Young flyers and our future

skidoo

skidoo

Line Up and Wait
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skidoo
So, I observed a bunch of kids going on their YE rides today. What stuck me was how few had excited or happy expressions. Sure, there were some, but it seemed that more than half had expressions of indifference. What I found to be odd was there were many who after getting seated, I observed them just looking down at their phones and concentrating on that. What does this mean for the future of our world?

I hope it means nothing...
 
Too many kids are dragged off to participate in things not their choice. They might rather be sitting inside playing with their X BOX. Many, including parents, think "FREE". Few appreciate exactly how much it takes to set up an event. Even fewer appreciate how much it costs. My guess would be upwards of $150 per child.
I have been fortunate to fly kids who not only looked forward to the flight, but enjoyed it. There have been a number of repeat customers who have asked for me. Big thanks after landing.
Then again, maybe the thanks had more to do with getting them back on the ground. After all, I have had flights that make me understand why the Pope kisses the ground when he deplanes.
 
This is why I don't participant in YE. It is force fed aviation. It is more to give pilots something to do than to encourage kids. :nono:

I prefer to teach aviation to those who show an interest, at any age. Handing out rides like you are at an amusement park is worthless if they don't understand the basics of flight. JMHO.

Another reason for me is experimentals are not allowed to give rides for cancer charity events (raffle off a ride to raise money) but they can get an exemption to give rides to kids to raise money for EAA. Either it is allowed, or it is not. You cannot have it both ways. :idea:
 
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Maybe you should have pretended it was a flight on an airliner and imposed the no electronics rule. I'm really only half way joking with that. I'm a school teacher in real life and kids are still kids, when the electronics are gone that is.

I've never done one of these events but the concept sounds great. However, flying is like every other hobby out there. For every 1 person who loves it there will certainly be more who don't like it. That being said I think it's important to expose kids to things because maybe that one kids who flew that day who loved it might not have ever had the opportunity to learn he or she loves flying had it not been for the event.
 
I truly believe that the spirit of adventure is dead inside many of our children, and adults too. When you can get the stimulus from a little electric box, why bother with any risk, or even the perception of risk.
 
While I have not yet participated in any YE events, what I enjoy doing is finding kids that want to go for a ride and take them, let them do a little flying and just have a good time. This to me is far more enjoyable than taking up someone who really doesn't want to go or be there.

Still one of the best ones I've had yet was I flew in to a country club for dinner with some friends and a little boy had his face plastered to the window overlooking the runway. He came up to me and asked me if I had flown in. After some talking to the kids parents, I ended up giving him and his dad a ride. Not only did that make my day, I don't think you could have done anything to wipe the smile off that kids face.
 
Yup, the Atari 2600 destroyed my mind and these fancy new phones and xboxes are destroying the minds of our children.
Perhaps the nanny state they are raised in has killed the capacity for adventure but blaming electronics is a bit far fetched.
More likely they know mommy is going to be ****ed at dad and they will never be allowed near an airport again so why get excited.
 
jspilot said:
For every 1 person who loves it there will certainly be more who don't like it.
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Right, and it's not a new phenomenon either. I don't know anyone I grew up in the 1960s and 70s with who was interested in being a pilot.
 
Everskyward said:
Right, and it's not a new phenomenon either. I don't know anyone I grew up in the 1960s and 70s with who was interested in being a pilot.
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Dunno if that is true, and dunno if there is any way to prove it. All I know is many of my buddies and I would be building plastic airplane models, then building woodne ones that could fly, instead of watching TV. There were no video games then. Hours upon hours of painting, gluing, flying and crashing them, and of course dreaming we were in the cockpit.

I don't know ANY kids that do that anymore.
 
Anthony said:
Dunno if that is true, and dunno if there is any way to prove it. All I know is many of my buddies and I would be building plastic airplane models, then building woodne ones that could fly, instead of watching TV. There were no video games then. Hours upon hours of painting, gluing, flying and crashing them, and of course dreaming we were in the cockpit.

