GA activity and its decline

LeSving wrote:

Anyway, certifications and standards/specifications are different things altogether.

Well of course. Certification is the process of verification that something meets a given specification (it doesn’t matter whether it’s done internally or externally by some independent body). But you can’t have a specification without certification. What would you do? Just take manufacturer’s word on it? No, militaries certainly don’t do that. They might not call it certification, but they still do it.

A difference is that they have the necessary personnel and budget while I don’t employ a team to check an aircraft before I buy it (or collaborate in the development). That approach works in civil world as well but it’s very expensive. Budget wise, military is closer to a bigger airline than to you or me. Another difference is that military can adopt whatever standard it wishes (within reason, they can’t needlessly endanger civil population) while we’re stuck with what we get from the authorities. However, it’s practically necessary. I mean, industry standards are not something unique to aviation. I can’t imagine everyone (that is manufacturers and operators, not countries) making their own standards without some internationally agreed common basis (which means you need an independent body to check compliance). It would be a nightmare, certainly not an improvement.

LeSving wrote:

On this site is is 90%, which is a bit weird, strange – and a bit annoying – from time to time

So what? Does every aviation forum have to represent all of aviation? Peter and David seem tolerant so why don’t you write something about your kind of flying? No, the pictures don’t have to be perfect. Instead of moping about it. No offence. It sometimes seems like you’re trying to fight the establishment so to speak which is silly as this forum is what we make it to be.

Some of my fondest memories have been on more roots flying, either doing low flying on a cub, or mountain flying. Still, if I had to focus on one it would probably be travel.

LeSving, why don’t you post some more of that type of flying (like some people post a trip report) and show how that type of flying can be fun? (for me professional has little meaning when one spends money to fly!)

Noe wrote:

Certifying the A400M to civil standards was apparently a big deal (at least according to press releases), so it must be a bit harder.

Really? I haven’t been really watching it but I thought they had issues with meeting weight targets or refueling of helicopters, not really civil certification related. I also recall some issues (buffeting?) discovered in icing tests, that could have been related (but who would want that). Airbus has experience with civil certification and I think their civil programs fared better (the issues with A380 were not in the certification either IIRC). Also consider purely military American programs, they also get quite a bit of flogging. It seems that doing a project on a budget and in time fell out of fashion.

Peter wrote:

let’s have some trip writeups from Norway

Too small for it’s own write up, but (back to early 2012) a colleague had told me he was going to Arctic circle for a semi marathon. Not a runner myself, but I wanted to see northern lights, and possibly do some flying. I also needed some night hours which were incredibly difficult to get at White Waltham (EGLM).
So, after contacting a flight club (not easy to find, and to reach hold of http://www.tromsoflyklubb.no/), decided we’d do a little flight and some Night hours. Perfect!

On way there, discussed a bit with the pilot, and got to Jumpseat for part of the flight and stay for landing, pilot explaining how they were doing the opposite runway approach and circling to save some time/fuel. Fairly impressive to see, especially since they seemed to fly a smaller approach than some people at some airfields I flew from (being behind a C152 on a 4 minute long final can be frustrating!).

After 1st day and a bit of a walk, got to meet the instructor in their lovely club (by far best / cosier club I’ve seen, everywhere). Briefing, and we went for this beautiful flight. Sun was always below the horizon, since it was still early Jan, but enough daylight to be day VFR, but not enough to ruin the scenery.
I’ll replace these pictures once I get access from the computer (these are facebook downloads). Scenery was so mesmerising that I asked the instructor to take control and just fly me for a couple of min.

Then spend an hour or so eating a lot of waffles from the club cabin. Really nice time.

After the flight, went home for a nap, met with my colleague, and then the instructor called me saying it was a nice night so we could go flying again. Jumped out of bed, and went for another flight. Beautiful again, with night not completely dark:

Managed to clock a little over 2.5 hours for my night rating (otherwise probably would have needed to wait another year!).

The next day (day of departure), we were supposed to fly again (before my commercial flight), but weather wasn’t so great and we cancelled.
Still, with a little talking ended up spending another CAT flight in the cockpit, from brakes off to brakes on, and had nice explanations / chatting with the pilots.

So, in the end quite a mix in the type of “flying”, but really great. It’s a place I want to go back one of these days (probably on a deiced twin to take the short route)

mh wrote:

I think it is vitally important to include the family into aviation if one family member picks up flying.

Absolutely. In my case, my wife is not into flying and that is fine, it is just not her thing. We have somewhat reached a balance where her own personal fear of flying is not being projected by her on the kids. Both my 5 and 8.5 year old have been down to the airfield countless times, sat in the aircraft, operated the controls (gently and smoothly), listen to me explain what things do and answered all their questions. I enjoyed a great hour or so wandering around our hangar with my daughter looking at and talking about everything from a T-6 Texan, Yak-18, Cessna 190, Maule, Arrow, Seneca, Cub (it’s a massive hangar with entrances at both sides). BTW, a good challenge is to explain in a simple and understandable way to a child anything about the physics of flight.

My intention is to take my daughter up on her 9th birthday in April. She told me last night that she wants to be a pilot. I suspect that this may be a “be like papa” thing (and obviously I am not a professional pilot, despite the fact that every time my son sees an A380 fly near the house, he tells me “ooh, there is your plane Papa”, I have no idea why), but why not, she can be whatever she wants in life. The biggest thing for me is to share my passion for aviation, the pleasure, the ongoing learning, study and constant striving for improvement, joy and excitement – all of that passion is transferable to most anything in life. Even if she does not end up being a pilot, so long as I can pass on passion to my children, then that will be good enough for me.

Apologies: I realise what I have written above has nothing to do with the original PPL decline question, but it is an interesting thread with all the different perspectives. BTW, I am one of the upwards statistics of PPL’s in 2013 – and still flying .

RobertL18C wrote:

There is quite a lot of the philosophy of Richard Bach here

My daughter is reading anything with words in it in the house and I just passed her “A gift of wings” and she will get JLS, Biplane and Nothing by Chance for Christmas.

Those are amazing pictures Noe.

White Waltham is a dream airfield for kids!

I miss the end of days, sitting on the tables outside near a huge variety of planes, with gorgeous sunset.

LeSving wrote:

For gliders, all gliders have to be recoverable from a spin, and all glider pilots have to be able to initiate a spin and to recover from a spin.

Why not do the same for private GA? it would save lots of lives each year.

Because it won’t. When the FAA removed spin training from the PPL syllabus, it was because spin training going wrong killed more pilots every year than did stall/spin accidents by license holders!

The FAA removed spin training from the syllabus in 1949 for the reason stated.
The UK CAA removed it in 1984 for the same reason.