Well, I just put $75 worth of gas into my kid's car, and that only brought it up to 3/4 full.

Light airplane flying is going through the same problems as sailing, only to a greater extent, because flying is even more expensive than sailing. Av Gas is over $5/gallon in most places.

A one hour flying lesson at my local airport will set you back $150-175, depending if you want the C152 or the C172. "Little" airplanes have gone way up in price too, from about $50K 10 years ago, to $150K now.

My local airport is down to only two airplanes for lessons, and one instructor, when 10 years ago he employed 4 instructors and had 6 airplanes for rent.

The kids I see today, hanging out with my 4 kids, are not interested in doing anything out doors at all. Not flying, not sailing, not bike riding, camping, none of the stuff we did as kids.

Why?

I blame Al Gore for inventing the internet.

Kids today can sit indoors on Facebook, or twitter, texting, or watching You Tube vids, or comedy central TV, anything where all they have to do is sit and click to be entertained.

Why leave the house and sweat and get dirty, when you can sit in the house and eat and watch TV?

Now take a look at an 'expensive and hard to learn' sport like flying or sailing. There just aren't too many kids or parents who can afford to do either anymore, especially if you are putting them through college. College costs are out of control, been going up 10% a year for the past 6 years I've been paying.

Seen what a new F18 goes for?

Any wonder why the Hobie 16's and Laser's are still the most popular classes? It's about all anyone can afford to race any more.