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General aviation can feel old fashioned, but sometimes that’s exactly what we need. I experienced our community’s unique hospitality on a recent trip to Virginia, and it took a non-pilot to remind me just how good we have it.
The flying part of the trip was easy: fly 250 miles from Cincinnati to the Shenandoah Valley, in clear skies and light winds. This was easy and efficient, but after landing at SHD I realized the efficiency was to be short-lived, because of the dreaded “last mile delivery” challenge. I was dropping off my daughter who, at age 16, cannot rent a car (note: this is a good policy!). No problem—Uber is almost as ubiquitous as oxygen these days, and I’ve used it before at this exact airport. Except this was a Sunday night, and apparently no drivers in western Virginia were interested in leaving the comforts of home for a 50-mile drive. After multiple attempts it became clear that a car was not coming, and neither was a local taxi.
Crew cars are the most visible examples of the aviation community.
Before the expletive could even leave my mouth, one of the FBO employees offered to lend me the crew car. In fact, he offered “the good one,” since he knew I was going a long way and “the not good one” apparently has questionable performance on the highway. I assumed the crew car option would be impossible, or at least impossibly bad manners, since the round trip would be nearly two hours and the FBO was closing soon. But he wouldn’t hear it: “take all the time you need and just drop the keys off with the night security guard. We appreciate your business.” This goodwill was extended even though we were doing a quick turn and had not purchased any fuel. In fact, the FBO never asked for my driver’s license or even my name—they just tossed me the keys.
As we pulled out of the parking lot (in a very nice Subaru, for the record), my daughter was confused: “What just happened? They let you borrow the car for free?!” And so began my monologue on the wonders of the crew car system, its unwritten rules, and its pecking order of vehicles. She might have tuned out after the first few lines, but we had 45 minutes to kill so I didn’t hold back.
The drop-off went fine and before returning the car, I obeyed the first rule of crew car etiquette: return it in better shape than when you took it. To me that means a full tank of gas and a clean windshield. I even unpaired my cell phone, a nod to modern technology preferences.
To most pilots, the scene I’ve just described sounds entirely unremarkable. And indeed, this was not a one-off event or some kind of special treatment because I’m a uniquely nice guy (I assure you, I’m not). This is just part of general aviation culture, and it’s been going on for decades. But that ubiquity makes it very easy to take such generosity for granted. For perspective, imagine this happening on an airline flight: would the gate agent lend you their car for a few hours, just because you flew in on United? You probably couldn’t finish reading that sentence without laughing.
On the flight home, my thoughts turned philosophical, probably influenced by the beautiful sunset off the nose. America is fractured, at least according to the headlines. Robert Putnam first warned us 25 years ago that we were “bowling alone,” joining fewer civic organizations and helping out in our communities less than ever. More recently, the Pew Research Center found that only a quarter of Americans know most of their neighbors, much less help them out regularly. Of course you don’t need a book or a survey to tell you people are less neighborly than they once were: the lack of civility among Black Friday shoppers, airline passengers, and restaurant diners can supply enough anecdotes to complete a truly depressing picture.
Take time to savor the views and the people that make aviation unique.
And yet the aviation community endures. Some traditions have certainly faded over the years—I see fewer hangar kegs than I once did—but many of the most important ones are surprisingly resilient. Most pilots look out for each other, displaying a selflessness that would inspire laughter in other parts of life.
Here are just a few examples of the aviation community in action, all of which I have witnessed personally (I invite you to add your own examples in the comments below):
- The pilot who relays your flight plan cancellation to ATC when you’re out of range.
- The mechanic who comes out on a rainy night to help you with your broken down airplane when you’re far from home.
- The flight instructor who offers free advice to a confused student on a multi-leg cross country.
- The approach controller who recognizes your tail number and offers a shortcut before you even ask for it.
- The corporate pilot who gives a young pilot the right seat so they can learn about turbine engines and flight level procedures.
- The Young Eagles ground coordinator who does hours of preparation and paperwork to give kids (and pilots) a fun and memorable experience.
- The FBO worker who drives out to pump fuel after hours, then when the credit card machine doesn’t work tells you to just send a check when you get home.
- The tower controller who watches out for a student pilot on a first solo, then congratulates them after it’s over.
- The airplane owner who lends you their hangar for the weekend because they’re away on a trip and he knows bad weather is moving in while your aircraft is tied down outside.
- The pilot who you barely know who flies to pick you up after dropping your airplane off at the shop.
