I’ve been wanting to write my feelings on this subject for a long time, but could not find the right forum for such a piece. This thread opened the door for me. A lot of what I will write here will not be too popular, and a lot of it will display my penchant for stating the obvious. I’ve found that the obvious is not obvious to those who have never heard or thought of the obvious, so maybe it’s not so obvious after all…
Some background: Most of us on this forum grew up (or at least got older…) in the 1950s and 1960s. Our reality was a world that had just emerged from a devastating war. But a great part of that reality for the young men and women of that era was the romance and excitement of aerial combat, and the image of the galant fighter pilot. The magazines of the post war era contained hundreds, if not thousands of articles about the planes and the pilots of WWII. And many of us looked to find a way to emulate our heroes. Model airplane building and flying was the natural outlet for our feelings.
For us aviation was a normal “in your face” thing. In the 50s jets had not yet dominated the skies. Piston powered airliners were the norm, and if you lived anywhere near a major airport you were used to hearing airliners climbing out after takeoff.
I was lucky to have lived in my early years near Newark Airport. Some of my earliest memories are of hearing and seeing the great airliners of the day. When I say “earliest memories” I really mean it. I can vividly remember still being in my crib in my sister’s room in our Union, New Jersey home on lazy summer afternoons and hearing panes coming towards our house on their climb-out path from miles away. I remember hearing the engines trying to sync-up (although at that point I had no idea that’s what they were doing…), and then the house seemed to shake as they passed overhead. Then I listened as they faded away into the distance. That whole sequence repeated itself over and over all day, every day. Of course being outside the house and watching those planes go over was an even more visceral experience.
And, it wasn’t just airliners; private panes were all over the place back then, and many of them were pretty neat. Of course there were the J-3 Cubs and the Aeroncas, but there were also war surplus AT-6 Texans and Stearmans, and the sleek low-wing private planes of the day such as the Ryan Navions. Like I wrote above, aviation was an in-your-face reality for most of us.
Fast forward to today, where the average youngster’s association with aviation is a speck in the sky 40,000 feet in the air. Private airports are closing down at an alarming rate (at least around here they are…), and the opportunity for kids to see airplanes close up and personal is disappearing quickly. It is possible for a kid who is traveling by air to go to the airport and get on a plane and fly coast-to-coast and then deplane without having actually seen the plane he/she was flying on from the outside! And the actual ride he/she has on the plane is usually about as exciting as a luxury bus ride. There is no romance or adventure in aviation for the average kid anymore.
Of course there are exceptions to the above. And most of them come when a member of the family has had some aviation experience, modeling or full-size. There is a chance that a kid might gravitate towards aviation if his/her father or mother was involved in either model or full-scale flying. The problem for us is that there are fewer and fewer youngsters growing up in such environments.
Many - maybe even most - kids today have a far different reality than we did. They have grown up in a digital electronic world, while we grew up in an analog world. Their reality is sitting at a computer, or holding one of the many small electronic devices that are now available, and playing digital games in a virtual world, or constantly communicating with friends via cell phones. That is their reality and, hey, they are entitled to it, just as we were entitled to our reality when we were young. Perhaps we don’t understand the lure of their reality, but we certainly cannot expect them to understand ours either.
The things that today’s younger generations do that are not centered around staring into a screen are, by and large, also digital endeavors. If by chance a youngster gets the urge to dabble in model aviation, he/she usually gravitates to some form of RC flying. And today that has morphed into flying drones. I know how most of you feel about drones; I feel the same way. But, it is, again, the younger generation’s reality.
Have you watched any of the drone racing You Tube vids? I can certainly see the lure of that sport. It is fast, and exciting. And therein lies the possible answer to a future for our hobby/sport. Kids want extreme sports these days, and there are several analog outlets in which kids still have an interest. Consider skateboarding, snowboarding, BMX bicycles, Motocross motorcycle riding, and other such extreme sports. They still like excitement. Our sport is about as exciting as watching paint dry to most of them. And, with their amazing reflexes (which I contend were developed by playing fast-paced video games…) they can master basic CL flying and our pattern of maneuvers in but a short while - if they even say around long enough to do that.
If we are to attract a significant number of youngsters to our sport, we are going to have to cater to their desires for more extreme action. We cannot expect them to detune themselves from the exciting pastimes they are now engaged in and look at our present sport through our aging eyes.
CL Combat flying offers the nearest thing we have in our world to an extreme sport, and even there the number of kids getting into that sport is modest. Personally I think our hobby/sport of CL Stunt is in the winter of its existence. I hope I’m wrong…
It has been suggested here and elsewhere that we add some Stunt events that promote excitement. Speed Stunt, Freestyle Stunt, Dual Stunt (two fliers in the same circle performing extreme stunts… Wait, we have that already - Combat!), etc. The purists have discarded those ideas. And, perhaps they are correct in their thinking. We have an event that we love for what it is. We have pruned and nurtured this event from its humble beginnings, and it reflects our views of what CL aerobatics is and should be. Can’t really argue with that line of thinking.
Perhaps it is time to step back and observe a bit. Getting out from amongst the trees not only lets you see the forest better, but also the proximity of the forest to the rest of the landscape. Things come and go. Have you seen a horse-drawn carriage on the freeway of late? Or have you had to leave your house in the cold of night to, ahem, relieve yourself in a small, half moon-adorned building? Does your car still have a carburetor? Point is, our sport is aging out. We can either wring our hands and stress out over that fact, or we can resolve to enjoy the remaining years of flying “our way.”
Bob Hunt
Topic: Future of Control Line (Read 10284 times)