Last week, a blog post came across my screen that caught my eye. It read, “The airlines let us down.” That got me reading. Not because I believe the airlines have let us down, but because I wanted to understand the perspective of the writer.
The writer, it is worth noting, is the owner of a maintenance shop and flight school in central Florida. He is an old friend. He’s worked on most of the airplanes I’ve owned. He even bought one of them from me. We are cut from similar cloth. So, I was curious how it came to be that a man who is as pro-aviation as anyone I’ve ever met could arrive at the conclusion alluded to by the headline.
I won’t speak for Bill, the writer of the blog post. Nor will I rehash his points. You can read it for yourself and make your own assessment. But being old and occasionally mistaken for an intelligent individual, I will pass along my own perspective on the topic.
I am a pilot, and a flight instructor, and an Airframe and Powerplant mechanic. I caught the full-strength aviation bug, adding certificates and ratings over the years until I needed an independent section of my wallet just to hold the five pieces of plastic the FAA or local authorities might one day ask me to produce on demand. My father was a pilot. Many of my friends and acquaintances are pilots. In short, I live in an aviation-centric world.
By contrast, a mere two-tenths of 1% of the overall population have earned a pilot certificate. Imagine that. We are more than a century into the aviation age, but still, fewer than one quarter of 1% of the general public can fly.
They know flight exists. They know aircraft can get them from an East coast brunch to a West coast dinner or vice versa any day of the week. They know they can zip over to Europe to check out the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Colosseum in Rome, and London’s Westminster Abbey while still getting home in time to enjoy the neighbor’s annual Fourth of July barbecue.
Aviation has changed our lives in ways we never could have anticipated before the jet age.
Oh, there were prognosticators who thought they knew the future. They foresaw airplanes with bunk beds for overnight travel and full-service bars on board. And those did exist at one time. However, as travel time shrank and the board of directors realized the weight of the bar and its contents could be replaced by several rows of revenue generating seats, those luxuries went out the window.
Airline travel is one of the great technological benefits of the modern age. Its strength is its weakness, though. As convenient as it might be to travel continent to continent in a matter of hours, there is a considerable risk to that practice. A risk that has come to fruition in recent weeks with the transmission of a virus that has killed impressive numbers of our friends and neighbors.
General aviation, on the other hand, does not carry that same level of risk. It offers much of the same benefit however, albeit on a smaller scale. Flights depart when you’re ready to go from the airport that’s most easily accessed, not when the schedule dictates from an airport 50 miles away or more.
By flying a classic and relatively affordable C-182, I can beat a commercial flight from Orlando to Atlanta almost every time. The same can be said of a PA-28-160 or C-172. I don’t have to leave for the airport two to three hours prior to my departure time. The drive to my local airport is much shorter than the trek to KMCO. The convenience of parking the car just outside my hangar, tossing my bags into the back of the airplane, and heading for the hold short line is unparalleled compared to anything the commercial realm can offer.
As a general aviation pilot, I’m likely to be descending into Atlanta at about the same time the commercial flight is taxiing away from the gate in Orlando.
If there was ever a compelling case that clarifies the myriad reasons how learning to fly might benefit your life, we are living it right now. Whether for business travel or personal adventure, general aviation remains open and available to anyone who has taken the time and made the investment in themselves to become a participant. That is an amazing statement, but it is true.
General aviation is open to virtually anyone who has an interest in it. From the slowest Cub to the fastest bizjet, GA is capable of widening the horizons of pilots and passengers in ways that you might not even be able to imagine.
Yet, to live the life of an aviator is to fully live. To conduct one’s own life unfettered by traffic jams, construction detours, toll booths, fender benders, and long waits in the terminal watching the board to see if your flight is on time, or delayed, or canceled.
No, I don’t think the airlines let us down. But I do think a great many of us have let ourselves down. We have chosen not to accept and master a known technology. We have pushed it from our minds as if it didn’t exist.
There was a time when the most sophisticated mode of travel involved a wooden ship with cloth sales that moved at no more than four knots. The men and women who sailed those ships touched every corner of the globe, enriched their nations, and established a system of trade that transformed the ancient world into the modern economy.
If they could do that…
Just imagine what you and your peers might do with a flying machine that can travel hundreds of miles before lunch time. Isn’t it finally time to learn to fly? I think it is. At long last.
It is FAR more dangerous to fly in a 172 thru weather in the Eastern US than in a commercial plane. The full cost (plane, fuel, certifications, medicals, maint, hangar, depreciation) of that short flight is far over a commercial airline ticket as well. The best case for owning and flying your own plane is not cost, its convenience. But you work and pay for that convenience….
No doubt flying your own plane is expensive. I mitigate some of those expenses by being a member of a 15 member club. We own a 172 and 182. There is rarely a scheduling conflict. Nothing worth having in this life comes without a cost.
Great article Jamie. And for those who try to get the window seat on an airline, virtually every seat in a general aviation airplane is a window seat.