I have a friend who is starting the journey to becoming a private pilot but who is, unfortunately, not receiving any support from her family and most of her friends. As folks who don't fly, their perception is that it is unnecessarily risky and, in a sense, selfish because of those risks given the reality of having kids/etc.

I've shared my thoughts with her, but I figured I would reach out here to see what others would say. Of course I encouraged her to pursue flying, but how to talk to unsupportive family and friends isn't something I have a lot of experience with. My parents were both pilots (my mother still flies at 73), and I received a ton of support when I got started.

Any thoughts to pass along? I'll be sure to share any words of wisdom.

As cold as this may sounds she needs to follow her passion, not their perception !!! The support of family is wonderful, hopefully they eventually come around and realize its not about them and offer her the support she deserves and the rewards it brings to ALL,

Tell her to suck it up and drive on, she’s doing it for herself, not for her family. My Dad left the family business, 3rd generation logger, to pursue a flying career. It took 10 years before his parents/siblings were supportive of him. When I first started talking about a flying career, my parents would barely discuss it with me. They wanted me to keep my good sales job and enjoy being a private pilot, but it wasn’t very fulfilling for me personally. Now that the dust has settled, they love telling anyone that will listen about me becoming a commercial pilot, and love what I do. My wife has been 100% supportive since day 1, so I owe her a lot!

Flying is not the cool, attractive, pastime to outsiders that it was 50 years ago, most seem to think you are almost guaranteed to die in a small plane. Now’s her chance to prove them wrong.

Brian,

No one in my family was a pilot. Although they were supportive, they had very little knowledge of flying or aviation. To help alleviate concerns, after each lesson, I would come home and let the "Fam" know what we did for the day and why. Now I'm not sure if they actually digested that info. or just got so bored listening to me that ambivalence took over ( I still get that glassy eyed stare), either way it seemed to work. I also took my wife on several lessons, which helped a bunch. She now fly's with me all the time, loves it and is a great partner in the cockpit.

Pete

I guess that's why I'm single I do admire (and wonder how the hell they do it) you family guys who still manage to carve out time and money to go flying, that's a good trick and I am impressed everytime I see it.

On a two lane highway you pass another vehicle going the opposite way. The distance between you is 4-5 ft. Rate of closure is usually over 100 mph. Nobody thinks twice.

BUT YOU WANNA FLY!?!? Oh heck no, thats dangerous.

I had people tell me flying was dangerous when I was learning.

I am a rancher/farmer, which statistically, is one of the more dangerous jobs in the world. But people were concerned with my flying.

People are ignorant.

Tell her a good pilot can handle a bit of turbulence, even from friends and family.

IMO it depends on if her family is a spouse or parents/siblings. If it's parents/siblings then she should press on and follow her passion regardless of what they say. I dropped out of the professional pilot program when in school because I listened to my parents. That's probably my #1 regret in life so far. If able we should be chasing our dreams.

If she has a spouse that doesn't want her flying then its a bit more difficult. Worth ruining a marriage? Not if you actually like the person you are married to. I had a friend that flew Avenger torpedo bombers in WW2 but when he got home his wife asked him not to fly. He loved flying and was always excited to ask about my flying but he never piloted a plane after the war. He was happy and found other things to be passionate about. My wife supports/encourages my flying but she'd be pretty happy if I quite. She might even let me buy the $200K jet boat I want...

Dig deep and chase your dreams. Don't waste your time chasing what other people dream for you.

I started flying at 15 years of age supported by my father, my mother use to place newspaper clippings of aviation accidents on my desk for my "consideration". It didn't work and she finally became my biggest supporter, once she saw the pleasure flying gave me and I've enjoyed a great career and hobby.

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Richard Bach
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/richard_bach_134891

I did not personally experience any difficulty with family when I decided to learn to fly. Wife One was initially reticent, but the camaraderie at the Elmendorf Aero Club sucked her in enough that she took lessons herself, through solo. The Club had a number of social events, and she liked that.

But I did have students and friends who had difficulty with family. My "solution" to help them was to invite the family to fly with me, and as the students progressed, to fly with us during a lesson. As I always do with newbies, I made a point of flying with as much precision as possible, and although it's not always possible to do, to fly on days when turbulence is minimal. The best reaction that I always tried to achieve was for someone to say, "Gosh, that was like flying in a small airliner!"

Cary

whee wrote:IMO it depends on if her family is a spouse or parents/siblings. If it's parents/siblings then she should press on and follow her passion regardless of what they say. I dropped out of the professional pilot program when in school because I listened to my parents. That's probably my #1 regret in life so far. If able we should be chasing our dreams.

