Which is easier: flying or driving?

ebykowsky

ebykowsky

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I get asked this question a lot now, and I've yet to come up with a satisfactory answer. I sometimes say that driving is to flying what Call of Duty is to chess, but it's not a solid comparison. The question at hand is not really fair since to a seasoned brain surgeon who's never driven, brain surgery is easier. Likewise, a seasoned pilot probably finds flying easier.
So how do you guys explain the difference between flying and driving to your friends? Really, they're two very different things despite the fact that people find them similar?
 
They would be almost identical without the all of the implications of the third dimension.

ebykowsky said:
I get asked this question a lot now, and I've yet to come up with a satisfactory answer. I sometimes say that driving is to flying what Call of Duty is to chess, but it's not a solid comparison. The question at hand is not really fair since to a seasoned brain surgeon who's never driven, brain surgery is easier. Likewise, a seasoned pilot probably finds flying easier.
So how do you guys explain the difference between flying and driving to your friends? Really, they're two very different things despite the fact that people find them similar?
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Flying is easier than driving. Landing and take offs require a bit more skill.
 
wabower said:
They would be almost identical without the all of the implications of the third dimension.
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Disagree; when I'm driving I can't look at a map for 2 seconds or go an inch off course. I'm always seeing what the traffic 2 inches away from me is doing, and my radio is for listening to Rush Limbaugh and music, not a government worker behind a screen. Restricted areas are clearly marked with boundaries and I'm not nearly as vigilant about the car itself. I also don't need to think about anything other than driving (communication, weather, airspace, navigation [car navigation isn't real navigation]) I demand a better analogy! :)
 
Ed has it right. Flying is so easy Troy Martin could do it. Landing and taking off, and navigating without. GPS is harder.
 
Any time driving or flying gets "easy" complacency has set in and can kill in either.
 
I find flying to be easier (safer) than driving under certain conditions.
Flying from Florida to New York is much easier than driving.
Driving to Miami is much more stressful and unsafe than flying.
Flying during rush hour is much easier and safer than driving.
 
Which requires more training?

Given the training required to solo and to get the private vs the training required to learn to drive, I would be hard-pressed to claim that flying is easier than driving.
 
Bob Noel said:
Which requires more training?

Given the training required to solo and to get the private vs the training required to learn to drive, I would be hard-pressed to claim that flying is easier than driving.
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Everyone I've had up with me I've let take the controls. They all kept the plane upright, and maintained heading and altitude. They flew. Their training: None.

As I said, flying is easy, it's the getting on and off the ground that poses challenges.
 
EdFred said:
Everyone I've had up with me I've let take the controls. They all kept the plane upright, and maintained heading and altitude. They flew. Their training: None.

As I said, flying is easy, it's the getting on and off the ground that poses challenges.
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Who talked to ATC? Who navigated? Who gave altitudes? Yes, keeping an airplane in the air is very easy, but aviating is much much more than that.
 
Bob Noel said:
Which requires more training?

Given the training required to solo and to get the private vs the training required to learn to drive, I would be hard-pressed to claim that flying is easier than driving.
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Funny, in SC, 40 hours of driving with a licensed guardian, including 10 at night, were required before a restricted license (very limited pax privileges). Then, at 17 the restricted became a full license (full passenger allowance). Nobody actually checked the hours or kept a log though.
 
ebykowsky said:
Who talked to ATC? Who navigated? Who gave altitudes? Yes, keeping an airplane in the air is very easy, but aviating is much much more than that.
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You asked about flying, not aviating. Flying is simply keeping the airplane airborne and under control.
 
Just my $0.02... I think that flying is easier to do, but much more difficult/intensive to plan. Planning is just as important as the mechanical skill of flying. Driving takes more "at this moment" attention, but you don't have to plan very thoroughly. I'll vote that driving is easier overall, simply because you can just "hop-in-and-go".

Also, I think the intensive training is to keep everyone as safe as we can. Most (all?) of us were able to pilot the machine on our discovery flights, but we hadn't yet learned the package of skills that's required to keep us safe.
 
EdFred said:
You asked about flying, not aviating. Flying is simply keeping the airplane airborne and under control.
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Well in that case, landing is easy too. Rocks land, hail lands, people jumping off buildings land. All you have to do to assure a landing in an airplane is pull the red knob.
 
