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February
2009
Pilot
Numbers, and Leaving Flying to the Birds
If you
check the latest Transport Canada
numbers, you’ll be humbled by the
reality of our situation as pilots in
this country. In our own little
world, and I do mean little, we’re
sometimes caught up in the misguided
belief that we carry a lot of weight,
political clout and meaningful presence
in the community. But the reality
is pilots, roughly 61,500 of us,
make up less than one quarter of one
percent of the Canadian population.
Zero point one eight percent (0.18%)
actually, and that includes all
commercial, private, recreational,
ultralight, balloon, glider and
gyrocopter pilots. Commercial
pilots number .06%, the remaining hold
private licenses. It should come as
no surprise that we find ourselves
regulated to death, overcharged for fuel,
parking, landing, hangars, insurance,
medicals, licenses, certifications,
navigation and facility fees.
Politicians and bureaucrats can afford to
ignore our complaints and
suggestions. When one citizen out
of four hundred requests something from
his government, there’s not a chance
in hell that he will be taken
seriously.
We fight
back with letters to aviation
publications and by talking it up at
flying club meetings. But
non-pilots and government people
don’t read or talk about flying, so
are rarely aware of our complaints.
We join forces through COPA and similar
organizations to increase our
lobby. Through associations, we do
enjoy some inroads and progress, however,
the bottom line is our membership base
does not carry a really big stick.
The
narcissists among us would point to the
respect that pilots enjoy from the
general public. They compare
aerobatic pilots with professional hockey
or football players, and boast
airshow crowds numbering in the tens of
thousands each year would indicate
support for aviation. The truth is,
spectators watch, then go away.
They have no idea of the rules and costs
in aviation. They don’t want
to know, simply because it’s way too
complicated. Like income tax
laws. At the same time, there is an
element out there, the left wing
individuals and groups, who not only
don’t support aviation, but
they’re intent on getting more out
of the rich airplane
owners. To them, hockey
players and pilots are a source the
government is ignoring at tax time.
New
regulations are constantly piled on all
the existing hoops we jump through.
The same regulatory climate could never
apply to motor vehicles. There are
far too many motorists in the country to
risk that kind of enforcement. It
boils down to a question of numbers, and
which groups can be most easily
controlled.
Some pilots
turn to radio controlled model
flying. They live vicariously
through the hand-held transmitter
commanding their planes through aerobatic
displays, the likes of which cannot be
achieved in the real aircraft. And
even if these fellows have never even
left the solid ground themselves, their
particular flying skills are every bit as
sharp, if not sharper than most who must
be inside their planes to fly.
So far,
there’s not much governing of RC
models, other than where they can and
can’t be flown. Common sense
and some local noise rules at the
municipal level are about all there
is. Obviously, it’s a
different kind of flying and is not for
everyone. But it’s flying, and
still relatively easy and open
anyone.
If flying
is still your passion, and for some
reason a Cessna or an RC model won’t
fit the bill, how about this. A
remote controlled pigeon.
There’s a robot engineering
technology research centre at a
university in China that is experimenting
with micro electrodes placed in the
brains of pigeons. These implants
stimulate areas of the brain, depending
on signals sent from a computer, and
cause the bird to fly left, right, up or
down at the whim of the
“pilot”. Similar
experiments have been underway since 2005
on mice, and it’s all been quite
successful. The success is
presumably measured by the degree of
control the researcher is able to exert
over the subject animal. The
reports don’t detail the
susceptibility of the pigeon to crash if
the person at the controls fails to enter
the correct inputs.
The
technology is very advanced, but work
continues on improvements so it can be
put into practical use. The Chinese
scientists didn’t specify what that
practical use might be. Should it
ever become prominent in North America,
you can be sure every animal rights group
would be on top of it, along with
Transport Canada and the FAA. Nav Canada
would likely find a way to charge a fee
too. There’s nothing
particularly endearing about pigeons in
my mind, but still, I somehow doubt
we’ll see anything like controlling
them with a remote anytime in the near
future. Don’t believe this
research is about controlling
flight. There are bigger goals
involved here. More on that later.
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