Prior to widely used GPS I flew a great many hours annually using ground based aids (NDB, VOR etc) for navigation. Apart from Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted I have the vast majority of major airports in my log book and remember using them often with no real issues. Not everything gets better with the passage of time!
I worked with several ex BOAC people who remembered Heathrow as a little cabin in the middle of nowhere, but then International air travel became cheaper and more popular.
Is that good or bad?
And wasn’t the main London airport at Croydon, I think some bits of it might still exist.
I did a fair amount of international flying in Europe in the 1980-90s (both VFR and IFR) on my employer’s expense as private flying was then frequently cheaper than airline travel. I can confidently say that apart from the airport access issue, everything has gotten easier/better since. (When it comes to the actual flying. Of course operating costs have increased much more then inflation.)
Airport access is indeed important, but the present difficulties with large airports have to a large extent been mitigated by abolishing immigration and customs checks within EU+Schengen which has given access to many new airports on international flights.
I have both Frankfurt EDDF, Lisbon LPPT and Milan/Linate LIML in my log book and at the time they were neither difficult nor very expensive. (Well, ATC at Linate was a disaster. My flight there was the only time I have been scared because of ATC behaviour – a combination of incompetence and bad attitude. When there was a runway collision between a bizjet and an airliner some years later, I wasn’t very surprised.)
Indeed, it’s big airport acess that is becoming a pain in the a***e, I fly from grass strips and big airports, the former is total freedom,only limited by sunset, the latter is the real pain, everything else regarding flying has got cheaper and easier (except Avgas which tend to oscillate from CV19 crisis low prices to UKR crisis high prices)
I am heading to Jersey this Sunday afternoon, quick look at forcast shows some convective weather but it’s not yet casted in stone, now I am likely to send PN to two airports (48h PN and before Friday at 1400LT), given the lack of time on Friday, I tend to send those emails on Wednesday while commuting to work, obviously, forcast, route and times are likely to be crap based on 4 days weather simulations
I am not even sure of my departure times, it could be anything from 6am to 4pm with weather & family being the main drivers of the flying schedule…hopefully, no funny airport NOTAMS on Sunday, by then one is pretty much stuffed, for these I have an email subscription where I get them live during the week rather than waiting untill the day of the flight and decide to bin the flight
The more this is debated the less it looks like the energy crisis is a long term factor.
And the factors presented affect different people differently. For example if you are in a club which does weekend runs to the club down the road, whether Big Airport X is €5 or €500 is not relevant.
Speaking personally, I got into flying basically to see Europe from the air. Over the years this has partly moved to the social aspect, as I have made a large number of friends, and some really great friends 
And I have to pick destinations ever more carefully.
My non-fuel costs (insurance, maintenance, rent, fees) still exceed annual fuel costs. Unfortunately all the non-fuel costs are rocketing, too, particularly insurance (although I did manage to get it down from the original quote this year which was for more than 10% hull value if I had just renewed with the existing lot!)
The sensitivity of flying costs to fuel depends if it’s owner or renting? for an owner doing 50h-100h per year, fuel cost is roughly 30%-40% of his annual flying budget, that means the cost will go up by +0.3% if fuel goes up by +1% and -0.3% if fuel is down -1%
For rentals things pass-through differently, you are likely to get hit by +3% fuel surcharge on rental price if fuel goes by +1% and 0% reduction if fuel goes back by -1%, if fuel goes up/down over time you are losing, if you add geographic variations where re-reimbursement of fuel bought elsewhere up to some level of fuel at home-base and the VAT adjustment in/out, things will get very steep and asymmetric on sensitivities and the renter will be losing a lot on ‘fair prices’ !
Of course, ignoring the effect of large fuel moves on inflation (e.g.hangar, maintenance) & wages (e.g. disposable income)…
alioth wrote:
My non-fuel costs (insurance, maintenance, rent, fees) still exceed annual fuel costs. Unfortunately all the non-fuel costs are rocketing, too, particularly insurance (although I did manage to get it down from the original quote this year which was for more than 10% hull value if I had just renewed with the existing lot!)
@alioth, it all depends on how would you calculate the costs. For some – all goes in and what matters is the total cost per hour, for the others – fixed costs are for the access to the aircraft (could be fairly small amount per person in large groups) in general and then variable costs on top of that.
UdoR wrote:
GPS is 90ies. Pronav (later Garmin) was founded only in 1989.
Yea and before we had VOR’s and NDB’s and Loran C, which worked just fine around the med and large parts of France. And the good old map. Several of my trips to South of France and Spain were done using the standard radio nav setup.
But that is beside the point. I started flying in 83 and at that time if you wanted to fly somewhere, you did your preparation with what we had then and just went. Choose an AOE whenever you crossed a border and go. PPR, PNR, all this b.s. did not exist. Most airports were open to everyone with some notable exceptions in the UK and France, where outpricing and outright bans on GA were rare but did exist.
Not so in Germany and not so elsewhere. Flying was much easier, all major cities were accessible even via their main airports. Vienna Schwechat, Munich Riem, Berlin Tempelhof, even Frankfurt not to forget places like Corfu, Dubrovnik and many more which are all gone to light GA. Barcelona which even sends PC12s packing.
MedUdoR wrote:
In the 80ies was an oil crisis, AVGAS was costly, in relation to purchasing power.
Which is why airplanes were built for efficiency. And apart, it was a sight cheaper than today.
UdoR wrote:
Ok flying to Frankfurt is nothing I’d do nowadays. But why should one?
Because it was cool? Because it was the real deal, great airport, good GAC and IFR. Taking a pax there for a connecting flight? Worked great, 5 DM landing fee with my measly Cessna. Done the same for Stuttgart, Munich, Geneva and others. Flying to Zurich was easy too and cheap, call the tower, follow the routes and land. Today? Slots, Handling, bla bla bla.
Way too many cities are no longer accessible by GA or only with airfields in the middle of nowhere and no transportation let alone IFR or night.
Peter wrote:
But none of the above is related to the energy crisis. Like I said, the other factors dominate – unless one cannot actually afford to fly.
Clearly the fuel price is a problem, not only in aviation. And it will get worse, much worse. But face it, most people who do fly longer routes like yourself will be able to foot those bills. What is the much bigger problem is that most mayor cities are totally unattractive to get in and out of by GA.
Leaves those who fly for flying sake and burger runs or round trips out of their grass field. never interested me and does not interest me now, but for some it may just be what GA is in the future.
I fly for flying sake, otherwise I wouldn’t fly. It is the joy of piloting, the freedom of the air, the fun of it all that I enjoy. Landing on small grass strips where there is no landing, parking, handling fees and no.PPR or PNR just adds to the enjoyment.
Agreed I might need a taxi to the local town because the field is not served by public transport, or buy some fold up bikes, but that is a small price to pay for the enjoyment I get.
If I want a holiday in Greece or Egypt, I can take a Commercial transport service and save money.