You need more driving lessons.

ebykowsky said:
Disagree; when I'm driving I can't look at a map for 2 seconds or go an inch off course. I'm always seeing what the traffic 2 inches away from me is doing, and my radio is for listening to Rush Limbaugh and music, not a government worker behind a screen. Restricted areas are clearly marked with boundaries and I'm not nearly as vigilant about the car itself. I also don't need to think about anything other than driving (communication, weather, airspace, navigation [car navigation isn't real navigation]) I demand a better analogy! :)
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Let me put it this way: I wouldn't even think of flying after a couple beers. But I wouldn't think twice about driving after a couple.
 
EdFred said:
As I said, flying is easy, it's the getting on and off the ground that poses challenges.
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Put it two handfuls out of trim and tell us if they can still keep heading and altitude.

Sure, flying is easy if you do it all for them.

The truth is, things happen faster in a car, but an aircraft has much more workload and many more controls to keep abreast of.

It's only really crappy cars that veer to the left when you stomp the accelerator.

And when is the last time you made a workflow or checklist for a car? That should answer your question right there.
 
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I agree it's apples vs. oranges. Flying requires much more knowledge and a broader skill set. But once acquired, travel by plane is much less fatiguing than driving. I attribute that to what was alluded to above: driving demands moment by moment concentration, even if much of that is subconscious (minor wheel adjustments to stay between the lines) that is not demanded of a pilot, especially with an autopilot.

For me, a four hour flight is less tiring than two hours in a car.
 
In a best-case situation, how often do you typically stop to stretch and pit on a cross-country driving trip?

LDJones said:
I agree it's apples vs. oranges. Flying requires much more knowledge and a broader skill set. But once acquired, travel by plane is much less fatiguing than driving. I attribute that to what was alluded to above: driving demands moment by moment concentration, even if much of that is subconscious (minor wheel adjustments to stay between the lines) that is not demanded of a pilot, especially with an autopilot.

For me, a four hour flight is less tiring than two hours in a car.
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MAKG1 said:
Put it two handfuls out of trim and tell us if they can still keep heading and altitude.

Sure, flying is easy if you do it all for them.
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Evidently you have dumb friends. Mine figured it out when I trimmed for take off.
 
Flying is much easier because you can assume that most of the other people flying around you will obey the rules most of the time. Defensive driving is really hard in this day and age of aggressive drivers and unconstrained road rage.
 
EdFred said:
You asked about flying, not aviating. Flying is simply keeping the airplane airborne and under control.
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well, if you want to nit-pick, aviating isn't just about keeping the aircraft airborne and under control. Aviating includes takeoff and landing.

Although I are a engineer, even I can figure out that the question wasn't as restrictive as you apparently believe.
 
I agree. But the question was flying, not aviating.

Of course it's also easy to go out to an empty parking lot, give someone the keys to the car, and let them have at it. That's also driving, and pretty easy for most, but certainly doesn't take into account interacting with other cars, following the rules of the road, dealing with anticipating traffic signals, etc...

Now, if the that isn't question that was being asked, maybe the real question needs to be asked. I always assume when someone tells their friends how much more difficult flying is than driving, it's for some sort of self-congratulatory reason.
 
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When I lived and drove in the NYC Metro Area, I found flying (with the exceptions of takeoffs and landings) to be a lot easier than driving, in every way: physical demand-wise, stress-wise, and even navigation-wise if I was unfamiliar with the area and the roads. That was assuming I was in my car. If I was driving a truck, multiply the physical demand and stress factors a few times over, and the navigation factor a bit because of low bridges and road restrictions.

Up here in the country, I find the overall difficulty of flying and driving to be pretty much the same (again, with the exception of takeoffs and landings).

-Rich
 
Driving is easier when deciding to go. Short of a blizzard, just get in and drive. None of this planning, weather, briefings, etc. I might glance at the TV news weather if I am planning a long driving trip the night before, maybe.

Driving is also easier to get going. Throw your crap in and drive. No going to the airport, opening the hangar, pre-flighting, fueling, etc.

Driving is easier when you get somewhere, just pull up to your destination vs. landing, parking, rental car or taxi, etc.

Driving is easier in any real weather. FRZ won't kill you driving (mostly).

