Or the major cause of the resurgence of GA. ;-) Friends don't let friends ride the aluminum tube of shame.
True. That said, I've also flown into BWI, MCO, and other primary Bravos because there are rare occasions where they really are the most convenient airport.
Flying a turboprop, you're in a different segment of GA than most of us. You're at altitudes where the thriving part of GA (rich folks in the back of expensive whiny airplanes) is. This has ZERO to do with the health of recreational piston GA.
True. The assumption is that you want to fly and have already done those things, and you're looking at the true incremental cost.
Well, on the lower end maybe. Cars are slow enough that they're not super practical for 800-nm trips. However, the more expensive GA gets, the longer car trips get practical and the shorter airline ones. Once you've got it squeezed down to "car is best below 500 miles" and "airline is best above 600 miles" then unless you take a LOT of 550-mile trips, it no longer makes sense to own the airplane in the first place.
Then you get to be with all of us idiots in the sky
It's a big sky
Just follow the FBOs Signature and similar companies have been buying. Once a certain level of commercial or turbine business is noted they will move in and restructure the operation. While pushing the private rec aircraft to the back row and/or upping the fees for their usage of the same facilities. Know of several FBOs that went through this change where one even forced out a small 135 operation from the facility because they weren't a "fit" with the increasing business clientele who were using the FBO facilities. And with Beech's Denali about to hit the flightline to compete against the Pilatus, I would expect more FBOs to go in a similar fashion.
Time is limited. Our work fetish in the US means many people have no paid vacation, many more have only 2 weeks per year, etc... And without an airplane to travel in, most folks aren't going very far for a day or a weekend, they're staying within the range of their cars.
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Is this true?In fact, the average airplane is older than the average human.
ourworldindata.org
Can anyone quantify this? It's been posted multiple times, and the rise in aircraft values (supply and demand) certainly suggest it's possible. But is it really that numbers are falling? Or that ownership desire is rising? Or something else?
Good question!
Its difficult to quantify because there are limited data sets for aircraft that are voluntarily scrapped, weather scrapped, or simply parked. However, a number of OEMs maintain a listing a serial numbers that they have confirmed are destroyed in some fashion. For example, I do know that Bell Helicopter lists at least 8-10 206 series helicopters as destroyed every year which they stopped producing 10 years ago. So those numbers are declining at a steady rate.
Wow, that is... a lot. Do you find that you fly 6-7 hours without stopping (and by yourself or with passengers)? Obvious question - how do you handle those annoying biological needs?
Gatorade bottle or portable urinal comes to mind. That’s what I do if needed. Whats so hard about that?
Nothing, for me at least - hence the 'passengers' part of the query. I am also equipped with the convenient male connector
It depends on the wind. T41-KETB can be non-stop running LOP with a tailwind. Otherwise it's a fuel stop midway, running ROP to get some speed back.
How do you handle winter weather?
Old airplanes fly just as well as new ones. There is a certain curve of maintenance cost (and time and hassle) vs. acquisition cost for sure, and people seem to just choose where they want and need to be on that curve and make it work.
Yep. And I think the Venn diagram for warbirds illustrates it even better - They're more expensive, less practical, and there's a very few people in the world who can afford the time and money that they take. You have to really want it. All of GA except airline training will go that way eventually.
And the median GA airplane age is approaching 50.
And I strongly suspect airline training will (when it has to because the pipeline of tradition piston single pilots dries up) will be ab inito simulator trained.
I don't think it'll ever be 1500 hours in the sim. There's enough big flight schools buying enough new Cessnas to keep that going, and there's no substitute for the real thing. Right now, only 100 of the 1500 ATP hours may be in a sim. 61.159(a)(6).
It's been like that for much longer than 10 years. I think it's been more like 30-40.
Simple - Delta. I keep a 1st class refundable ticket open, and roll it to my next trip when I fly myself. I do enough international travel that I maintain Diamond status, so they don't get uptight with my approach. I also don't attempt to fly myself when timing is crucial.
And that's imo what's gonna eventually kill piston rec aviation. The sector rides the logisitcs/support coat-tails of the for-revenue piston trainer fleet nationwide. Once that business case dries up, goodnight irene for fac built rec piston. There will also be a much more compelling case to kill it by airspace denial proxy, as recreationals don't have the lobby pull flight training (and their airline benefactors) does. This is what largely neuters the utility of GA in the Eurozone (airspace denial, both direct and economic-indirect).
What people forget about outfits like DL et al is that by and large, majors hire people who were turbine captains in a prior life. Their inputs are not ab initios in any sense of the word. Even regionals hire folks with the imposition of 1500 hours. Heck, before the lost decade their competitive mins were closer to 2500, for a turboprop. And when they didn't hire 1500ers (the bad old days of Gulfstream academy), they had seeing eye dog Captains in the left seat who did (much as I disagree with the regional de facto single pilot OJT shtick with revenue pax in the back, see Endeavor Canada croc roll landing). The only folks with the street cred to claim ab initio are the European and Asian carriers, and the record (at least on the latter) is spotty.
Nah, MPL is a thing in Europe for a while now, it can happen in the US as well.
Even those "pilots" train in airplanes. They just don't solo.
Oof, I didn't know that part. So they're navigators we let play pilot half the time. That checks. I rest my case.
