It’s hardly a shock that GA in Europe is on a downward trend. The barriers are everywhere: finding a hangar is like winning the lottery, getting your hands on a decent plane without breaking the bank is a fantasy, and the license? You can’t just wing it – actual studying is necessary and flying regularly to keep up proficiency is a must. Then there’s the pinch at the pump – AVGAS prices are higher and higher, and airport fees aren’t far behind.
Nearly only well-off pensioners who have the time and resources to navigate through these barriers are left. And as if to add insult to injury, we’re still without ADS-B out and in-flight weather services, stuff the Americans have for years now, and we mostly fly in old planes that lack safety features.
Honestly how can we make GA more inclusive and accessible? What’s the way forward for aviation enthusiasts in Europe who find these barriers to high? I don’t know.
hazek wrote:
What’s the way forward for aviation enthusiasts in Europe who find these barriers to high? I don’t know.
Just buy a Europa 
No hanger needed, no high 100LL prices – if available at all in the future, no astronomic second hand purchase prices, great type club… 
BUT – there’s no such thing as a free lunch….
hazek wrote:
Nearly only well-off pensioners who have the time and resources to navigate through these barriers are left. And as if to add insult to injury, we’re still without ADS-B out and in-flight weather services, stuff the Americans have for years now, and we mostly fly in old planes that lack safety features.Honestly how can we make GA more inclusive and accessible? What’s the way forward for aviation enthusiasts in Europe who find these barriers to high? I don’t know.
Yes, and part of the story is us, not using our aircraft for commuting. My feeling – as long as GA is used as a replacement for other means of transportation, we don’t have a problem with our fellow other citizens. Only if and when we use GA solely for leisure and pleasure we face jealousy. So, first step: use you GA aircraft for daily commuting and or summer travel as a replacement of car travel and tell people about the time/cost constant involved. People always are surprised when I tell them of the operating costs of a vintage C172, which is of the order of magnitude as the summer-only second car. People have no problem at all with a convertible sitting in the garage over winter, but they do with the same money spent on a vintage aircraft – let’s work on why.
@europaxs: not only the Europa, old car fuel aircraft or the new kid on the block – Continentals certified for ordinary car Diesel will do as well.
MichaLSA wrote:
not only the Europa, old car fuel aircraft or the new kid on the block – Continentals certified for ordinary car Diesel will do as well.
Need a hanger? The new Continental Diesels – what do they cost?
we’re still without ADS-B out and in-flight weather services
Not really true – there is the excellent Golze ADL product. It is not free (because we don’t have the State-funded FAA over here) but is cheap enough. And anybody can implement ADS-B OUT; it is just not mandatory for light GA.
Oh I left out another reason why GA struggles. And it’s to do with PPL schools. None are teaching how to use your PPL to actually travel somewhere. All of that stuff, how to navigate complex airspace, how to plan your long routes, how to deal with airports, where to get the info, all of that one has to be a huge enthusiast and look for yourself via forums and youtube videos of other pilots doing these things. And in most cases it’s not even close to how it is to travel with the car in terms of flight prep.
That’s because almost nobody would want to pay for it.
MichaLSA wrote:
Yes, and part of the story is us, not using our aircraft for commuting. My feeling – as long as GA is used as a replacement for other means of transportation, we don’t have a problem with our fellow other citizens. Only if and when we use GA solely for leisure and pleasure we face jealousy. So, first step: use you GA aircraft for daily commuting and or summer travel as a replacement of car travel and tell people about the time/cost constant involved.
That is a lovely theory. In fact, I’ve done this in the past, take the plane to places where taking the car would take too long, not to talk of the train.
Only, that makes sense when you have some stuff which today is simply not there anymore:
- An airport in the pretty darn close vicinity which allows proper planning and commuting throughout the year (that means night, IFR)
- Airports at the place of destination, which are close enough that commuting actually makes sense and does not involve a 2 hour train or taxi ride thereafter.
In my case: I have done several commutes in the past out of my homebase ZRH which was 10 mins by car from my home to work places and other destinations I had to go to. Salzburg, Neuchatel, Yverdon (for Payerne) and Geneva. Out of ZRH, that means a massive gain in time and make 2 day trips one.
Now that ZRH is gone for based GA with insane parking fees, I am based at an airport which at the best of time is 40 minutes away, in the worst time 90 minutes and which is purely VFR and daylight only. Commuting from there makes not a lot of sense, as you have massive overhead, which will offset the usefulness of the trip. Add to that, flight time to my easterly destinations has increased by 30-40 minutes circumnavigating the ZRH TMA either to north or south. To the West it still works but wait: Geneva has also pretty much outpriced GA. I’d have to go the either Prangins or Annemasse, which both are totally inconvenient to reach my destination which is near the UN buildings.
Also the argument I hear from those who know “best”: Don’t go there at all, do Zoom meetings. They don’t want you to drive either and train tickets are expensive, so most duty trips these days are done online.
MichaLSA wrote:
People always are surprised when I tell them of the operating costs of a vintage C172, which is of the order of magnitude as the summer-only second car. People have no problem at all with a convertible sitting in the garage over winter, but they do with the same money spent on a vintage aircraft – let’s work on why.
That is true enough. Even though the costs are spiralling out of control with GA more and more.
hazek wrote:
Oh I left out another reason why GA struggles. And it’s to do with PPL schools. None are teaching how to use your PPL to actually travel somewhere. All of that stuff, how to navigate complex airspace, how to plan your long routes, how to deal with airports, where to get the info, all of that one has to be a huge enthusiast and look for yourself via forums and youtube videos of other pilots doing these things.
That has been a criticism for a very long time and mostly rightly so. On the other hand, we are also people who don’t need nannies, so we can get to know those things “post graduate”. Quite a few schools here also do regular seminars on exactly those topics. PPL per se is quite expensive already and if you add additional stuff, it gets even more so. But I fully agree that flight planning theory should be far more LOFT based than today’s partly outdated sliderule and plotter stuff.
hazek wrote:
The barriers are everywhere: finding a hangar is like winning the lottery, getting your hands on a decent plane without breaking the bank is a fantasy, and the license? You can’t just wing it – actual studying is necessary and flying regularly to keep up proficiency is a must. Then there’s the pinch at the pump – AVGAS prices are higher and higher, and airport fees aren’t far behind.
All that is true enough. You have to be really flexible and often even that is not enough.
On the other hand, flying often is a “virus” which once you are infected, you can’t get out of it with all the trying. Personally I often wonder what would have happened if I had not been obsessed with flying and because of that dumped other much more promising career paths….which in turn would have given me money and time for flying…. but that is life.
hazek wrote:
None are teaching how to use your PPL to actually travel somewhere. All of that stuff, how to navigate complex airspace, how to plan your long routes, how to deal with airports, where to get the info
With a PPL you know how to fly an airplane, there’s no instructions of how to live your life included I mean, seriously. Try boating. You can sail around the world without any formal schooling whatsoever. It’s an odd presumption IMO that everything should need formal education when it comes to your spare time. Lots of people are willing to tell about their experiences, and this community aspect is a large part of it all, perhaps the largest. We are the GA pilots, no one else.
Besides, with a PPL you have actually learned all the basics needed to fly anywhere. Everything else is circumstantial and highly local bureaucratic stuff.
I wasn’t complaining, I did the learning and learned all of it on my own. But that’s not most people today. Most people today ain’t got time for that. And so the decline. The only way to counteract that is not by yelling at people “Hey don’t be lazy and learn this on your own!” but to offer a better way to get it done than what I had to do.