Flying is easier in cruise, just sit there and do a Sudoku puzzle or read the paper. Use ATC and TCAS for traffic and relax.

Flying is easier when there are no good roads between two places.

Flying is easier when there is a giant traffic jam below, like Atlanta every afternoon.

Flying is easier going over water.

Now flying private vs. flying commercial vs. driving, that's a whole other discussion.

Skill wise they are close to the same.
 
EdFred said:
I always assume when someone tells their friends how much more difficult flying is than driving, it's for some sort of self-congratulatory reason.
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I always tell people that flying is easier than driving and cheaper than having a boat. Especially around salt water.
 
JOhnH said:
I always tell people that flying is easier than driving and cheaper than having a boat. Especially around salt water.
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Yup, a boat sitting in salt water is the maintenance equivalent of a 10,000 hour Duke with run outs that just came from South America.
 
ebykowsky said:
Who talked to ATC? Who navigated? Who gave altitudes? Yes, keeping an airplane in the air is very easy, but aviating is much much more than that.
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I've talked to ATC as recently as 2010, but it's not hard to avoid altogether.

My oldest did fine when I handed her a chart, pointed to where we were starting and had her follow along with her finger.

I don't know what you mean by "Who gave altitudes?"

There is stuff to learn that you really want to know so you can get from point A to point B and re-use the airplane.

There is stuff to learn to avoid getting busted in an airspace system that is primarily intended to facilitate getting airliners full of tourists to Orlando.

And there is the stuff that you really want to learn because it is what makes flying an enjoyable pastime.

Flying, overall, is probably harder than driving. But there are things you can get away with in an airplane that you can't do in a car and vice versa.
 
EdFred said:
You asked about flying, not aviating. Flying is simply keeping the airplane airborne and under control.
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Often more than what the person with a drivers license has done.

IMO operating a car is easier than operating a plane,

Really DRIVING the car is harder than piloting an airplane
 
I think there is no comparison - flying is much harder because:

1. you operate in 3 dimensions
2. aircraft controls are all coupled - movement in one dimension causes spill over effect on other dimensions.
3. Look at length training - I can teach someone to drive in 10-15 hrs.

In my opinion it makes no sense to say "flying is easier" except that landings are more difficult. There is no flying without landing. Also it makes no sense to separate flying from aviating, planning, making weather decisions, etc.
 
I think another way to put it is that driving is natural for us; aviating is not as much.
 
olasek said:
I think there is no comparison - flying is much harder because:

1. you operate in 3 dimensions
2. aircraft controls are all coupled - movement in one dimension causes spill over effect on other dimensions.
3. Look at length training - I can teach someone to drive in 10-15 hrs.

In my opinion it makes no sense to say "flying is easier" except that landings are more difficult. There is no flying without landing. Also it makes no sense to separate flying from aviating, planning, making weather decisions, etc.
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I can teach someone to fly (sign off on their solo) in less than that. If we are going to call students "pilots" after they solo, then they have flown - and I think pretty much everyone here refers to them as pilots as soon as they solo.
 
ebykowsky said:
I think another way to put it is that driving is natural for us; aviating is not as much.
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Who is "us" ? There's a lot of people out there that driving didn't come natural to. I remember one kid in our driver's ed class that wrecked a car - in the practice lot!

There's even some pilots that live in metro areas that don't even have a driver's license.
 
A better question might be "What is the easier way to make a trip?". When I fly from the Sacramento area up to see my daughter in Humboldt County, flying is way, way easier. It's usually a relaxing and beautiful 2 hour flight and my airplane burns 9 gallons of gas. Driving, it's a nerve-wracking 5.5 hour trip burning 12 gallons of gas.
 
I'll guarandamtee the FAA refers to them the same way when they hand out the 50-year award.

EdFred said:
I can teach someone to fly (sign off on their solo) in less than that. If we are going to call students "pilots" after they solo, then they have flown - and I think pretty much everyone here refers to them as pilots as soon as they solo.
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This really is such a broad question and so freaking conditional to be almost meaningless.

Driving on a twisty steep mountain road with a loaded pickup and trailer in ice and snow in the dark is more difficult than cruising on a dead calm morning VFR in class G.

Holding position over a pitching rolling fishing boat in a gale at night trying to land a basket on deck without a trail line is more difficult than driving across a flat farm field.


:dunno:
 
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