If she has a spouse that doesn't want her flying then its a bit more difficult. Worth ruining a marriage? Not if you actually like the person you are married to. I had a friend that flew Avenger torpedo bombers in WW2 but when he got home his wife asked him not to fly. He loved flying and was always excited to ask about my flying but he never piloted a plane after the war. He was happy and found other things to be passionate about. My wife supports/encourages my flying but she'd be pretty happy if I quite. She might even let me buy the $200K jet boat I want...

Dig deep and chase your dreams. Don't waste your time chasing what other people dream for you.

Very well said whee.

I actually believe anybody can fly, and should. My wife, with the gift of discernment, has mitigated or even nixed my encouragement occasionally. If only flying is involved, we're all certified. If other things are involved, we may not be.

Whee beat me to the punch.

If parents/siblings aren't supportive, so what? That never stopped a teenager from doing anything!

But if your friend has an unsupportive spouse, that can be a huge deal breaker. As already posted here, get the spouse involved with the instructor and allow them to ride along on a couple of quality flights and see where that goes. Others may post some more good ideas that'll help with a reluctant spouse.

I consider myself one of the lucky few that has a spouse that actually encouraged me to become a pilot. I just wish we'd been able to do it sooner. You'll never get back the time you lost listening to someone else's pessimism.

The problems I’ve had with my wife and flying were mostly related to money.
I spend A LOT of our income on flying and that has created some meaningful conversations.

If your friend’s issue is spousal please advise her to consider this point.

I was at the Reno Air Races earlier today (super fun) and I was lucky to meet several female pilots involved in the 99's. I'd suggest having your friend reach out to their group to get some advice on this type of issue as I'm sure they have dealt with it before.

https://www.ninety-nines.org

I say, "go for it"

contactflying wrote:I actually believe anybody can fly, and should....

Haha...not my experience at all. I don't have the wealth of experience you have, but I've run across a bushel of people who have no business flying, for a variety of different reasons. But regardless of the specific reason, they're simply no good at it and never will be, no matter how much training or coddling or coaxing they get.

As for someone who wants to fly but isn't getting any encouragement...Well, maybe they're one of those people who don't belong in an airplane and their friends and family recognize it, even if they can't articulate it fully.

Learning to fly and having a airplane have been very important parts of my life, but it's really, really far from the only thing that gives my life meaning. The notion that it's worth anything you have to give up in order to do it does not resonate with me.

Best of luck to her regardless.

Thanks for the thoughts, folks. To clarify a bit, a lot of the comments she gets center around the perception that flying is unnecessarily risky or outright dangerous. Basically, they have a perception that flying is inherently dangerous rather than an activity where risks can be mitigated through training, practice, and decision making.

So what to say to those folks beyond citing facts and figures? Perhaps there’s not much to say beyond just doing it and sharing the excitement during the experience. Love the idea of bringing them along for a ride with the instructor.

It's tough to counter someone's emotional argument (airplanes are dangerous) with facts (lots of data to prove otherwise) until they realize that their argument is based on emotion.

We have about 600,000 active pilots, and 347 people died in 209 accidents. So one in 2870 pilots died in 2017.

https://www.faa.gov/news/fact_sheets/ne ... wsId=21274.

With about 220,000,000 licensed drivers, and perhaps 40,000 auto fatalities, that's about one in 5500.

Most of the pilots I know spend a lot of time thinking, practicing, and reading about flying. Nobody I know approaches driving in the same way. But pilots die at a faster clip, per capita.

What if general aviation flying actually is inherently more dangerous, and the family's feelings are justifiable? She would be taking a risk they consider unnecessary. I've had friends die flying, on street motorcycles, on ATVs, in gun accidents, mountain climbing. They chose to do those things because they wanted to, and accepted the risk, and in many cases, people around them were nervous about it.

I fly because I enjoy it. I'm willing to accept the risk, and try to mitigate it by making conservative decisions. I won't pretend the risk doesn't exist.

Well, there is always added risk. Her family i would imagine, wouldn't be supportive if she started riding a motorcycle, mountain climbing etc either as stated above. I don't imagine she will stop driving places and fly instead.

The big issue I see is it looks like she has kids. So she will really have to weigh the scales. Does she really need to fly and add another element of risk to her life that could potentially leave her family with the responsibility of raising of her kids? Maybe she should wait until the kids are older. Who knows - she needs to make her own decision and really determine whether she is being selfish? Or her family is?

Easy for us to say not to care and just go fly, she very well could fly for the next 40 years and be glad she pushed for it and did it, but what if she is one of those people who shouldn't ever fly a plane and craters it and die's? Leaving her parents with the responsibility of raising the kids. Honestly both scenarios need to be heavily considered in this decision and only she can make it.