Based on my observations in other industries, I doubt it
I suspect that a lot of the US EAB airplanes would end up similarly expensive if produced as LSAs due to the cost of labor.
I don't think innovation left, it's just in the SETP space.
It's transformative if it lets companies like my boss' business use S-LSA's for actual work like aerial photography. If we can ditch a 50-year old Cardinal for a new 4-seat S-LSA high wing with an adequate payload, modern avionics, a 'chute, and better or more efficient performance, it could be a game changer. I spent $18K last year on just the landing gear on one of my planes because they are getting old and parts are wearing out.
Impressive. They had a ground loop and prop strike while doing a demo. It seems it was indeed not grounded after the incident.
For a lot of this work, just use a drone now. There will be exceptions where a plane is more suitable, but drones will work for most situations. I was at a bar in rural Nebraska the other day and someone was advertising aerial application with drones.
My hangar neighbor has a Sling 2. He did a Quick Build (51%) at Airplane Factory in Torrance, CA. It's an absolutely beautiful aircraft, but $$$. Time will tell whether it holds up.
I manage the Dallas office for Red Wing Aerials with three operational points covering the state of Texas and we do use drones for some things, but airplanes are far superior for most of what we do. Drones are SO overrated. For us, drones are the exception, and they’ve almost entirely replaced helicopters for low-level targets.
Again, it depends on the application.
As if you know our business and market better than me? Weird. I’ve averaged 500+ hours in planes per year for the last decade and drones haven’t slowed us down.
LOL. What do I believe- you or my lying eyes?
That's Google pushing a particular ad your way, probably based on some of your browsing.
No, I looked up "red wing aerials". Google picks up whatever you guys use for metatext and your own google campaign.
That doesn’t contradict what I just said. We market for ground photos, as well as aircraft aerials, too, but Google thinks you’d be a better fit for our drone services, and we don’t push those clients away - in fact some of them realize that manned photos end up helping them achieve their mission better.
I'll disagree about what google thinks I want since they will display whatever their clients want for their branding. But you haven't contradicted this either.
We should take this to another thread, but I’m confident you’re wrong and MOSAIC could be huge for this.
And no one has provided any data to change my mine either.
I think you'd choose to interpret any data I might present in a way that favors your notions since you insist on replying as if I don't have a valid opinion about my own industry or even know my own business.
Please read this whole post. With apologies to Shania Twain, comment above "...don't impress me much". Disagreeing with you doesn't imply that you don't have a valid opinion about your business or industry. You are making assumptions that aren't in evidence such as my knowledge about how google ads work, nor that I don't think you know your business. I should think I can look at things from a different point-of-view than yours.
I read that your business isn't hurting and I'm not disputing that. There's an excellent chance that you are missing business, opportunities for growth, because drone-only operators are flying under your RADAR, so to speak.
What will be the cost for such a plane already built? Does it truly remove a barrier to entry into your market? Will it be less expensive than a Vans RV-10? Completed, it will cost around $200,000 if you build it. Factory built will be more costly. I know that an RV-10 is low-wing, but other than the wing location, it is representative of your description. A Murphy Moose (high wing) will be about the same cost to a business, and it has a high-wing. I don't know if a C-172 would work, but used ones that are 10-20 years old seem to run about $200k to $300k- based on a very quick glance at Controller.com. Do you do multi-spectral imaging? Those are unique cameras and MOSIAIC doesn't affect those products.
Depending on the plane, it may be time to replace it. Or maybe the gear will give you many more years.
I could equally say that you would only present some of the data which supports your position, but I'm not going there. I can say that you haven't communicated your position well.
Sure, I'll read your post, and I'm fine with people being skeptical about how much the new changes will affect the market, and it's fine to disagree with me, but I just think it's weird that you're cherry-picking stuff you see about our company to try to persuade me that my enthusiasm for the changes is illogical.
Meh, I'm assuming that Google showed you something relevant to the opinions you are espousing. Shocked, I am. Now if you were browsing Rob Braxton style, and Google knew nothing about your affinity for drones, that would make me slightly more intrigued.
Eh, we're doing fine and we've adapted better than a lot of our peers.
They aren't our primary competition. We are VERY aware of the drone operations, and the discussions in PAPA about drones are both serious and amusing, but the truth is that most of the average drone operations are also pretty-low margin, and often higher-cost for their products, too. It's truly a strange market.
Pipistrel has had package offerings for years in Europe that would have worked for us, but the FAA wouldn't allow for any type of waiver or anything to make it work. Also, as you probably know, depreciation and all is a real thing in business. If a particular S-LSA offered the right package, it is very likely that it would be worth purchasing and we've looked at it before, but couldn't make it work because of the FAA, not the purchase costs.
Why would that annoy me? A lot of time those of us in PAPA International share jobs because some established customer has a job that's too far away for us to efficiently fly it, so we'll ask one of our friends in the industry to grab it for us, and it ends up being mutually beneficial.
Once we've fixed a system, chances are we might be better off keeping the one we've fixed, but if one particular part's been replaced, but not another, chances are some other part will break. Buying a "new" used Cardinal, is buying a potential time bomb compared to a new fixed-gear efficient plane. Sure, something could break on the new plane as well, but it won't be from fatigue.
