Silvaire, as always, you’re taking the american view too much. This is a European forum. Oldtimers (intended here as aircraft between 40 and 70 years of age) are just not widely used for touring by private pilots here in Europe.
Also. do you really think that flying these “fantastic old aircraft” for another 50 years or so will be the way to sustain light GA in the more distant future??
And your initial statement clearly is wrong.
Well, it was a guess, not a statement 
Anyway, I guess (again) that the difference of the 40000 and the 26000 lies in private and (also) commercial GA? A more correct statement will be to say that the number of German private pilots is larger than Brits and French combined, so my initial guess wasn’t entirely wrong 
Silvaire, as always, you’re taking the american view too much. This is a European forum. Oldtimers (intended here as aircraft between 40 and 70 years of age) are just not widely used for touring by private pilots here in Europe. Also. do you really think that flying these “fantastic old aircraft” for another 50 years or so will be the way to sustain light GA in the more distant future??
I would argue that Europe is suffering from the European view, and would benefit from change. What I mean specifically by that is because light aircraft in Europe are not so widespread, there is perhaps a tendency to view them as limited life, throw away items like cars. Unlike with houses or boats for instance, the European perception is newer, magically better aircraft will somehow inevitably replace older. A side issue is that aircraft in Europe are for whatever reason viewed as a status symbol in a broader social context, and in that context only new can have the required status. Its really not the most effective or practical solution if what you’re looking for is an aircraft design that meets the average pilot’s real world needs, at a price point that does likewise.
Aircraft such as the Pacer are fundamentally practical as a result of their simplicity, more so than most new designs. These are not ‘oldtimers’ (that word of course is a Germanic invention) they are actually aircraft that are used every day by many people. Aircraft designs that have been flying for 40 or 60 years or more will of course contribute to mainstream GA, or maybe even be its core, for many decades to come. If European regulators and perceptions force people to swim upstream, its not going to benefit anybody.
These aircraft also usually don’t travel much; they’re used for local bimbling only.
Yes – from what I see that is true, but equally I would think that many (most) of the pilots who are flying N-regs on an FAA PPL (and do not have an IR) are probably doing that for the FAA Class 3 medical – a desire which would correlate (have to be careful how one says this but you get my drift) with an older population which will correlate with doing mostly short trips.
In the UK, we don’t have many FAA PPL holders without the IR. Most of the N-reg community went that way for the FAA PPL/IR.
I have heard that Germany has a large FAA PPL population without the IR and IMHO the main driver for that must be the FAA medical. Another driver would be maintenance to FAR Part 91 but not many N-reg owners know enough about the business to do that.
These aircraft also usually don’t travel much; they’re used for local bimbling only.
That is not entirely correct. It’s the same phenomenon with microlights, some of them at least, the “bush” kind. They fly 70 knots instead of 140. The are not something to travel far with, but they spend just as much time in the air travelling. The radius of travelling will only be shorter. You could call it “local” but that is relative, they usually also travel to “local” kind of places.
Are they for example pilots with valid medicals?
As the new EASA air crew certificates are valid forever (unless revoked), “certificate holder” figures will very soon be meaningless. The number of valid medicals will be much more relevant — I would not expect people to renew a medical (at least not more than once) if they are not active pilots.
Private ownership reduces both the practical need for cost sharing and any eventual “problems” regarding cost sharing. In my opinion there are no problems related to it though, other than those that may occur if the rules are broken or misused. Those problems are independent of the number of seats in the aircraft. So, either it should be allowed, or it should be banned. What EASA is doing with the max 6 seats is a typical bureaucratic nonsense solution. They don’t like it, but they won’t ban it, so they pick a random number to set a “limit”, for no other reason than to have a “limit”. Few private pilots fly with more than 6 seats, but if anything, the few times (if any) cost sharing would be practical, are when travelling to some place in a larger aircraft with several others.
I can actually see the rationale for having a seat limitation. (Which is not saying that 6 seats is the “proper” limit however.)
For one thing, risk is a function of both probability and consequence. To maintain the same risk level in a situation with increasing probability of an accident, you can try to reduce the consequences. The new rules for cost sharing will permit flight operations that were previously illegal in some countries, thus increasing risk. I believe that the seat limitation is such a consequence limiter. Likewise, I believe this is the reason for the four person limitation of the LAPL.
Another thing is that the authorities obviously want to avoid CAT in disguise. The larger the number of pax you can take, the more likely this is to happen.
Since when are Piper Pacers, Cubs, 140s, or any Bonanza anything but fully certified aircraft suitable for practical use?
Since the EASA introduced the (IMHO exceedingly silly) rule that it was not enough that an aircraft has been certified at some time, but that someone must be prepared to take responsibility for that certification now.
Simply put, an aircraft such as the Piper Cub is not regarded as certified under EASA regulations. All regulation as regards flying such aircraft are left to the national authorities.
Hello everyone,
I don’t have the exact numbers, but the FNA alone has around 40,000 members. The FNA is a sport federation including all french aeroclubs. It means that part of its members are in the process of becoming licensed pilots whereas most of them are already licensed. The aeroclubs in the FNA fly with certified aircraft mainly. There are other federations for microlights (FFPLUM), gliders (FFVV)… Aircraft owners don’t have to be members of the FNA whereas all pilots flying in an aeroclub must be.
So there are lots of pilots (commercial, airline pilots, military pilots for exemple, as well as aircraft owners) who don’t rent in an aeroclub and therefore are not members of the FNA. My recollection is that there are around 50000 pilots in France including microlighters, choppers and gliders pilots. It seems to me that the 26000 figure is really underestimated.
As to cost sharing, I created a few years ago a website to advertise seats in aircraft based on cost sharing ( http://aerostop.free.fr ). I was surprised to see that requests for seats represent around 60% of the total amount of the ads.I thought that offered seats would be a large majority of the ads. It means that non flying people are aware of the existence of this site and use it. I know for sure that in the first year, a pilot was able to find passengers using this site because the guy wrote to me to thank me. Apart from this case I have no idea whatsoever about the usefulness of publishing an ad on aerostop. Good news is : it is free.
