The Death of General Aviation

[AirmetTango]

• A statistical analysis of completions.

Somebody has too much free time on their hands... (Not that I disagree at all with your findings.)

Agreed...should we use a one-sample t-test, binomial test, or a repeated measures logistic regression for the statistical analysis?

Just kiddin'...I know what you mean!

 

[Douglas]

Light sport to the rescue.

 

[Roger, Roger]

It's simple:

Most people just don't want to fly.

Case closed.

So what changed between, say, the 50s-60s and now that has caused that?

I agree that you are right.

I'm curious as to why.

 

[granlistillo]

The root of the problem is trial lawyers. GA is probably one of the hardest hit industries but not the only one. If you examine closely you will find a significant amount of destruction to the US economy from their efforts. Sure sometimes a legitimate wrong needs to be addressed but there needs to be a balance point. The trail lawyers are so far from it they don't have a clue where the balance point should be. The destruction will continue until there is nothing left or a force outside their world stops them from their unbalanced activity.

I agree with your sentiments vis a vis lawyers and their effect on GA. This has been a major factor in the last 30 years. But congress did end up passing liability reform, what a decade ago or more, and for example cessna opened some of the SEP lines again. Interesting enough, the country where I am hanging my hat for a few months, is not run by lawyers, and if you act responsibly you have nothing to fear from bully lawyers. It is refreshing, and while I agree TL have their place, they need to be neutered or defanged a bit in the US:

My dad always was a partner in a mooney or bonanza when I was growing up until he lost his medical a few years back. I think the rising costs have not kept with the middle class purchasing power say from 1985. Also the amount of leisure time available. I am not sure in today´s climate that he would start that as a 30 yr hobby... That is a totally unscientific guess.

 

[jrh]

I feel like I'm the never ending voice of optimism here sometimes, but I don't see GA as being dead. In fact, I see it alive and well.

I'm friends with half a dozen guys who are new private pilots and have bought their first plane within the past few years. Most are definitely high income individuals, but a couple are Average Joe types who just know how to set priorities and manage money.

I went to a free AOPA safety seminar a couple weeks ago and the place was packed. I bet 200 pilots showed up.

I flew to Kansas City and back this morning to help a customer get to a business meeting. He normally flies himself in our rental planes, but hasn't finished his instrument rating yet and it was IFR across the route. He flies several times/month for work. Know what we talked about on the way down? Which aircraft would be a good fit for him to own.

The hangars at my airport have about a 90% occupancy rate.

Two of our three rental planes are going on trips this weekend. And when I say trips, I'm talking about Albuquerque for one and Dallas for the other. That's about 500 miles one way from where we're based.

Airshow / fly-in attendance across the country this summer was as strong as ever, and in many places actually went up compared to previous years.

Many light sport aircraft manufacturers have a waiting list for deliveries.

Our local maintenance shop has a hard time keeping up with business, and they primarily service piston aircraft / smaller turbine twins (King Airs, etc.).



GA is dead? Not from where I sit.

Granted, I'm closely tied to the aircraft sales / flight training industry, so my perspective might be skewed, but I see tons of reasons to be optimistic.

I think a lot of it boils down to some of the ideas shdw talked about in his post. A lot of FBOs / flight schools do a poor job of marketing themselves. They haven't done a good job of convincing people why being a pilot is worth it (and I fully believe it is, even at $9k or $10k for a private pilot certificate).

I also think a lot of the "glory days" of aviation might not have been as glorious as we think they were. I didn't live through the 70s, so maybe I'm way off base, but I'm pretty sure even then, people had to be in higher income brackets to become seriously involved in aviation.

And you think nobody complained about prices back then? They whined just like people today. Some people bit the bullet and went for it, while others hung up the phone, never to be heard from again--just like today.

There were also hangar queens back then. Same could be said for aviation businesses coming and going in the blink of an eye. That joke about "the only way to make $1 million in aviation is to start with $2 million" has been around a lot longer than the past 10 years.

I think we're going to look back on this era twenty years from now and wish we had the "glory days" back. That's the nature of life.

