Is flying anything like diving??

[gr8jab]

Recreational diving is pretty easy, and requires only a rudimentary understanding of the physics and technology, and some average physical skills for swimming.

Flying has three distinct components, all of which require much more than rudimentary skills and learning:

1. Physical manipulation of the controls: It takes considerable practice and instruction to develop the skills and coordination to properly control an aircraft, especially during takeoff and landing (and aerobatics, if that's your thing).

2. Solid mechanical understanding: There is lots of studying about forces, vectors, drag, lift, and such. Add that to a detailed examination of internal combustion engine operation, behaviors and pitfalls. And this knowledge is not perfunctory, but rather essential to being a pilot.

3. Rules, procedures, paperwork, and more rules: Between the two inch thick FAR (Federal Aviation Regulations), containing every little rule the FAA can dream and the equally oppressive AIM (Airman Information Manual) which describes in detail how do anything, your PADI training will feel like kindergarten. Add to that the hours needed to understand and decode aviation maps, weather reports, and flight plan acronyms. Do you like government bureaucracies? If so, you'll love being a pilot. Here's an example: Acronyms and Abbreviations

All this is said with tongue in cheek, but it's also true.

If you want to learn to fly because you crave a feeling of flying, get a sailplane, hang-glider, para-glider, or maybe an ultralight.

 

[RVBldr]

I doubt we'll ever see a "Learn to Fly" Groupon deal for $179.

 

[gr8jab]

I doubt we'll ever see a "Learn to Fly" Groupon deal for $179.

That's the 'Discover Cessna' intro deal.

 

[Hoag]

Is flying like diving. Yes and no.

Yes because you are doing something about 99% of everyone else isn't doing and never will.
No because they really are two different experiences of existing in 3-dimensional space.

From about 1991 - 2000 I was a competition aerobatic pilot and even owned an Extra 300. The plane could do absolutely anything and my favorite maneuver was the Lomcevak. This may piss people off, but unless you've flown like this you are just an airplane driver. Aerobatics is flying.

So, as divers we don't have the cool Lomcevak sort of experiences, but as pilots we don't have the cool awesomeness of the undersea world.

Is diving like flying? Yes and No? However, both activities makes us so much cooler than basically everyone because everyone else isn't doing it!~

I haven't done a lot of aerobatics, but my intro to them was also my first ride in "fast air" (an aircraft with an ejection seat). I was stationed in Ottawa at the time and managed (somehow) to get a flight in a T33 with a former Commanding Officer of the Snowbirds (the RCAF's counterpart to the USAF Thunderbirds or the USN Blue Angels). For the next hour and a bit, he would do a maneuver. Then he would do it again, but explaining what he was doing in real time. Then the cool part. He would calmly say "You have control." and he would talk me through what he had just done with me flying the jet, followed by him saying "I have control." and then on to the next maneuver. We kept it pretty tame (Barrel Roll, Aileron Roll, Loop, Immelman, Split S, etc) and we never pulled more than 5.5Gs, but I think what impressed him the most was that when we landed, I did not have a full "cookie bag", but rather an ear to ear grin!

A bunch of my friends (former CF18 drivers), when they retired pooled their money and bought 3 Extra 300s (set up as 2 seaters) and started a company called "Air Combat Canada" in which they could offer the "dog fighting experience" to civilians. Eventually, the thrill of flying jets was too strong and most of them are now flying retired Luftwaffe Alpha Jets as contract targets for a company called Top Aces