I don't know ANY kids that do that anymore.
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Is it bad that interests change, generationally? I would have loved having computers when I was young. I read books, watched TV, and played in the woods but I can't say that I didn't anything that constructive as a kid.
 
ClimbnSink said:
Yup, the Atari 2600 destroyed my mind and these fancy new phones and xboxes are destroying the minds of our children.
Perhaps the nanny state they are raised in has killed the capacity for adventure but blaming electronics is a bit far fetched.
More likely they know mommy is going to be ****ed at dad and they will never be allowed near an airport again so why get excited.
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So true. The only difference between the Atari and the xboxes is they don't leave the house. Kids now a days are always connected to the electronics that they can't or don't want to escape them.
 
I just volunteered as ground crew at my first YE, and I had a different experience. The only kid who had any electronic gadget with him had taken a camera to take pics. They were all pretty excited..at least before the flight...there were a couple who didn't enjoy it...but they were way in the minority.
 
Threefingeredjack said:
Ummmmm ME!!!! And I did. (OK OK, so it was the 50s and 60s)
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Haha, good for you! I guess I never thought about this too much until I went back for a HS reunion. No one knew that I had been interested in flying or had become a pilot. That in itself was a curiosity and raised some eyebrows (full disclosure is that I am female). But no one could think of anyone else in the class who went into aviation, and I came from a class of 800+ at a large suburban HS.
 
Perhaps the root of this attitude is that aviation is not as cutting edge as it once was. It is still a challenging and rewarding skill IMHO, but it does not hold the star status it once did. Just a thought.
 
Several decades ago most kids and adults had few excessive mental problems and were out doing things. Now it's reversed where most are now having mental problems and sitting indoors all the time while being drugged into submission and only a small portion are ok.

I'm convinced the attention deficit disorders and obsessive compulsive behavior is not a physical illness. It's a technological illness. Notice how it all exploded all over the place in the mid 80's and on? Computers, cellphones, internet, video games and excessive piddly nonsense jobs are creating it. They all demand exacting attention and if the individual doesn't give that, they fail which causes stress to do it right next time. Then it also creates a constant barrage of disconnected information to be constantly distracted so if they don't notice everything all at once, they fail and get stressed. It's also about instant gratification, not doing something over time. Remove the technology from them and they freak out because they've been cut off and give the symptoms of chemical dependence withdrawal. Put both of those symptoms together into the same person who now must be excessive obsessed to get something right and at the same time, excessively distracted to get something right, you end up with some seriously effed up people because the two types of information input are mutually exclusive.

Watch people in general. The ones that can't put the technology down have the problems and don't get out to do things. The ones that don't depend on the technology tend to be more stable and get out and do things. It's not always the case however there is a big trend that direction. Want to fix the illness? Yank the plug and force the patient get over it.


Just an observation...and a theory in progress with a bunch of directly observable data points.
 
skidoo said:
So, I observed a bunch of kids going on their YE rides today. What stuck me was how few had excited or happy expressions. Sure, there were some, but it seemed that more than half had expressions of indifference. What I found to be odd was there were many who after getting seated, I observed them just looking down at their phones and concentrating on that. What does this mean for the future of our world?

I hope it means nothing...
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Kids show emotions in very different ways. I'd bet if they just got seated and were looking down at their phones they were posting on Facebook writing "OMG. IM ABOUT TO GO ON AN AIRPLANE RIDE!!!"

If they're old enough to run cell phones they're also old enough to be at the age that they may be rather shy and not express emotions to folks they don't know.
 
I think Jesse is on to something. I took my 10 year old niece for a flight two weeks ago. The circumstances made it a one way XC trip which I think is a bit more interesting. At one point during the cruise part of the flight I noticed she had her iPod Touch out. I later realized she was taking a picture. At her age she doesn't do Facebook yet of course but apparently couldn't stop talking about how awesome it was when she got home (and I think I'm going to get my brother in law a gift certificate for a sport pilot discovery flight at 7B2 because he was really interested in the sport planes that were flying there that day).

