The incentives young aviators need....or not?

[Everskyward]

Umm, no, the best way to get young people to fly is to remove their common sense.

This. No wonder females don't participate in the same numbers as men do.

 

[JOhnH]

Umm, no, the best way to get young people to fly is to remove their common sense.

I would rather state that as "get young people to quit being afraid of pushing themselves to tackle something they believe is hard". Most young people are already void of common sense.

edit: let me rephrase that: "Most young people have not had the time or encouragement to develop common sense".

 

[jspilot]

I'm young by aviation standards( 32 years old.) Almost every person I know is a motivated, self starter who made it pretty far in their chosen career path. They all want to go flying with me and they all leave loving their experience. 0 of them ever went to take flight lessons. I think it is really very simple, to most people, learning to fly is not something that they want to do. They don't have a use for it and it's not all that high on their priority list.

I absolutely hate when the older generation comes on here and makes insanely sweeping generalizations about my generation. Can you please get over yourselves. I'll make a sweeping generalization of my own now... Most people 50 and over never had it easier to build wealth in this nation than in any prior generation. Most are sitting on houses worth 10 plus times what they paid for them in the 70's and therefore have an insanely inflated sense of accomplishment( you bought a house that by little doing of your own went up in value.). Most young people are sitting on debt that is very high that most will struggle to get out from under all caused by the price of college.

 

[Phoenix]

I would rather state that as "get young people to quit being afraid of pushing themselves to tackle something they believe is hard". .

So by that logic everyone who isn't able to do a one arm chin up or isn't training to do a one arm chin up is a lazy chump. Doing hard stuff without a desire for the result is dumb. Vanilla GA is not that much fun, not that useful to most, and expensive enough to tip it off the scales.

 

[Bob Noel]

if people don't enjoy the magic of flight, then let them remain as penguins.

 

[rachelk.tailwinds]

Umm, no, the best way to get young people to fly is to remove their common sense.

Can we talk? Private aviation, for the most part, is impractical. It is hideously expensive. The airplanes that most of us can have a hope to fly are derivatives of sixty year old designs, and look primitive compared to a modern car. Until you get to the Skylane class or better, you can't carry an entire family for much of a cross country. Aviation is commonplace today and has no real cachet, it has nothing new to offer.

There are exactly two reasons to learn to fly, either because you love it, or because you hope to do it for a living. Barring either of those, why would someone go to the trouble and expense?

There's no reason to diss an entire group of people just because they don't love your hobby.

Perhaps I should elaborate. When I said young people need to have a work ethic to keep them flying, I meant that the cost of flying is often the biggest obstacle, as mentioned in the OP. You say you would need a 182 or better to fly a family cross country. I am a proud owner of a 182 because I work hard to afford it. I could have gone for a 152 but I knew that it would keep me grounded for most of the year. So almost out of necessity, I decided on a 182 which must be twice as expensive. There are people out there who would have given up after the 152 and said, "well, that's it, I can't afford to fly." That attitude, I attribute to a poor work ethic. In fact, most arguments against flying can stem from it like "not having enough time" and "not having enough opportunities."

I'm not "dissing" on anyone, I just think these kid need to get their own butts into gear to get them moving on their dreams. I do not agree with the article in the OP saying all it takes is a big happy group of friends to keep you interested.

But then, maybe that's just the introvert in me, finding internal motivation more effective than external forms.

 

[Everskyward]

I absolutely hate when the older generation comes on here and makes insanely sweeping generalizations about my generation.

So do I, and I'm 50-something. We had the same mix of lazy/motivated people and the older generation complained about us too.