- The flight instructor who takes a pilot up for a free lesson after they scared themselves on a solo flight.
- The new friend at Oshkosh you just met, who seems genuinely interested in your flying background and in no hurry to one-up you (even though you later find out they are an airshow legend!).
We have a good thing in aviation. Maybe it’s old fashioned hospitality or the last gasp of chivalry, but I suspect pilots just love what they do so they want to pass it on. Whatever the cause, we should all savor our unique community and its unwritten rules. It’s one reason so many of us stay committed to such a difficult and expensive activity, and it’s something no social network or VR game can match.
Even better than savoring it, we should pass on the habits and culture of our unique community. It only exists if we walk the walk every day. So the next time a fellow pilot asks for help, assume the best and say yes. It’s how we compete with Uber—no app required.
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Great perspective, John. I would posit one reason is that the GA community of private pilots is relatively speaking very small. In small communities of all types you tend to see this type of helpful behavior. Yes, we’d like to think it’s a positive trait of human nature, Moreso, the universal laws of “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” and “what goes around comes around” tend to play out many times during the “career” of a GA pilot.
You’re right Brad – it is a small community. But that should give us pause, because “small” in this case means somewhere between 300,000 and 800,000, depending on how you define the pilot community. That’s certainly larger than many towns, companies, or schools, and those places are not universally supportive.
John, I have pretty much the exact same story: A close non-pilot friend flew up with me to pick up some beer at Treehouse Brewery right near 1B0 (we’ve also gone to the Deerfield location near North Hampton too! Highly recommend!). We ordered the beer before we left and scheduled an Uber as our “last mile” transport. Our arrival was on the money and arrived about 15 minutes early expecting our Uber driver to be en-route. No such luck. We checked the app and no one was coming. We tried to reschedule a ride and again, just watched the app try to find a driver to no avail. Ok, no problem: We called the local Southbridge taxi service; surely, they can help us! Nada.
We had cases of sweet gold goodness waiting for us at the brewery with no way to pick it up. All hope was lost…
UNTIL we spoke to the airport manager. Did he give us the crew car? Nope. Did he find a taxi service for us? Nope. He looked me right in the eye and said, “Wait, you flew in from Jersey! You ride in my Caddy!” The ride was a complete hoot! He gave us the history of the airport, how they are trying to put in an ILS in and all the issues he has faced trying to revitalize 1B0. We offered to share our pot of liquid gold but he didn’t drink. We offered to pay for gas. He would not take it. We did thank him about a hundred times though! To this day, it was such a fun adventure I will never forget.
That is an incredible story, but so typical of GA airports! My favorite example (referenced above) is the FBO employee who told me to mail him a check sometime in the next few weeks. He knew I was headed to Oshkosh and didn’t want to slow me down with his nonfunctional credit card machine. His words were literally, “You’re a pilot – I trust you!”
In the same vein with the mailing motif: Left KIPT after the Lycoming factory tour. Problem: Left the poster (IO-360 deconstructed in all of its constituent parts) for my son in the rental at the FBO. I called and sure enough, the nice lady at the front desk already had it. I apologized for being a pain but told her I would pay for her to ship it. She shipped had already shipped it for free and just wanted an email that a) we got it and b) my son was happy with it. True story.
I’ve had many similar experiences. A recent one was a “loner” case of oil from my mechanic because the oil I had ordered was delayed in shipping and I had a trip in the morning. Obviously I replaced the case once I returned from the trip. Truly a special community.
It is a unique community and I am proud to be part of it; trying to do my share here and there to help others, specially those coming after. Very nice words and examples – including the impossible elsewhere crew car, or money pot by candies in an empty crew room that is the ancient version of vending machines – of a group of people whose call is to erase borders.
OK, what is a “hangar keg”?
I know of at least three pilots who used to have a beer keg in their hangar: airplane, toolbox, and an inconspicuous wood cabinet that always had beer on draft. These were usually popular spots to hang out when the day’s flying was done.
So true in so many ways. I got my PPL in 1974 in a C150. My instructor was a retired Lt Colonel who always said he hated little planes. His instruction centered around precision. When the big day for the check ride arrived Charlie Sullivan and I climbed in the C150 and things rapidly changed. Charlie was at least 75#’s lighter than my instructor so performance was vastly improved. We headed for Scappoose which he knew had a brisk crosswind to test me. It was obvious my crosswind skills were non-existent. The next hour and a half consisted of more intensive flight training as he recognized and filled the gaps in my training and he signed me at the end of the session. In later years the other instructors I met each added to my training with gems like the Beech Sport required a full stall landing. When I first learned about the courtesy car concept I was amazed. The pilot club is Speial.