 

[ppragman]

The cost of entry to business in GA in some ways is now much much lower than it was before if you look at it the right way. Before, part of that cost was in blood, now our standards are a little higher, and accidents have gone down. I'll take spending more money on the private if it means that people are trained better, and have a better chance of surviving the killing zone. In a lot of ways, I really do believe that we're training better pilots than we were 20 years ago, 50 years ago. Not because of the quality of applicants, but we as a group understand the fundamentals of how people learn, and how to safely fly a bit better. Not that there aren't exceptions to this, however.

 

[jrh]

The cost of entry to business in GA in some ways is now much much lower than it was before if you look at it the right way. Before, part of that cost was in blood, now our standards are a little higher, and accidents have gone down. I'll take spending more money on the private if it means that people are trained better, and have a better chance of surviving the killing zone. In a lot of ways, I really do believe that we're training better pilots than we were 20 years ago, 50 years ago. Not because of the quality of applicants, but we as a group understand the fundamentals of how people learn, and how to safely fly a bit better. Not that there aren't exceptions to this, however.

Excellent point. I agree.

 

[muffinman]

I still think its going to come down to getting a broader base of new pilot starts and finding a way to get them to complete the training. AOPA and the other groups out there are really good a preaching to the choir, but something has to be done to get the larger public interested.

 

[Murdoughnut]

I still think its going to come down to getting a broader base of new pilot starts and finding a way to get them to complete the training. AOPA and the other groups out there are really good a preaching to the choir, but something has to be done to get the larger public interested.

YES! I sent the AOPA an email exactly to that point. Like this big conference/rally in Tampa next month to support GA Serves America. Wow, way to go out on a limb and try to convince pilots that GA is important.

Stop sending me hats and develop a national ad campaign!

 

[rd757]

YES! I sent the AOPA an email exactly to that point. Like this big conference/rally in Tampa next month to support GA Serves America. Wow, way to go out on a limb and try to convince pilots that GA is important.

Stop sending me hats and develop a national ad campaign!

I haven't gotten any of the hats, but the new headset/flight bag (not the blue one) is pretty awesome. However, my buddy never got a bag and he gets the hats...

I'm in total agreement that they need to get some ads on TV. Let people know that GA does serve America. Telling pilots who already know this isn't going to do much.

 

[muffinman]

Right! they spent the money for Harrison Ford and Morgan Freeman to make the commercials, Just pay a little more to air them on TV. Sporty's, AOPA, NAFI/SAFE, EAA and so on should band together and flood TV and (non aviation) print media with reasons GA is good and invite people to get out and learn to fly.

 

[Lee D]

I have not flown GA for a while. Just wondering a loud here: IF GA flying really is taking a hit on flying demand, will insurance companies eventually make rates more reasonable to stir up more business in the smaller piston aircraft markets? OR will they simply shift their efforts into finding clients in the more expensive aircraft markets? (Perhaps this is happening already.)

 

[OldTownPilot]

Lower rates HA!

They will raise them so that they will still get the same $ amount in profit.

 

[Inverted25]

I am with jrh when it comes to optimism. We keep our cherokee at ashland and there is a waiting list right now with 12 people waiting to get their planes into a hangar because all of them are full. On the weekend probably 50% of the hangars are open. It stays pretty active till it gets really cold. One the things I found with people who owned airplanes but didn't fly much was they just lost the interest. One guy told me I just have no where to go anymore. So we started flying his champ together and went to the islands, checked out some new grass strips, and all the sudden I see him all the time up there getting his champ out and ready to fly. One thing I wish I thought of at the flight school I fly out of is calling people who have money in their account but have been inactive for awhile. One the flight instructors got the accountant to make him a list with the numbers of people who had money in the account but hadn't flown in a while. He started calling up this huge list of people and had pretty good results. Now given some of them said oh I didn't know I had money in there and came and took it out lol. But he ended up staying really busy this summer flying with guys who started training but stop for one reason or another and he was able to get them back out flying. I think part of it is we need AOPA to be more public. Get Harrsion Ford out there on National TV telling people come out and fly. Part of it is the local airports. We just had our annual fall foliage trip at skypark. We put a ad in the paper and offer $15 rides for people to go up and see all the trees turning colors. We also have ground school sign up the same day. We had 150 people turn out and 23 sign up for ground school. Now given not all 23 will follow through and go through training but it was good publicity and got people interested in flying. And it also educated the local community on how GA benefits everyone. One thing I would like to see schools do is offer local reporters a free intro flight. It wouldn't cost the school anything because AOPA will cover the cost as long as you can produce the reporters proper creditnels and they publish a article about it. Its part of their support GA run. You can find details on their website. That would be great publicity though getting articles in the local newspaper saying hey look how fun it is to learn to fly. I mean the market is out there we just have to generate business. Around my area the local boating scene is huge. 100k boats everywhere. And it is driven because boating has a "this is fun" mystic around it. We need to generate that attitude about GA again like it was years ago.

