PilotEdge Forums

I earned my Private Pilot ticket in the early ‘80s with primary instruction at Van Nuys (the busiest GA airport in the county at the time), soloed at Whiteman and belonged to flying clubs at VNY & BUR. I flew from about 10 years, both for work and play and had a great time. Then kids came along and that curtailed my flying. A couple of years ago, I decided to get current and get back into flying. I discovered two big changes in the GA environment that makes flying a much different experience now.

1: Controlled airspace is MUCH more complicated to negotiate.
2: GPS has made accurate navigation less difficult (a good thing considering how close controlled airspace can be to each other).

In the old days, you could fly VNY – SBA round trip and talk to 4 controllers, VNY Ground & Tower and SBA Ground & Tower. That same flight today requires much more ATC communication, the last time I did it real world, I talked to 11 different controllers. That flight would have been less work to fly IFR (and IFR used to be a lot more work than VFR).

I was lucky to have experienced VFR flying in a time when you could jump in and go without having to call Departure Control, follow a specific departure protocol, get handed from controller to controller and spend a substantial part of a flight reading back/ following instructions and twiddling the nav/com knobs. It may be more “professional” now but it’s not nearly as free or as much fun.

Skudrunner wrote:I earned my Private Pilot ticket in the early ‘80s....
It may be more “professional” now but it’s not nearly as free or as much fun.

...and you could rent a plane, wet, for about $27/hr. At least at PBI in '88

You hit the nail on the head... "The Old Days"

I think sometimes "free" is more of an expression than a realism.

The Dr that gave me my physical told me that in 1971 he bought a C172, brand hammer new, for 13k. He blames the lawyers for the retail price now!

I don't know about today but I remember when a new Cessna with a list price of approx. $200,000, 50% went to cover liability insurance for the manufacturer. Just another example of how over-regulation and our super-litigious society takes fun and freedom away. It used to be that if you crashed, it was usually your own damn fault or maybe bad luck. Now it's the manufacturer's fault for building a plane that you could crash in. Personal responsibility is a thing of the past, now, no matter how bad you screw up, it's somebody else's fault (and usually the one with the deepest pockets).

Skudrunner, you can still do VNY to SBA talking to VNY gnd/tower and SBA twr/gnd if you like. Just say "negative radar service" to the VNY ground controller. Then, approaching SBA, stay below the outer shelf of the Charlie and try calling SBA tower directly as you approach the inner core.

I can't say I'd recommend doing it as I think flying around the Socal basin without flight following is not a great idea with the amount of VFR traffic in the area, but it can technically be done.

I'm not sure why the flight is less fun by talking to ATC and receiving radar service. It should still be a hoot with lots to see and do.