role in my opinion. GA pilots have not exactly represented the sport very well when every other week we hear a story about a pilot crashing in 300' ceilings after logging minimal time in IMC or killing his family while attempting to depart in tropical storm force winds. I'm sure many of you have shared my disbelief after having read NTSB reports and wondered what were they thinking.
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Yup. http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20131111X10005&key=1
 
WakeNCAgent said:
Cowardice on the part of the prospect may be a contributing factor, but complacency and indifference from within GA has played a bigger role in my opinion. GA pilots have not exactly represented the sport very well when every other week we hear a story about a pilot crashing in 300' ceilings after logging minimal time in IMC or killing his family while attempting to depart in tropical storm force winds. I'm sure many of you have shared my disbelief after having read NTSB reports and wondered what were they thinking. Unless we do a better job of protecting ourselves and our passion's reputation, no mother is going to encourage her child to fly a plane; it's really that simple. Just think of how many children of licensed pilots have never stepped foot inside a GA aircraft with the motor running. I can name at least two.
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Cowardice and fear are not the same, just sayin'.

The accident prone aren't fearful enough of their own shortcomings. Most of the rest of us are, just a little bit.
 
eman1200 said:
I don't think that's what this thread is about. Obviously, people who don't have an interest in {whatever} don't do {whatever}. I think the question is for new people who ARE interested but end up not pursuing, what was the barrier for them.
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There are different levels of interest. I have thought that a lot of things might be interesting to try but never got much further than that. I think that's where many people are with aviation. But you're right. I don't know if this is about barriers for people who already have a strong interest or getting people with a mild interest more interested. We often have threads about both.
 
I voted money, almost all my spare change goes to the airplane, and I fly it when ever I have some gas money. If I have somewhere to go its just a bonus!
 
I would say, having somewhere to go. Then aircraft availability to actually travel for days and not only a two hour block ****ty rental from the FBO. Without these, a PPL is pretty much worthless. Flying would get as boring as driving your car in circles with no where to go.
 
http://generalaviationnews.com/2013/12/15/the-lost-generation/

I was reading this article on the GA News website and one of the comments was that one of the reasons younger people don't fly these days is because their parents think it is a dangerous activity for their kids and their parents will try to discourage them from learning to fly.

Any teens on this board, were your parents against you learning to fly since they think it is dangerous (which it is)?
 
Bob Noel said:
My sister was absolutely dead against me trying to take my nephew flying.
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All my sister in laws were the opposite, I took all the nieces and nephews flying, on pipeline patrols at that. By the end of the day my 9year oldnephew could land the PA-12 from the back seat.
 
N918KT said:
http://generalaviationnews.com/2013/12/15/the-lost-generation/

I was reading this article on the GA News website and one of the comments was that one of the reasons younger people don't fly these days is because their parents think it is a dangerous activity for their kids and their parents will try to discourage them from learning to fly.

Any teens on this board, were your parents against you learning to fly since they think it is dangerous (which it is)?
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The stats on student starts are here: http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation_data_statistics/civil_airmen_statistics/2012/

While they're not what they were in the mid 2000's, they're not appreciably lower than they were in 2003. As far as teenagers learning to fly goes, precious few of them have parents with enough money to pay for flying lessons. Those that are working are generally saving for college. Besides, with the low number of hours a full time student can work and the low pay their jobs provide, they'd be working three weeks to pay for an hour's dual.

From what I can tell, GA flying is approximately as dangerous as riding a motorcycle. Most parents don't want their teens on motorcycles either.
 
Definitely time and money. Learning to fly requires a very serious committment. It was very expensive for me to get my PPL but in long run worth it.
 
Money would be the problem for me, I don't really want to go into debt unless I have to.
 
I've never seen a coffin with pockets - either for cash or for bills.
 
MONEY by far is my biggest barrier! But I WILL get a PPL and hopefully more. Two of my three kids want to learn to fly. My son is five and he wants to start NOW!
My avatar is him in a 757 with that ear to ear smile!!!:D
 
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