Thank you Silvaire for the last paragraph. Exactly what I think. Whilst aviation is a very small community, it is extremely diverse, and everyone has their own profile and their own reasons for being in it. None of them is better than the others, but we should try to stick together as a group and not try to divide ourselves up into many small subgroups that resent each other or judge what others are doing.
Bathman wrote:
But a lot of private owners simply fly them overweight and as numerous microlights are certified to 600KG in other countries.
Please be careful with that. The C42 is NOT certified for 600 kg MTOM, nor is it designed for that kind of payload. Many aircraft have important differences when being built as an LSA. You might not notice it as a pilot right away, but a certification process is there to protect the pilot from the biggest mistakes that could be made (and ARE made) when designing and building an aircraft.
The rest could be discussed in an own thread, I guess.
Alexis: Please be sure that I don’t think of you being snobbish or being not a GA communicator. If that is what my comments read, I am truly sorry, because that is clearly not the case. My point was solely on your statements, that the cost of new aircraft would be a fundamental reason for the decline of General Aviation. (If it is anyway) In my opinion that could be a factor if there wasn’t such a big used market. My observations do not support that notion. Yet, in my experience many people will not accept you as an aviator, if you own “just” a C150 or a PA28-140. (I never said you were among those people, I should have made that clearer, I think).
And indeed, there are new aircraft at much lower prices than an SR20/SR22. IIRC the American Champion aircraft are all well under 200k$, the SportCruiser should be around 120k$, as is the Lightwing AC-4 or the Tomark Viper.
The aircraft market has to be investigated as a whole. Any new aircraft has to compete with a refurbished old competitor and that is difficult at the moment. And yes, some of the manufacturers won’t survive. Same as deHavilland, Arado, ERCO… But there will always be aircraft to buy new, if the demand rises. And what WE all can do is supporting a friendly face of aviation and encourage people, even to be proud of their Cessna 150. Or C42. Or Whatever, aslong as it has at least one set of sound wings.
Thank you Malte, i appreciate that clarification.
I just don’t like to be in that “drawer” :-)
I personally think that the price of the aircraft has nothing to do with beeing an aviator or not. I know some people, like in the Czech Republic, who fly old aircraft not worth much but who are among the best fliers i know.
Many good views expressed here on this complex topic.
I have to agree with the fact that there are multiple reasons for the decline but the major ones are:
Shrinkage of the utility of flying.
This has been caused from better cars, more motorways, low cost airlines(Easyjet RyanAir) and faster trains means it is just not as much of a time/money saver to travel by GA
Low profitability.
Again for a variety of reasons, some above, both manufacturers and airports, ATO’s etc cannot make a profit and therefore this shrinks the industry as a whole.
If you dont have enough utility and profitability in any business, decline is inevitable, even if it is “fun”.
Lack of interest in the Sciences/Engineering
This is one that I have not seen mentioned yet, but I think it is a big factor. Somehow, there was a direct link between the Apollo Program and the spark of interest in aviation in the 60s and 70s when the aircraft manufacturers had their heyday of record sales. Since then we “gave up on space”, shut down the space shuttle, and let the Concorde die and sadly children today have lost the “wow factor” that we had as young boys in the wake of Apollo missions. At the same time, our economy has moved more towards finance and many of the smartest grads have gone into banking which is not helpful for aviation. Thankfully, I have read recently that this is shifting to technology as Harvard grads now want to be part of a cool tech company so hopefully that might encourage the link to science and rub off on GA.
Lets hope that some fundamental breakthrough in propulsion (Reaction Engines) can capture the people’s imagination again.
Could not agree more. We all love flying and since we know we are a shrinking group, lets work together as much as possible
Cirrus_Man wrote:
Shrinkage of the utility of flying.
I don’t think “utility” has ever been a real argument in Europe. Most people who fly privately have always done so because they like it, not that it’s a faster way of transport.
Put it this way: sailing boats have virtually zero utility and many of them are expensive to run. Yet the marinas here have 2+ year long waiting lists and are stuffed full of boats and are busy on any nice weekend or evening.
Great views above and every bit is true to some degree… it’s a complex picture.
The “Lack of interest in the Sciences/Engineering” really resonates with me.
And one definite positive is websites like this one.
And I suspect that pretty well everyone who posts on this forum when asked by a non aviator promotes the industry in a very positive manner and offers their time and even flights for free.
When we talk about this topic, we have to look at those that don’t fly, not at those that already do. I never heard arguments about overregulation or even cost from non-pilots; these are things that pilots like to complain about. But mostly flying is perceived as dangerous and complicated, I hear some comment about that almost every time I discuss personal flying with non-pilots. And in my opinion this is a viable argument, GA safety just is not where you would want to have it for a leisure activity enjoyed by the masses. It is not only the risk acceptance that has changed since the 70s, also the information dissemination has changed with the internet. Nowadays, even small plane crashes in the US are reported in the media in Europe in real time, which isn’t even the case for some local car accidents with the same number of deaths.
And about the “complicated” part, maybe this is the fault of pilots who like to think of themselves as some super-heroes and tend to present their activity in such a light…? While this may attract a certain group, it puts off many others.
