I see commercial after commercial for expensive things people can buy and do. I see GA withering. Nobody's marketing it! What's going on?
Yeah a slick video with a Cirrus or something shiny and pointy buzzing around, then people show up to a FBO and get the worst customer service they have ever experienced, snob treatment from other pilots and a 30 year old dirty, ragged out spam can for 150 bucks an hour. Other then flying low what is the fun? If you show people flying to great destinations you are selling the destination and we can drive and tow the jetskis or buy a ticket on the smoker(and be served alcohol on the way) for chump change.
Tiny market that behaves poorly, that will never change.
Immediate gratification, RULES!
And there is none in GA flying...
Sell em a Lexus and they have immediate status in the neighborhood...
Sell em a Cigarette Boat and they have bikini bimbos hanging all over them while anchored out at the sand bar...
Sell em a Big Screen Flat TV and their buddies worship them...
Sell em a Skyhawk and?
The GF leaves for a guy who has cash left for going to the bar on Friday night...
He lives on Ramen noodles to pay for the CFI - and make the airplane payments - and pay the hull insurance - and pay the hangar - and the fuel...
Shortly after, the boss decides he must have been siphoning cash from the business to be a RICH airplane owner and cans him...
Then it is bill collectors and having to room in with the z00mer - finally he is living in a cardboard box under the overpass when when his GF zooms past in his ex best frined's Lexus and gives our pilot the finger while leaning on the horn...
He jumps off the overpass...
The media has a field day with stories about rich pilots gone bad...
The moral is:
Go for the immediate gratification...
I see commercial after commercial for expensive things people can buy and do. I see GA withering. Nobody's marketing it! What's going on?
Story board one up for us right now, what would you sell it with?
Easy, like the REI commercial, sell the coolness. Their bit - I'm gonna bike in the hot dusty dry desert, but it will be cool, I'll wear sexy cool sunglasses, have a girlfriend that has a waist, camp in the desert, and share good times with friends etc.
Except, that I'll be flying over snow capped mountain vistas to really pristine camp grounds to camp with friend and sleep under the stars.
It seems to me, the barriers are either finding ways to fund young people (though my son was only interested until he got a girlfriend and then he didn't have time for it), or somehow lower the time and focus commitment for the 30 something's.
No one wants to pay $150 to rent a 40 year old airpane. Those that do are on their way to something else like a rating or different plane.
The only possible savior is cheaper fuel... $5.51/gal. at my home base hurts but I am still paying it for the time being. I would LOVE to ditch these outdated 360 cubic inch Lycomings that suck down 10-11 GPH like it was free, but the money and the STC'ed modern engines for legacy aircraft just aren't there. I think servicing mags and points every 500 hours is just ridiculous. This old stuff hasn't been used in cars in 3 or more decades!
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If you look through the archives of GA you'll see this has all been done. The non circumventable cost factors are what kill it, it is that far beyond most hobbies with boating as the exception.
I've seen a number of them in the Atlanta area as well. I have a coworker who buys every flying groupon he can get, cons them into believing that he's comparing flight schools, and says he's going to write a book on how he made it up to solo on Groupon (surely, no one is going to let him solo on a Groupon ).One of our local flight schools is pumping intro flights on GroupOn. I am curious
how that is working out for them.
Is this what you're talking about? Check it out guys. Future baseball HOF'er flies a Cirrus. For young people you'd have to have someone like LeBron James or Kobe Bryant as the spokesman but Griffey could still work.
Personally I believe GA is going to continue to decline until flying is simply more affordable. Right now, and let me tell you guys from personal experience. Whenever I mention the thought of learning to fly and possibly owning a plane my friends, some poor and some middle class, talk about only the "country club" types being able to own and fly planes. They have flat out told me I'll never be able to afford to fly. So, until newer planes become much more affordable it will never grow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQdE_CoysLI
I don't know what the average purchase price of an entry level wife is, but I assume maintenance can get pretty high these days. Probably much like maintaining a small airplane.
-John
The average amount spent on a diamond wedding ring purchased from a jewelry store is between $3,500 and $5,000.
The average spent on becoming a pilot is $6,000 to $15,000.
The average purchase price of a used entry level GA aircraft is from $30,000 to a little over $100,000.
I don't know what the average purchase price of an entry level wife is, but I assume maintenance can get pretty high these days. Probably much like maintaining a small airplane.
-John