Author doing research in need of pro advice

Just a thought...if you get too technical with the aviation content you may lose most of your readers as most don't know or care about general aviation. As was mentioned earlier, only .02% of the population has any interest in flying. On the other hand, it will bother the heck out of any pilot reading your book if the details are anything but accurate. Specific aircraft, pilot jargon, navigation, instrumentation etc. are all areas that are black magic to the general reading public. The aviation parts should be simple to read for the non-pilot but technically accurate just the same. Pilots can be very hard on any writer that gets the details wrong while the average person doesn't know the difference between an aileron and an elevator. Remember the audience that you're writing to.
 
Today's news on PoA - We've resorted to telling authors which plane their hypothetical pilot should have.

That's some funny shnizzel right there.
 
Over the decades, I have learned and met many pilots who “think” they know more and better, telling others how to do (every)thing the right way. The only thing I’ve learned from them is to just drop them all together.
 
jadenapa said:
YES :) A big-ish inheritance. That's the beauty of fiction. Citabria & Grumman Tiger look interesting. Would these planes fly from Santa Barbara to SF?
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Don’t worry, the looming divorce will take care of the plane and the inheritance.
 
TCABM said:
Don’t worry, the looming divorce will take care of the plane and the inheritance.
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:) A bad marriage doesn't necessarily mean a man's financial loss. What if the woman was wealthier?
 
Half Fast said:
Zsa Zsa Gabor once said, "I'm an excellent housekeeper. Every time I get a divorce, I keep the house."
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Zsa Zsa Gabor was apparently married nine times. She was divorced seven times, and one marriage was annulled. She was also born and lived in a time when women's rights weren't "a thing" and the role of a woman was mostly to be a great secretary or a homemaker. I wouldn't necessarily take her as a baseline even though she was wealthy enough to get good lawyers or whatever it was called in those times to get "the house" :) After all, if a woman takes care of the home, she gets to keep it, no? The husband gets to keep the mistress :rolleyes:
 
jadenapa said:
:) A bad marriage doesn't necessarily mean a man's financial loss. What if the woman was wealthier?
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For your character, the pilot still ends up broke. The care and feeding of light aircraft such as your character would fly is measured in $1000 increments known as Aircraft Monetary Units. They can burn at incredibly fast rates.
 
Back in the 80's when I was a full-time flight instructor, one of the local pilots was living in his hangar. It seemed odd to me at first as he was a senior, Republic 757 captain. Then I learned that he had been married three times and divorced three times and it all made more sense. He did have a beautiful Fleet with the 5 cylinder Kinner. Would love to fly that again.
 
jadenapa said:
The husband gets to keep the mistress :rolleyes:
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Years ago, my colleague used to show off a picture of his Piper Cherokee Six, calling her his “mistress”. He stayed married, and kept the house, though one may say: “there were three of us in this marriage, so it was bit crowded”.
 
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