Sharing aviation is definitely one of my favorite things. I offer flights to my friends all the and most are interested. Nobody I have taken up yet has had a bad or bored time. But, I'm not interested in trying to encourage people who are scared or uninterested into coming flying. I am saddened to hear instructors at my local flight school complain about discovery flights where the flight was obviously purchased as a gift and the student has no interest or motivation at all.
 
jesse said:
Kids show emotions in very different ways. I'd bet if they just got seated and were looking down at their phones they were posting on Facebook writing "OMG. IM ABOUT TO GO ON AN AIRPLANE RIDE!!!"

If they're old enough to run cell phones they're also old enough to be at the age that they may be rather shy and not express emotions to folks they don't know.
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All true... they are a little more stoic, outwardly, than my generation... just as we were more low-key than the previous... especially around grown-ups. Online, or via text, kids are just as goofy and wild-eyed as ever, if you ask me. A kid who has an interest in flying is in a bind: he wants to enjoy it, but he doesn't want it ruined by letting an adult share the experience. So sometimes they "play it cool", until they tell their friends about it.

Besides, so many adult pilots are seen nowadays looking down at some screen and poking buttons when they are behind the controls of an airplane... not much different. :D
 
I took my 4 year old neighbor up last weekend, he got up the next day and told him mom he was going to go over to my house and see if I wanted to go flying with him again. Not a day has passed that he hasn't wanted to go back. i took his older brother (10 yo) a while back, he was much more interested in playing with my iPhone and singing into the headset. The middle brother (6 yo) has been up with me twice, he enjoys it, I let him "take the controls".
 
Well, I went back and reviewed the photos I took. Maybe it wasn't as bad as I first thought. There were indeed plenty of kids with some excitement. I guess those few that stand back and look at their phone while the volunteer pilot is talking to the group just makes a stronger impression. But, the funny thing is I noticed in some photos, that some parents were doing the same. Oh well.

To put it in perspective, 1 in about 500 population become pilots. So, I guess if only 30% of those participating have interest and are excited about the adventure, then maybe that isn't bad after all.
 
I was at the same YE event as Jeremy on Saturday. Our chapter does a YE event every month. We flew 42 kids this weekend, and working ground crew I'd say I probably saw about a fourth of them after their flights. While I wasn't really keeping track of the kids' expressions (I'm excited enough myself to be around the airplanes) ;) , looking back, I think I would probably have to guess that probably about half of them didn't show any real excitement.

Yes, some kids show it more than others, but as an example, there is one kid that flew his 11th YE flight on Saturday, and the pilot who was flying him and another kid (the two kids didn't know each other), asked who wanted to sit in the front, and neither answered. Then he asked where they wanted to go - Lake Lanier or Stone Mountain. The one who had flown before answered, so the pilot said the other would sit in front. He asked the kid who had flown before if that was ok, and the kid just said yes.

To me, maybe the kid was just shy - I don't know. I've seen him before, and I think he was more excited the last time, so it could be shyness, but I have to wonder, just in case it isn't, (again, I could be wrong), but if he's not all that interested, why has Dad brought him 11 times? Hard to say, and I'm not trying to say whether he's interested or not, but it does make me wonder.
 
I believe, as was stated earlier in the thread, that the older kids (13-17) can be very stoic. It's not "cool" to show emotion...especially around the parents. For all we know they called all their friends and told them how cool the experience was. As for the "video game/internet/facebook" generation stuff...that is just one more hurdle that the ambassadors of GA (all of us) will have to overcome. Even if only 1 out of every 100 become pilots, it is a good thing.
 
