By Mike Davenport, EAA 89102, Langley, British Columbia
Ian was looking for input on/from aging out of flying. I’ve been at it since September 19, 1981, 41 years to be precise. No, I haven’t made the decision to stop flying, but it is lurking. I was 80 on my last birthday and could still pass a medical. You know you also must do that to get a driver license renewed, none of which is covered under our provincial medical plan. While I understand the pilot’s medical being my cost, it seems that the driver license should be covered. Just saying. By the way, the total cost for both was $500.00.
I find that as time goes on, I am using the airplane less. Until my wife passed away, she had been a frequent flyer. My other best friend and hangar mate also recently passed on and I had flown with him often as well. So there seems to be less and less reason to use the airplane. Logic continually points out that the costs remain the same though it is used less. Things like insurance, hangar lease, and property taxes, to say nothing about the absurd fuel prices when the airplane is used.
A rational mind would say that there is no reason to continue spending that kind of money for occasional use. But then, a rational person probably wouldn’t have started this in the first place.
Then one day recently, all the rules changed. I got hospitalized because of a seizure and the doctors told me “No driving for 6 months.” It goes without saying, no flying either. If you think that life is complicated, watch what happens when you live alone and can’t drive. How do you get groceries, go to the library, go to church, the doctor’s office, the lab for the myriad of tests: MRIs, EKGs, ECHOs etc., and not the least, how do you get to the hangar?
So, what do I do now? Prep the airplane for sale and clean out the hangar and either sell the bay or rent it? Or perhaps sit on all of it for the duration and hope the situation gets back to what was normal. Early days yet, but someone once told me “Hope is not a plan.”
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