Hacker News Reader

Comment by simulate-me | Hacker News Reader

That doesn't seem like that much if split with 4 people over 15 years.

If four people need fifteen years, or one person needs to be a successful forty- or fifty-year-old neurosurgeon, to afford owning and operating a Cessna 172 - what effect do you think that has on the commercial pilot training funnel?

> what effect do you think that has on the commercial pilot training funnel?

It'll be fine regardless, there'll be no shortage in the military -> commercial pilot funnel of the most militarized country in the world.

That's fair. Too, I suppose it's not reasonable to assume we'll remain able to afford widespread civil aviation once we're no longer able to afford the world's most luxurious war machine. In that case, we won't need so many professional pilots anyway.

That has been true, but the military is rapidly drawing down their manned aircraft fleet. I would expect commercial airline pilots to increasingly come from private flight schools in the future.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/units-flying-f-15c-ds-...

These aren't large numbers compared to stuff like transport, for both cargo and airmobile force components. You replace manned combat aircraft with remotely operated ones because you're at the point where that's the next thing you need to do to stay in the race, but that's not a race transport aircraft are running.

The overwhelming majority of military aircraft aren't fighter jets, they are transport aircraft - and are also a better proxy for civilian aviation.

No the Air Force has far more fighter jets than transport aircraft.

https://www.airforcemag.com/article/2021-usaf-ussf-almanac-e...

I stand corrected.

Likewise, but now I'm wondering how they compare in terms of total flight hours by type.

Granted, this is transparently an attempt to recover some remnant of a meaningful argument from the wreckage of the one I was trying to make, but it might still be interesting for someone more familiar than I with where to find the relevant data.

Transport pilots fly only slightly more hours than fighter pilots.

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/03/01...

Oh, well, it was worth a shot. Impressively quick followup!

I'd guess absolutely no effect at all; I don't think that kurupt213 was trying to suggest that commercial pilots commonly buy planes, and indeed I don't think it's true. I'd guess that the vast majority of commercial pilots have never owned a plane, and that small plane ownership is not at all a part of the commercial pilot training funnel. I actually think this whole subthread mistook "civilian flying culture" to be talking about general aviation when he was talking about commercial airlines (as opposed to the military).

No, but I think you may have the arrow of time reversed here. The argument in its essence - not that I'm reading GP's mind, nor need to, as the argument is not novel - is that, with access to general aviation as narrow and difficult as it's become in the past five or so decades, commercial pilots will still learn the technical aspects of operating a commercial flight during their airline-provided training, but rarely have much opportunity to learn how to fly, that is, to develop the intuitive understanding of aerodynamics and aircraft behavior that can enable a pilot to react correctly and without excess need for thought in situations and circumstances where that can make the difference between life and death for everyone aboard their aircraft.

Whether or not I fully buy the argument, I don't suppose I know. I do know that a lifetime of reading, study, and home simulation taken together taught me less about what an airplane does when it's flying than did one fifteen-minute discovery flight in a Piper Archer. It's different for professionals than for an aviation-nerd amateur, of course. But I see no reason in principle to assume there aren't things you only really learn from spending enough time flying a plane too small and simple to lie to you, and every reason from experience to assume that there are.

(Having just seen your edit, I'm no longer sure this qualifies as a response on point, but I'm going to let it stand and finish my supper.)

They don't need 15 years because they can get financing and take ownership of the plane for a 20% down payment.

80k downpayment + $2200/month sounds just as inaccessible as a 400k lump sum. That’s before fuel, maintenance, storage and operation costs…

> If four people need fifteen years, or one person needs to be a successful forty- or fifty-year-old neurosurgeon, to afford owning and operating a Cessna 172 - what effect do you think that has on the commercial pilot training funnel?

Little, because you don't have to own a plane to fly it; the commercial pilot funnel comes through private flight schools and military aviation (over time shifting from the former from the latter), not mainly from I-bought-a-plane-with-cash non-commercial private pilots.

Yeah, but do I learn more from a program of study at a private flight school, or from that plus having grown up flying the plane my folks bought when I was five, because it was that or a speedboat and Mom doesn't trust the water?

Not that this is me - if nothing else, you probably can't get my mom into an aircraft even at gunpoint - but it is more like the question that wants to be considered here.

I'm not sure what you're asking? There are a few commercial airline pilots whose parents owned airplanes, but those are rare. Most got their required flight hours either in the military, or by training in private flight schools and then working as flight instructors themselves.

> training in private flight schools and then working as flight instructors themselves

Who attends those private flight schools? Unaffordable aircraft obviously won't improve things and seem quite likely to make things worse.

I believe the "bootcamp followed by effective indenture" model has been widely favored among the regional airlines that act as feeders for the big players, dating back well before the software industry first happened upon it.

If I recall correctly, Patrick "Ask the Pilot" Smith has had some things to say based on his own experience here. In any case, whether or not that model is actively used today, I would be entirely unsurprised to see it spread widely in the next couple of decades, and maybe not only in the airline industry.

Aircraft rental fees are the most expensive part of getting an ATP license, but all sorts of people manage to afford it. They get support from parents or work other jobs or take out loans. Midway through the training program many of them get a CFI license and then work for the flight school training new pilots, which helps defray the cost of building up the necessary 1500 flight hours.

At some point the pilot shortage might get severe enough that airlines have to hire pilot trainees with little or no experience and then pay them to go through a training program. So far that hasn't been necessary but it's a common model in other countries.

Just how high class of job do you think commercial airline pilot is, exactly?

The point is exactly that owning a small airplane has not always been the signifier of necessarily enormous wealth it is today, and that it's worth asking whether that has had a deleterious effect on the ways in which commercial pilots learn to be pilots at all.

I suppose the larger discussion is properly around the vast increase in income inequality over recent decades, and I'd have done well to contextualize it there before now.

(In my defense, I've had such a day that the early root canal appointment, which played out like something from Marathon Man - not that my dentist is less than excellent, but I'm glad I already knew that because we had about half an hour there during which the least surprising thing in the world would have been for him to ask me "is it safe?" - that was the second most significant thing to happen since the sun last rose. So it's quite possible I am bringing less than my best to this discussion that I'm using to help me wind down toward sleep.)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-23/u-s-airli...

But the point of general aviation is that it should be affordable as a personal hobby for a significant amount of people. tbh, I've actually considered owning a plane but dropped the idea entirely after realizing the only really affordable option is 50 years old and I don't really want to fly something that old.

I see a listing here for a 50% ownership stake in a 2005 Cessna 182T Skylane for $180k. Financing is available for 20% down. With financing, the listed monthly price is < $2k. That seems somewhat reasonable to me. https://www.controller.com/listing/for-fractional-ownership/...

This is a real HN comment. $2k a month for a hobby (before gas, garage, fees, ??) is nothing but a dream for most people.

Yes but where is that idea coming from that flying needs to be cheap enough to be a hobby?

I think the point is that it used to be much more affordable than it is today, and GA is quickly becoming the exclusive domain of the 1%.

That's not even the dominant cost -- the running costs are ~$150-200 per hour in addition. That covers fuel, maintenance, inspections, parking, insurance, prop overhauls, and accruing for an engine replacement every 2,000 hours.

> But the point of general aviation is that it should be affordable as a personal hobby for a significant amount of people.

Why?

For starters, it's called general aviation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com