I’ve enjoyed all your columns, but this is my favorite…exceptionally well done.
I have too many examples to recount, including an 80+ yr old pilot leaving an annual livestock gala in Mitchell, SD in February to push my Tiger into his hangar, put me in a warm room at his friend’s house for the night, drive me to breakfast in the morning and taught me tricks for starting a cold engine when I was on a solo coast-to-coast cross country. Of course, he refused payment for anything.
I wonder if part of the bond is that we all know that each other persevered through earning at least a PPL, with all the challenges that rating requires.
Spot on John. I had a great experience at Fayette County on a Sunday. Flew in for fuel, and ended up with a nose tire that decided to go flat. FBO attendant was an AnP and we attempted several times to get the tire to hold pressure so I could fly home. Not happening. He lent me the crew car so I could drive home to Dublin that evening. He called around 1100 and told me they were able to replace the tube and the plane was ready. I drove back down, top the car, and was on my way back to Union County. Only charge was for the tire and replacement labor. Even found out he was in the process of opening up a maintenance business with his son, a recent AnP. If and when my mechanic retires, I’ll be sure to give Fayette County consideration.
Years ago I was flying from Arizona to Fort Lauderdale. Wx was iffy and we stopped at KPRN in Greenville, Alabama. It was supposed to be a quick stop but wx changed our mind. It looked like Ft Lauderdale was going to get a glancing blow from a hurricane. Try as I might I could not find a hangar so we decided to leave the plane in Greenville and proceed by car.
“Do you have any hangar space available?” Was my question and the answer was yes. Bracing for the worst I asked how much it would cost per night. “It’s free, we’re not that kind of airport.” Wow!
We borrowed the crew car to go to/from Montgomery for a rental car. Returned after 10 days and left them a big tip.
Very much appreciate their kind of airport!
I’m a low-time private pilot just enjoying flying around and building time, renting aircraft from a flight school because I don’t own one yet. Back in February I was doing a night XC from KRYN in Tucson to P33 in Wilcox, and on landing in Wilcox the flap handle return spring on the Cherokee 140 I was flying broke. At the time I didn’t know exactly what was wrong, just that the flaps wouldn’t retract from full in my little underpowered aircraft, I knew it didn’t climb well with full flaps, and I knew I didn’t want to take off into rising terrain at night like that.
Luckily another pilot flying a larger turbine aircraft had just landed, so after parking my plane I ran over to where he was securing his aircraft to ask him if he could drop me off at a truckstop on I-10 before he left, so that someone could pick me up more easily.
He told me no problem, then came to check out my plane to see if there was anything he could do. I told him the flight school was going to come get it in the morning. Instead of dropping me off at the truckstop, he instead decided to drive me 1.5 hours all the way back to Ryan (and for him 1.5 hours back to Wilcox). He added a 3 hour drive to the end of his full day of work just to help out a fellow pilot and I was just blown away by the kindness. I’ll pass it along one of these days.
Our community is tiny now so it’s easy to find such inner support, it’s just hard finding anyone around anymore to feel this community. 30 years ago when I bought a worn out c172 with 2 friends to finish ratings and build time there was always activity around the field and plenty of people willing to help with things like changing a tire or advice on when to use flaps on IFR approach or A&ps willing to let us help on inspections. That was a long time ago, when I sold my last plane few months back, even though based at a far bigger airport, such help and sense of community was less than scarce. Oshkosh and sun n fun
certainly had sense of community, but that only happened once a year.
over last 5 years there were fewer A&P shops on my field or nearby that want anything to do with pistons, and as such shops stopped wanting to fix my old radios or instruments, my community became eBay and Barnstormers searching for working replacements as there was no other resource with only option to spend tens of thousands to upgrade.
it seems the sense of community now mostly exist in the experimental world, at least in my area of AZ. Most of the certified planes are owned by schools that don’t rent them out or few older individuals like me that rarely fly them due to cost or even some fighting to get their medical back. a few planes here have been out of annual for some time either due to costs and related issues.
But the experimental group seem to be closer and still sharing the sense community, and I am now considering buying an already built experimental for this reason, and the far lower cost of ownership.