From what I understand of the CFI's complaint about discovery flights one of the biggest problems was bored teenagers with wealthy parents who are trying to push their bored, uninterested teenagers into picking up a hobby. My CFI even had a student who kept coming back for lessons which mom and dad (not themselves pilots) were paying for but the student never had any interest in flying and would be "meh" about taking the controls several lessons in. The student eventually stopped coming long before coming close to the solo point but the lessons were very frustrating for the CFI.

Among the friends and family that I have taken everyone has enjoyed it. But many comment that while they love being in the air with me doing the flying they're not interested in learning to fly themselves. I think if driving a car was not a necessity in most of the country you'd see similar reactions among my 20-something peer group (and in fact my friend Steve who came with me to the Wings fly-in lives in the city, took a long time to get his license, and drives Zipcar only when he absolutely has to). The 20-something friends that have shown an interest in learning are sadly burdened with a lot of student loan debt and find the cost daunting.
 
My CFI has a student that shows little interest in flying. He is only doing it because his parents are making him. That's really unfortunate - both in the fact that he's wasting the CFI's time but also that he can't pick his own darn hobby. You have all the money in the world and you can't think of something else to do so your parents pick your hobbies?? What do they set up playdates for you, too? Good grief.

When I did my Young Eagles, I would be super sad when we left the airport. I can't remember what any of the other kids were like; but I think the pilots were pleased to see my enthusiasm. However, I did a Young Eagles flight with this kid I knew in middle school who was also in the CAP. He showed limited enthusiasm in the back of the Piper we rode in. He just seemed bored in general.

I think if you're forced to do something, you will probably have less interest in it.
 
HerrGruyere said:
I think if you're forced to do something, you will probably have less interest in it.
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Also, when things are given to you, they aren't as valued as much as if you paid for it, and earned it yourself. Lots of kids waisting their parents money in college too.
 
Speaking of my grandkids, who we took for their first YE flights in February, when the granddaughter got out of the Cherokee, and saw the '47 Aeronca Chief taxi by, as she climbed out onto the wing, she said, "I want to fly in the yellow plane next time!"

The grandson went back inside and flew the flight simulator, and when I asked him which he liked better, flying or the flight simulator, he chose the simulator. Yeah - go figure - this kid has a PSP in his hands anytime he can get away with it.

So when it comes to future flights, I'll let them both go if they want, but if he's not going to get excited about it, I'm not going to push him. I have told them both, though, that I've wanted to learn to fly for a long time, but can't afford it, but when they get older, if they WANT to fly, I will make SURE there is a way for them to fly.
 
Anthony said:
Also, when things are given to you, they aren't as valued as much as if you paid for it, and earned it yourself. Lots of kids waisting their parents money in college too.
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Especially in college. I was scholarship chair and secretary of my fraternity (stop laughing), and I can't tell you how much I tried to get my brothers to study. It was annoying. Pledges and brothers alike were getting 0.4 and 1.2 GPAs. What the eff, man?? Heck I knew kids who weren't in fraternities and still got low grades like that. You don't need to pay 8K a year to drink beer and take bong hits in front of the TV. You can do that working at the mall.

It just made me mad because I paid (and am still paying for) college and worked my butt off at the same time to make good grades and afford to have fun. On the flip side, Bro McDirtbag with his white sunglasses did jack to study and just wasted money.
 
HerrGruyere said:
You don't need to pay 8K a year to drink beer and take bong hits in front of the TV. You can do that working at the mall.
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That's the thing. If they're doing it on student loans they don't think they're paying for it. It's "free party time" until the bill comes due, for some.
 
Damn, I don't even understand how it is possible to get a 0.4 GPA!

My parents did support me through college but they did it by building up stock in an account as I grew up then gifting it to me. It was not a blank check and it was my responsibility to make that last and my decision to attend a cheaper state school and milk it for all I could get was a good life lesson. I held a part time/full time programming job for most of my time in college to help cover my expenses. Because I was the person actually writing the checks to the university with lots of zeros on them each semester the price I was paying for college was immediately apparent to me. Out of my peers most either had their parents sign the checks (the student never saw the bill, sent right to the parents) or have a lot of student loans (most part time jobs cannot cover tuition and living expenses these days even at a state school).

