Hi Scott,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. You made good points about how Piper Flyers Assoc is different than most Internet based “portals” (for lack of a better word). The people running this organization are doing an excellent job. And I look forward to every issue of the magazine.
My original post is really about my longing for a bustling online community on Piper twins – where people have virtual discussions. I get that some pilots are more active in-person (Eg. attending fly-ins) vs online though.
I have a wide range of interests – and some of them have very active online forums. Online forums are a lot like stock markets – it has been said that if stock markets don’t eventually make big moves, people will stop trading on that particular stock exchange because of lack of activity.
As I have mentioned, some of the online forums I frequently browse have numerous posts within each category even on an hourly or daily basis. This draws even the lurkers (ie. people who only browse but do not post) in because even if you just go on the forum once a day or once every few days, there would be a wealth of information and discussions to choose from, not to mention the historical archive. And obviously on a lot of these forums, people ask technical questions or how to do something, and within a short time they get helpful responses back.
I accept the fact that the pilot population may be a lot smaller than perhaps in other circles, but then in the example I brought up – the beech forum has very active discussions even in the twin section. Most of them in the beech twin forum are private owners who fly a lot – some of the planes are even pressurized. They are just super active in aviation and can’t help but chatter back and forth. And of course they meet up in person once in a while too.
I go to the beech forum just because there is nothing else out there for twins – and there are parallels when it comes to owning, operating and maintaining a twin that it doesn’t matter as much what the emblem looks like on the yoke.
As for my Seneca, it has been in the process of getting partially restored since it stopped flying 3 years ago when I bought it at the end of last year. I have been told it will be done very shortly – although I have also heard it numerous times so I am not holding my breath. In any case, between work and an upcoming summer vacation, I have very little time to even think about it.
