I believe the downfall of aviation will be the
real elitist types (see "oh this airplane is 5 years old, must be unsafe") that will crash a plane into the ground, turn around and take the manufacturer to court, because they dare make a plane that could be crashed
Not all of 'em will crash... But if we drive away all of them plus everyone else, there won't be anyone to buy new airplanes in the first place, so the manufacturers will cease to exist.
A few generations ago learning to fly wasnt that expensive for the average person, people didnt care about all this fancy CRAP, they knew that if they sucked they would die and it would be their own dumb fault and they cared to LEARN stick and rudder and chart reading.
None of that is necessarily untrue now either, though the costs have increased.
But, also compare this to cars. Despite numerous safety improvements over the years, people still die in cars at a horrific rate that really hasn't improved in the last decade. The more safety features the manufacturers build in, the more complacent people are with their driving. Does that mean that we should get rid of all the safety improvements that have been added? No, because those who do drive safely still have an increased chance of surviving an accident.
Dont need to be a A&P, but the Prius/calls AAA to change a flat crowd, yea they might feel that way, but GA aint hurting that bad!
IMO, GA *is* hurting that bad. In the last 25ish years, the number of active pilots has dropped 25%, and student starts are way down. GA is dying.
The plane I first soloed in was a 1946' 7 series, she was/is in great shape, sure wasn't that great to look at, some patches from hangar rash, seats were cloth with a few stains, but the controls were balanced, the run-up was almost pointless, as she was spot on every time (through my entire PPL!), and I never found a snag, just added 1qt oil once in a blue moon.
Great - But show a classic tube/fabric airplane or a ratty old 172 to the average person off the street, and they're likely to walk away. To them, old = unsafe.
Where did you get that steaming pile of a idea! All the schools that I see that were dumb enough to buy the Flycatcher 162s arnt putting enough hours on them stay out of the red, as their gross is pathic and it just aint cost effective to match C-150 prices to attract people to fly your $150k turd. Same can be said for the elekrostars (or whatever they call those things) and the Piper reject LSA.
There's no excuse for the Skycatcher - They really didn't do a very good job with them at all, the useful load sucks, the interior sucks, etc... The main thing the Skycatcher did is give some sort of legitimacy to the LSA market. However, there are some other LSA's that are quite nice.
Some schools have completely ignored LSA's. Others have bought a token LSA but steer their customers towards "real" airplanes and the more-expensive Private certificate. I'm sure there's some out there that are a combination of normal and LSA aircraft that promote the LSA's sufficiently, but I've yet to see one. But, look at Chesapeake Sport Pilot and other schools that are using only LSA's, and they're thriving.
"Those using newer 172's are doing better" LMAO, go look at a flight school that has been around for 70 years, like one outfit in WA, most of the hours flown over there on their fleet of 172 and 150s, are in the carbed model 172s and the 150s, think they have one token 2000ish 172S that NO ONE flys, because it doesnt make sense to just flush that extra 20 bucks down the toilet, even student pilots without even a fam flight under their belt seem to figure that one out!
I think it largely depends on the area you're in. A rural community probably has enough people who know that looks ≠ maintenance probably does really well with old airplanes, while a busy urban airport where there's more people who aren't mechanically inclined probably doesn't. It used to be when I was learning to fly that the old planes would fly like mad and the one newer one that was more expensive would sit a lot of the time. Now, it seems to be the opposite: I hear the newer ones on frequency all the time, while the lone remaining 172N I haven't heard in a long time.
I think maybe it's just gotten to the point that the maintenance $$$ required to keep the old ones going has caused the price gap to close. I should go check out the rental rates one of these days.