The culture in my extended family is that the parents do as much as they can to support higher education and I think that is a good tradition. I know I would not be here on PoA today as a pilot in my late 20s if I had graduated with significant student loan debt because I couldn't afford it. So I can't look down on the idea of paying for your children's college education but I do think there are ways to do so while teaching a valuable lesson about personal finance.
 
denverpilot said:
That's the thing. If they're doing it on student loans they don't think they're paying for it. It's "free party time" until the bill comes due, for some.
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Maybe the computer science department was less party hardy but I didn't closely interact with anybody who seemed to have this attitude although I'm sure they exist. What I did find among my cohort with big loans was a number of people who regretted their choice of an expensive school over a cheaper school.
 
YE are probably bound by the 80/20 rule too. I think the best we can do is expose youngsters to flying/aviation and let life run its course.

My own kids are happy to keep me company on a burger run but never caught the bug. It's just hard to know where the chips will fall.

Off topic: my father told me he'd pay for college as long as I kept a minimum C average. My intense focus on beer and Space Invaders cost me that C and dear old Dad cut me loose. I ended up paying for the last 3 years myself; those were mighty expensive beers!
 
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spinfire said:
Damn, I don't even understand how it is possible to get a 0.4 GPA!

My parents did support me through college but they did it by building up stock in an account as I grew up then gifting it to me. It was not a blank check and it was my responsibility to make that last and my decision to attend a cheaper state school and milk it for all I could get was a good life lesson. I held a part time/full time programming job for most of my time in college to help cover my expenses. Because I was the person actually writing the checks to the university with lots of zeros on them each semester the price I was paying for college was immediately apparent to me. Out of my peers most either had their parents sign the checks (the student never saw the bill, sent right to the parents) or have a lot of student loans (most part time jobs cannot cover tuition and living expenses these days even at a state school).

The culture in my extended family is that the parents do as much as they can to support higher education and I think that is a good tradition. I know I would not be here on PoA today as a pilot in my late 20s if I had graduated with significant student loan debt because I couldn't afford it. So I can't look down on the idea of paying for your children's college education but I do think there are ways to do so while teaching a valuable lesson about personal finance.
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Tips on getting a 0.4 GPA:

1) Don't go to class anymore.

2) Sleep all the time.

3) Stay out late.

4) Question what the objects on your floor containing printed paper with words and graphics bound together by an adhesive are.

5) Show up for class one day and look lost (because you are).


I've actually known a kid who got a 0.0.

I had student loans through college (and my parents had a little, too) because you're right: a part-time job cannot support a student through college even at the cheapest of schools.
 
spinfire said:
Maybe the computer science department was less party hardy but I didn't closely interact with anybody who seemed to have this attitude although I'm sure they exist. What I did find among my cohort with big loans was a number of people who regretted their choice of an expensive school over a cheaper school.
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Probably was. I was assigned football player roommates for my one semester at a college where I thought I wanted to be a musician. They were pretty much there for drinking and sex. Both were PE majors and going to become teachers.

I dumped the music degree idea after one semester and left, but I bet they graduated and went on to live "normal" lives somewhere later, teaching kids how to exercise.

Some kids use athletics as a stepping stone to scholarships and a way to get an education. My roommates weren't in that group. They were the very model of mediocrity.

We did at least have a good time watching monster trucks on TV and drinking beer. Higher education indeed.
 
spinfire said:
Maybe the computer science department was less party hardy but I didn't closely interact with anybody who seemed to have this attitude although I'm sure they exist. What I did find among my cohort with big loans was a number of people who regretted their choice of an expensive school over a cheaper school.
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Dude, those LAN parties were WILD!
 
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