mrfacts wrote:
On the other hand once we have that, like the one-man drone from CES this year, flying may become REALLY boring
That’s the main issue it seems. To get real utility in GA, there is no way to do it without autonomous flying machines where you simply tell it where to bring you. Utility requires safety, ease of use and no hazle operations, and only large autonomous flying drones have a chance of doing that. Do we really want that level of utility? It would be super cool, much cooler than driving a car or train to work, but as a recreational device for aviation enthusiasts it falls dead on the ground.
LeSving wrote:
Lots and lots are indeed flying, but they fly other things than 50 year old Cessnas and Pipers.
Yes you are right and I should have added …..would be flying GA. in my sentence because people are flying in Boeing and Airbus airplanes.
As long as GA is considered a hobby which here in Europe it is, as opposed to Alaska (where it is part of the transportation system of the state) GA will languish. It is dependent upon such vagaries as money in pocket to spend on a hobby.
The following few paragraphs should be taken in the context that the public transportation system throughout Europe is very good and mostly efficient. (It was excellent 40yrs ago before many branch lines were discontinued due to competition with cars for passengers)
How many car owners think owning and using a car is a hobby? Ask around and I beat very few will answer in the affirmative.
Would it make a difference if all of a sudden you could not drive at night? How about if it is cloudy you could not get to the next town by car? What about if you drive a car into the next town you had to pay an entrance fee for every town you enter and stop at, even if only to gas up? What about the fact that during your annual inspection they tear your car apart to see if they can find fault and give you a bill 1/10 the value of your car each year and every year? What would happen if every 2 years you had to take an exhaustive drivers test that could cost you a couple of hundred Euros? Not to mention a numb nuts driving physical equal in standards to an FAA physical. How many of those people asked if they consider their car a hobby and answered no would change their minds; would consider not driving and selling because the convenience and utility is no longer there?
My guess is a lot and the car industry would be in a decline with all the car enthusiasts asking the same question we are asking now about GA
But what does all that mean, C-210?
GA airplanes will never have the status or utility of our cars. We tend to see the world through our pilot sunglasses – but really, what we do is something very exotic and it means 0 (zero) to the average citizen, most of whom really have other problems but thinking about individual air transport.
I can just aswell imagine that GA of the kind we discuss here will disappear altogether in the not so far away future. Maybe there will only be some recreational Ultralight and Glider Flying left in 100 years, restricted to certain areas far away from the big cities. Maybe the problems mankind will face in future times will eliminate “luxuries” like private airplanes altogether?
For myself I see it as a privilege to be able to fly at all, and I don’t care much about the utility. If I need to go somewhere, public transport in Europe is really so advanced that i can get to any place in no time. And when the weather is nice – i’ll fly myself.
Flyer59, re #394 you’re looking in the wrong place. The A/P is an STEC55.. what you saw seems to be a KN62A DME
but of course this is the wrong thread even for such a nice panel
(Yes, copied, see other thread ;-))
C210_Flyer wrote:
Would it make a difference if all of a sudden you could not drive at night? How about if it is cloudy you could not get to the next town by car? What about if you drive a car into the next town you had to pay an entrance fee for every town you enter and stop at, even if only to gas up?…..
You know, some of this is the vision part of our politicians have on individual traffic…. and we get it already in some places, others will follow. Road pricing for going into cities, prohibitions to drive at night in certain quarters, there are voices demanding of prohibitions to drive when it’s icy out after every winter, when people who can’t drive on snow crash into each other, there are demands of denying the drivers permit to over 70 year old people (some even say to all pensioners), even now elderly people need to revalidate their license every few years with doctors checks. All you mention is in the heads of many politicians, they don’t get through with it… yet, but they sure are trying.
C210_Flyer wrote:
My guess is a lot and the car industry would be in a decline with all the car enthusiasts asking the same question we are asking now about GA
It would and if these people have their will, it will. The major difference is that nearly everyone has a car, nearly everyone is reliant on one and there is a HUGE lobby for cars.
In practical terms, General Aviation in Europe has NO lobby. That is not meant to diminish the efforts by the few who really fight for us, like AOPA or some magazines like Pilot und Flugzeug and others, who dedicate their professional lifes to this. But they are way too few too far apart.
I love the sentence I heard spoken in one of the movies made about a readers flyout (from Germany to Asia mind) where the analogy was proposed that one indication of how free a country really is, can be measured by whether they do allow or even support General Aviation. If you look at many parts of the world, where GA simply does not exist because the countries involved don’t want it to exist, I firmly believe in this statement (which I think comes out of PnF’s owner Jan Brill).