 

[ppragman]

GA still flies more passengers and more miles than commercial ops if the AOPA propaganda is to be believed

 

[minitour]

Lower rates HA!

They will raise them so that they will still get the same $ amount in profit.

Ding ding ding ding ding!

Just like when people say "if we all boycotted the gas companies for a day, they'd lose elevendytrillion dollars in profit!"

No. The next day, when you still needed gas, it would be $4.00/gallon instead of the $3.00/gallon that you boycotted. Businesses will make their profit.

-mini

 

[SpiraMirabilis]

I like the ones where they are just like 'Boycott CITGO for a day! or Boycott Exxon gas stations for a day!' Hellooo... gas is fungible, they'll just sell it to the other stations.

 

[minitour]

I like the ones where they are just like 'Boycott CITGO for a day! or Boycott Exxon gas stations for a day!' Hellooo... gas is fungible, they'll just sell it to the other stations.

That's dumb. Don't you know they'll be forced to lower their prices!

Yeah...that's the ticket! :rotfl:

-mini

 

[Jeremy]

IDK about that. Playing the few flying games I have, has only motivated me more to become the pilot I dream of being.

Money and insurance... definitely.
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I agree.

I'm too young to fly, so I fly on X-Plane and use Virtual Air Traffic (VATSIM). I really wouldn't even call it a video game. It's licensed by the FAA and is about the closest you can get to flying without spending $20,000 on a flight simulator (or more).

It definitely hasn't made me think, "Hey, I've got this "game", I'll just forget about getting my PPL and do this for the rest of my life". I believe I'm preparing myself for getting my license.

 

[Murdoughnut]

I am with jrh when it comes to optimism. We keep our cherokee at ashland and there is a waiting list right now with 12 people waiting to get their planes into a hangar because all of them are full. On the weekend probably 50% of the hangars are open. It stays pretty active till it gets really cold. One the things I found with people who owned airplanes but didn't fly much was they just lost the interest. One guy told me I just have no where to go anymore. So we started flying his champ together and went to the islands, checked out some new grass strips, and all the sudden I see him all the time up there getting his champ out and ready to fly. One thing I wish I thought of at the flight school I fly out of is calling people who have money in their account but have been inactive for awhile. One the flight instructors got the accountant to make him a list with the numbers of people who had money in the account but hadn't flown in a while. He started calling up this huge list of people and had pretty good results. Now given some of them said oh I didn't know I had money in there and came and took it out lol. But he ended up staying really busy this summer flying with guys who started training but stop for one reason or another and he was able to get them back out flying. I think part of it is we need AOPA to be more public. Get Harrsion Ford out there on National TV telling people come out and fly. Part of it is the local airports. We just had our annual fall foliage trip at skypark. We put a ad in the paper and offer $15 rides for people to go up and see all the trees turning colors. We also have ground school sign up the same day. We had 150 people turn out and 23 sign up for ground school. Now given not all 23 will follow through and go through training but it was good publicity and got people interested in flying. And it also educated the local community on how GA benefits everyone. One thing I would like to see schools do is offer local reporters a free intro flight. It wouldn't cost the school anything because AOPA will cover the cost as long as you can produce the reporters proper creditnels and they publish a article about it. Its part of their support GA run. You can find details on their website. That would be great publicity though getting articles in the local newspaper saying hey look how fun it is to learn to fly. I mean the market is out there we just have to generate business. Around my area the local boating scene is huge. 100k boats everywhere. And it is driven because boating has a "this is fun" mystic around it. We need to generate that attitude about GA again like it was years ago.

That's great, because a lot of the local airports here have open hangers for the first time ever. Maybe we should get rid of required annual inspections to lower costs