So not "enough" people are getting private-pilot licenses and learning to fly these days, we are told. Why is this, whose fault could it be?

Women.

Industry leaders try hard not to sound like a former president of Harvard and attribute anything to innate skill, but women simply do not take up flying as frequently as men do.

“There’s been a big sociological and psychological change in the families of today, in where the discretionary dollars go,” said Phil Boyer, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. When the husband told the stay-at-home mom of the 1950s that he was going to spend a Saturday afternoon taking flying lessons, she acquiesced, he said. Today, he said, in a two-income family, she is more likely to say: “You are not. That’s your day to take Johnny to the soccer game, and what the heck are you doing spending our hard-earned money on flying lessons?”

Hey guys, we ain't just cuttin' yer nuts off, we're pulling your wings out too.

This is what passes for journalism these days. It's only after the brilliant sociological observation quoted above that our author gets into minor matters like the fact that the training needed to get a license runs from

$5,000 to $7,000. Renting even a tiny two-seat plane runs $75 an hour, and an instructor, $40 an hour or so.

And never discussed at all is the fact that you spend this time and money to accomplish....what exactly? You're not gonna get a gig with JetBlue with a license in this category. The noble (males) cited who still struggle to stay in the air use their planes for such vital purposes as, quotes snipped from throughout the story:

--Ron Janis, a lawyer in New York who specializes in mergers and acquisitions, wants his license so he can fly to a house he and his wife bought in Provincetown, Mass.

--Hal Shevers, who owns a flight school near Cincinnati, is pushing his students to get the license. With it, he said, “I can take my mom and dad or wife and kids up on a nice afternoon or sunny Sunday, and show them the sights.”
“I can show them a sunset, a sunrise.”

--Erik Lindbergh, grandson of Charles, who flew the Atlantic solo in 1927 and electrified the world of aviation.

“It gives me a rush every time I go up,” he says...

Um, so it seems that the point of spending damn near ten grand is to run up to your weekend house far away, get a rush, and give tours of, well, the sky.

Learning to fly used to be, if not at the absolute No. 1 slot, at least in my top-five list of Things To Do Before I Die. It's still there, but it sure isn't getting any closer if (aside from the money factor) achieving this goal requires putting up with people who talk like this:

Matt Kauffman, the chief flight instructor at Aero-Tech Services, the only flight school here, said that the training system had not adapted itself to women. “Women learn differently from men,” Mr. Kauffman said. “If two men go up, they will scream and shout, and a transfer of knowledge occurs, and we’d get back on the ground and go have a beer, and life is good,” he said. “If you yell at a woman, she’d start crying, and she’d never come back.” He would like to hire a female flight instructor but can’t find one, he said.

Gee, what a shock.