In Europe, we still have a huge freedom where all this is concerned, in the US the freedom is even bigger. The difference between GA in Europe and the US is largely down to the fact that in the US, GA has one hell of a strong lobby, whereas here, that lobby is quiet, not visible to the outsiders. We have no Harrison Ford or John Travolta figures to promote GA openly, even though there are enough prominent people flying, but they keep it under wraps, because they are ashamed of it? I honestly don’t know. Years and years ago I talked to Otto Waalkes about it, a German comedian who everyone knows, but nobody knows he (used to?) fly his own twin Cessna. He then said, he did not feel he could help GA as with his image, nobody would take him seriously. Well, I think he was wrong then. Exactly because it would be unexpected of him, he could have had one hell of an impact, had he chosen to do so.
Flyer59 wrote:
I can just aswell imagine that GA of the kind we discuss here will disappear altogether in the not so far away future.
Coming from an aviation journalist, that statement is sobering. If we do not believe in the uitilty of General Aviation ourselfs, then how should we justify it in front of those who want to kill it?
Flyer59 wrote:
what we do is something very exotic and it means 0 (zero) to the average citizen, most of whom really have other problems but thinking about individual air transport.
Given the political outlook some of our elected politicians have, the same may be said for other parts of our freedoms, such as individual car traffic. Well, if that happens, then you will probably start to fight, as it will concern you directly as a car dealership owner.
I honestly think we have to keep the pressure on, we should not resign ourselfs to a “fate” we have kind of accepted already. You have kids, I will have with God’s will, what kind of society do we want to leave behind? My own vision for the future certainly is not one where my child will grow up in freedom and live in a society, where they will look back at the 20th century with envy and nostaliga.
And while the future may look bleak and threads like these may even increase the feeling of depression many in GA feel, we are far from that. We still have this freedom, particularly in most of Germany but also in other European countries. But we will need to nurture it, to promote it, to speak out for it. Freedom we will not speak out for, will not fight for, will not strive to keep and improve, will be taken away from us, of that I am no doubt at all. Freedom we fight for, be stubborn, be open about it, be clear that we will not relent without making the lifes of those who fight us more difficult than our opponents, freedom we exercise on a daily basis and stand up for it, will be much more difficult to subdue.
I suspect that by the time my little boy grows up, blind pensioners will be able to go and visit their grandkids in self-driving cars at any time of the day or night. Or they could perhaps take a drone-taxi. This freedom (and it’s a big one) in my mind potentially trumps the freedom to drive yourself around in a manual car whatever your physical health or mental ability.
I quite like the idea of GA as a barometer of individual freedom, but in practice I think the battles of the 21st century will center around the distribution of wealth, surveillance, and changes in the nature of employment. I see no fundamental reason that countries sympathetic to aviation will perform better on these measures – indeed at present the inverse seems to be the case.
FWIW in 50 years I suspect you’ll be more likely to be able to fly around in a vintage aircraft than you will be to manually drive a car on a public road. But I doubt there’ll be much practical purpose in doing so. Perhaps a Pitts will hold more value than an SR22.
In Europe, GA doesn’t have much utility value for most pilots – because they can drive or get a train, etc. Especially in mainland Europe where there is no water to cross.
Yet the decline in mainstream GA is not obviously connected with the expansion of cheap/easy transport options. They have always existed. If anything, trains (in the UK, for sure) have become very expensive in recent decades.
People fly mostly because they love flying. That is not likely to change.
What shrinks GA is the relative lack of instant satisfaction which today’s younger people demand (which reduces the base of potential customers) and the disorganised way the training scene is run in most places which is incompatible with the expectations of those people who have been successful enough elsewhere in their lives to be able to fly GA meaningfully (IOW the anorak scene is going out of fashion).
I honestly think we have to keep the pressure on
What pressure?
Coming from an aviation journalist, that statement is sobering. If we do not believe in the uitilty of General Aviation ourselfs, then how should we justify it in front of those who want to kill it?
I’l not be an aviation journalist in 100 years ;-). And I am also not into “justifying” myself. I do it, because I can. And I don’t care if certain parts of society don’t like it. But I am trying to be realistic. And if I am honest to myself I do not see how GA could grow again. Maybe we’ll be able to save the Status Quo for some generations.
we should not resign ourselfs to a “fate” we have kind of accepted already. You have kids, … (etc)
… that’s not how I see it. Life on Earth changes, civilzations change. Other new things will come. While I love to fly, it is not the most important things … and for the survival of mankind.
FWIW in 50 years I suspect you’ll be more likely to be able to fly around in a vintage aircraft than you will be to manually drive a car on a public road. But I doubt there’ll be much practical purpose in doing so. Perhaps a Pitts will hold more value than an SR22.
Yes, I think aerobatics, glider flying and local ultralight flying has a better future than GA as a means of transportation.
