There are a lot of nations and other places which are known for having certain traditions like horsemanship, or sailing. Oftentimes Greece is referred to as being a “seafaring nation” as is England; the Cossacks and others in Central Asia are said to be the best horsemen in the world; for a more recent example, the U.S. and Australia both have a “car culture” which is considered to be more or less unique among the peoples of the world.
Is there anywhere on earth where there is a “culture of aviation?” As in, common knowledge of how to fly and a lot of people with experience piloting either small private aircraft or military planes in the air force?
Would Alaska be an example of such a place? I’ve read that a lot of places in the state’s interior are only reachable by small planes and so there’s a strong subculture of “bush pilots.” Are there other places similarly renowned?
I have seen TV documentaries on the Australian outback and many of the far-flung properties seemed best accessed by air. They also have a flying doctor service.
Much of Alaska qualifies. I believe it has more private pilots per capita than any other sizable place in the world and lots of people own their own (rugged) planes. From the books I have read, they also have the rather odd habit of flying at a really low altitude much like using a plane like a car except just fifty to a few hundred feet off of the ground. That isn’t very common in the lower 48.
Most towns in the interior of Alaska are only reached by air - there are no roads or rivers to get there. They do have the highest amount of pilots - about 2% of people there are pilots.
Some towns can be reached by dogsled or snowmobile in winter but not after the snow melts.
While not with the same intensity as Alaska, I think you can make the case that the entire U.S. has a culture of aviation.
Compared to much of the world, aviation is quite open and do-able, both in terms of cost and regulation. Some pilots I know would choke at that statement, but bear with me.
In the UK, the cost of renting a training airplane is approximately double what you’d pay in the states. And the flight environment really isn’t set up for easy General Aviation flight.
For example, if you want to practice an instrument approach in the states, you contact the local air traffic control (ATC) facility, ask for an approach, and generally it is approved. In the UK you need a pre-arranged slot, and if you’re not in position at that time, you’re out of luck. In this way, the U.S. is much friendlier and flexible.
I’m a professional flight instructor, and I see many, many foreign students coming to train in the states. This is despite recent onerous rules about foreign students making the process less friendly.
Finally, we have a huge amount of aviation history in the states. Just walk into the front atrium of the Air & Space Museum in Washington to see what I mean.
I know that France was in the very early days the captial of aviation, dispite the Wright brothers aviation was somewhat stillborn in the USA at leat very early on. I don’t know if France still carries part of their original aviation culture?
Wright brothers were very much into making money so they wanted to keep things under wraps as much as possible. That probably didn’t help the US become a leader in aviation in the early days .
To be done with any degree of safety, aviation requires a degree of dedication that land and (somewhat less so) sea travel do not. There are no roads or roadsigns in the sky to follow. You can’t stick out your thumb when you run out of gas. You can’t just pull over and ask directions when you are lost. The wrong weather won’t just slow you down, or force you to land…it will kill you. So it doesn’t matter how important that meeting is, if the wx is bad you won’t be there.
Sailing is close to this, but if the weather is OK, you can just stop and sort things out for a bit…also you will still know which way is up regardless how thick the fog, and you don’t have to watch for traffic in three dimensions.
Most people could fly well enough if it was a priority, but the the fact is that for most it won’t be. While many dream of flying, the average person really isn’t interested in DOING all that it takes to be a decent pilot, any more than the average person dedicates themselves to becoming proficient at a musical instrument…sure, I’d like to be able to PLAY guitar, but I’m not really interested in putting in the practice.
A few of those Alaska pilots were born there, but far more moved there for the flying. It is not so much a case of a flying culture developing, as it is of pilots migrating to where the work is.
While there were some glider flights before 1900, the first powered, controlled flight is generally attributed to the Wright brothers in 1903.
Several inventors were working on automobiles before 1900, but Ford and Oldsmobile were producing cars available to the public by 1903.
Certainly it’s easier to obtain and operate a car than a plane for most folks, and that’s we can **all **cruise the strip on Friday night, but only half a million of us can buzz it.
I can’t help myself. "Generally attributed?" Is that like the world is generally attributed to be round? Or maybe that biologists generally attribute evolution as accurately descriptive of the history of biota?
You are right about that. What is little known is that people were still trying to “invent” a stable, controlled powered airplane as late as 1906 after the Wright Brothers had already gone through several generations of theirs by then starting in 1903. They weren’t 100% secretive but it was close enough. Finally, they were forced out of the closet so to speak and had to give demonstrations where they very literally flew rings around the competition. They weren’t just lucky. They were incredible scientist/inventors and don’t get nearly enough credit for it. Even after that, it took years to gain widespread recognition as the inventors of the airplane involving many fights with other so-called inventors and museums.
What the Wrights did was solve every problem for controlled, powered flight. Other people had solved only some of the problems. They never went to college, they learned everything on their own.
On a much smaller scale - there are several “air” communities / neighborhoods around the US. They typically have their own airport and most of the homes have their own hangars. Don’t know if that counts as a culture or not.
More than that, they spent much of their time suing just about every other innovator, Glenn Curtiss most of all, for patent infringement. That certainly did have a strong chilling effect on other Americans. Developments in Europe were mostly out of their reach.
The leading aviation country from Wilbur Wright’s visit in 1908 well into WW1 was France. A number of terms still used today for basic airplane parts and maneuvers are French, and the standard control layout used today dates from that explosion of innovation.
I’d say there are intense pockets of an aviation culture in the US other than Alaska: Southern California is the historical center of the US aircraft manufacturing industry, or was from the 1930’s until the demise of Douglas. Kansas still is the secondary center. Ohio’s aerospace infrastructure isn’t nearly what it was, but the cultural support for aviation is still very strong there.
Russia under Stalin probably had as strong an aviation culture as anywhere, anytime, and that provided the basis for its space program under Khrushchev too.
Outside the US, the Canadian bush is just as dependent on aircraft for basic transportation as the Alaskan bush. So is the Australian bush.
Boeing has most of their big factories in Washington state but for some reason they moved their corporate HQ to Chicago. They even have their own airfield in Seattle.
