[warner25]

It seems like there are almost daily HN front page items about aviation, and a lot of pilots in the comments. I've wondered about the reasons for such an overlap in interests among people here.

I fit this myself: I grew up playing flight simulators, studied computer science as an undergrad, was a military helicopter pilot for a while, and then went to grad school for computer science. Along the way, I've personally met at least half a dozen other academic computer scientists with a pilot's license or military aviation background. Is it just selective attention / frequency illusion for me, or is there more to this?

[JohnFen]

> I've wondered about the reasons for such an overlap in interests among people here.

I bet that a large part of why is that people here tend to have reasonably high incomes, and flying is an expensive hobby. I'm sure that flying would be an incredibly popular hobby across all demographics if it were affordable.

[samtho]

Flying was not as expensive as I thought especially since I found a school that lets you pay by the lesson. Once you got your 40 hours, you can, without much restriction, fly general aviation aircraft (that you are type-rated on) wherever you want in the US at least. A non club price puts a Cessna at about $110-$160/hr wet (time engine is on, 100LL Avgas included). Expensive, but not so out of reach.

The thing you need to be rich in is free time. You can have all the money in the world but if you don’t have the time to put in, you’re not getting into this hobby.

[josefrichter]

I studied Air Traffic Management = basically managing and evolving ATC systems. I work now as a product designer, which for the most part involves conceptual design, dealing with complex flows and optimising them, dealing with imperfect humans using those systems, "solving problems" that go far beyond design. I often say it's the exact same job, just in slightly different domain.

[zeroc8]

I became a pilot at age 20, got all my ratings up to a frozen ATPL, worked as a flight instructor, gave up my airline ambitions due to deteriorating eyesight, became a software developer, worked on other stuff for 20 years, rekindled my interest using Xplane, got a job working on a new flight planning system for a major airline...

[ArnoVW]

I'll add a datapoint. Not a pilot, just like to know how complicated stuff works. And, like the article, I do think there are lessons to learn from aviation.