Years ago I tried converting my 1975 c172 to experimental after seeing a c172 with a car engine at a fly in airshow in Kanas as I was already over TBO but didn’t want to spend the crazy cost of rebuilding engine. The engine kit would have made cost of flying reasonable and gave more power, but it never came to market, due to FAA issues according to their website and article a few years ago here. it would have been ideal for me as I didn’t have the time or resources to build a kit from scratch and invested in upgrades on the c172 over the years, but now my local airport experimental pilots said they would help find an used experimental I could work on myself and afford to fly. …so joining them going to Oshkosh to see options. So our community exist but may need to look harder for it.
Great story–I had two of those in your list happen to me:
1. “The flight instructor who offers free advice to a confused student on a multi-leg cross country.” On my lost solo cross-country before getting my private, I got disoriented in the White Mountains of N.H. After landing in Berllin, an instructor sat me down, calmed me down, bought me a Coke and reviewed the last legs of the flight. I was ready to quit flying before that happened.
2. “The tower controller who watches out for a student pilot on a first solo, then congratulates them after it’s over.” When I soloed in Bangor, Maine the controller cleared the area and then congratulated me as I taxied back to the FBO.
I no longer can fly, but those are great memories of camaraderie in the aviation field.
You nailed it, John. I’ve had basically all of those experiences and many more, and I’ve only been flying for 10 years! They started right out of the gate. I try to do my part to give back and pay it forward. It is definitely one of the main things that keeps us all so very committed/ addicted.
Our community is tiny now so it’s easy to find such inner support, it’s just hard finding anyone around anymore to feel this community. 30 years ago when I bought a worn out c172 with 2 friends to finish ratings and build time there was always activity around the field and plenty of people willing to help with things like changing a tire or advice on when to use flaps on IFR approach or A&ps willing to let us help on inspections. That was a long time ago, when I sold my last plane few months back, even though based at a far bigger airport, such help and sense of community was less than scarce. Oshkosh and sun n fun
certainly had sense of community, but that only happened once a year.
over last 5 years there were fewer A&P shops on my field or nearby that want anything to do with pistons, and as such shops stopped wanting to fix my old radios or instruments, my community became eBay and Barnstormers searching for working replacements as there was no other resource with only option to spend tens of thousands to upgrade.
it seems the sense of community now mostly exist in the experimental world, at least in my area of AZ. Most of the certified planes are owned by schools that don’t rent them out or few older individuals like me that rarely fly them due to cost or even some fighting to get their medical back. a few planes here have been out of annual for some time either due to costs and related issues.
But the experimental group seem to be closer and still sharing the sense community, and I am now considering buying an already built experimental for this reason, and the far lower cost of ownership.
Years ago I tried converting my 1975 c172 to experimental after seeing a c172 with a car engine at a fly in airshow in Kanas as I was already over TBO but didn’t want to spend the crazy cost of rebuilding engine. The engine kit would have made cost of flying reasonable and gave more power, but it never came to market, due to FAA issues according to their website and article a few years ago here. it would have been ideal for me as I didn’t have the time or resources to build a kit from scratch and invested in upgrades on the c172 over the years, but now my local airport experimental pilots said they would help find an used experimental I could work on myself and afford to fly. …so joining them going to Oshkosh to see options. So our community exist but may need to look harder for it.
The lady who answered the phone at the Pocahontas Iowa airport, “Sure you can use our car to find lunch. We may not be there. The key is in the second cabinet on the left. Just write your name on the clipboard.”
Another great read John, thanks for reminding me of another of the many things I love about general aviation. The longest day of my career (after three airplane changes, a declared emergency, a rental car ride, a diversion due to thunderstorms, and a power outage at the FBO) ended at Shenandoah Valley (and karaoke night at the Holiday Inn) so that brought some memories. I’ve experienced so much kindness at small airports over the years. I’ve benefited from courtesy cars of all types, loaned tools and shop space, help moving an airplane, shelter from storms, and local knowledge about weather and terrain. A favorite was during my epic Kitty Hawk trip with my dad when we were unable to get a car. A local pilot offered us a ride to a hotel he recommended and a return trip to the airport in the morning before we even had a chance to ask.
Our family FBO is in a town where Uber is not normally available and our 3+ courtesy cars (yes we have a good one) are the key to sharing our community with GA visitors. I’m happy now that my boys often get the other side of the experience when they hand the keys to (mostly) grateful visitors when they are working their line shifts. I always say the happiest people I meet are not riding in the back of jets, its the people traveling the country in their own airplanes and the aviation community we know and loves helps make that such a happy experience.
Shane, thanks for all you do to keep the aviation community going for another generation.