Anecdotally, we have a friend in France that flies a Pipistrel that is known as the Green Observer. He occasionally comes and flies our Cardinals in the States and we are also in the same trade group called PAPA International. We have seen his operation over the last 9 years and have seen that it is an efficient model.
www.green-observer.com
Google showed me something based on what your marketing department added to google ad services. I looked specifically for your company. I'm familiar with how google works as our marketing people aren't scientists, so they ask the scientists about what text should be in both our marketing materials that search engines use. Likewise, your marketing people have done the same thing. What I see of your business is entirely due to the efforts of your marketing people, unless you are suggesting that google is making up information. Your web site does mention work using drones, and I agree that is part of your business.
It's more likely due to my employer that makes the cameras used for a variety of purposes. As a supplier, we've noticed the market share of our products for unmanned systems increasing at the expense of manned systems. Beyond that, I can't share details. I'll also note that you probably aren't a customer of ours, as the cameras Teledyne produces are rather specialized.
Yes, I agree with you now. I read the AI summary at first which seemed to indicate that suggested the pilot could do limited commercial work. Further digging indicates the aircraft can be used for limited commercial operations, but nothing is actually mentioned about expanding the pilot's ability to do the same work.
Yes, I know about depreciation. It is useful in financial accounting, and helps to reduce your tax burden, more so when accelerated depreciation is used. It is good for external reporting (taxes, annual reports, selling the company). However, it doesn't help with cost accounting, which is what I thought we were discussing.
Would that work for you? I've read that you the plane couldn't be modified for the limited commercial operations that MOSAIC will allow.
I've always thought it was literally crazy that an S-SLA, like the old Apollo Fox I was flying a decade ago, could be used all day in the pattern doing stalls, steep turns, and tons of landings and touch and gos, but we couldn't fly a lazy circle in the sky at 1.5 VSO in an orbit with a camera. For me, the MOSAIC stuff is a step towards common sense, nothing more, or less.
I don't know that the data I'm seeing above supports that... But I figured I'd look every 5 years so I'd be able to sort the Boomers out from the Silent Generation and GenX.
with the wave of youngsters chasing the pilot shortage. If we instead look at the number of boomer pilots vs the number of total boomers, it's gone from 0.384% in 2000 to 0.306% in 2010 to 0.244% in 2020 while the total population of boomers has dropped by about 8%. There's been some attrition of course, but only about 1/3 of Boomers have "exited the hobby" so far.For sure.
There's a footnote to that student pilot count that I think you missed. It's on the bottom of table 1, " Starting with April 2016, there is no expiration date on the new student pilot certificates, which generates a cumulative increase in the numbers." If you look at table 17, Original Certificates by Category, there were 31,000 total new Private certs earned, and 61,000 student certs handed out. I'm guessing the number of active student pilots is somewhere between those two numbers overall, but I'd also suspect the number of boomer student pilots is considerably lower than the 2015 count of 11,872.I don't know that the data I'm seeing above supports that... But I figured I'd look every 5 years so I'd be able to sort the Boomers out from the Silent Generation and GenX.
So, the number of Boomer Private Pilots was:
2000 (Boomers aged 35-55): 90,208 ATP, 49,754 Commercial, 132,102 Private, 35,110 Student, 317,742 total (Rotorcraft Only and Glider Only are excluded in this data)
2005 (Boomers aged 40-60): 90,166 ATP, 52,950 Commercial, 126,802 Private, 27,368 Student, 297,511 total (All aircraft)
2010 (Boomers aged 45-65): 83,314 ATP, 46,069 Commercial, 102,378 Private, 14,725 Student, 2,405 Sport, 248,987 total (Airline pilot age limit went from 60 to 65 on December 13, 2007 but some ATPs still would have aged out.)
2015 (Boomers aged 50-70): 77,050 ATP, 40,327 Commercial, 85,389 Private, 11,872 Student, 3,292 Sport, 217,996 total
2020 (Boomers aged 55-75): 65,845 ATP, 32,017 Commercial, 63,684 Private, 21,176 Student, 3,773 Sport, 186,554 total
2024 (Boomers aged 59-79): 47,608 ATP, 27,179 Commercial, 51,449 Private, 24,965 Student, 3,972 Sport, 155,209 total (I used the 60-80 age groups here.)
ATPs decreasing isn't too big of a surprise - Not many people get their ATP when they're older, and of course those aging out and not picking back up in GA, or simply becoming inactive for medical reasons at any certificate level, increases with age. Commercial certs were still going up from the first dataset to the second.
It's interesting that the Boomers had a hard upswing in Student pilot certificates there on the last couple of lines. Pandemic and retirement may have spurred that. Also, Sport pilots in the Boomer age groups are increasing.
Total-wise, the decline is pretty steady from 2010 on out at around 31K per 5 years, but there was a loss of 20K from 00-05 and then a loss of nearly 50K from 05-10. That economy really wrecked a lot of people.
In any case, Boomers in 2020 still represented 27% of pilots, and about 23% of the population. In 2024, Boomers still represent 18.2% of active pilots, but the number of active pilots increased from 691,689 in 2020 to 848,770 in 2024
For sure.
