The 25-30 years ago part is very true. Activity around the small airports I go to is nothing compared to some years back. The people that fly today, for the most part, are flying 50-60 year old aircraft and not flying them very much. A lot of it is jobs! Well paying jobs at east coast G.M. Plants, Beth Steel , textile mills, etc. are gone and are not coming back. Automation and cheap overseas labor have finished most of them off. American corporations used to care about their workers wages as the serfs bought most of their products right here at home. Today they sell globally, they could care less about the American worker. They get child labor overseas for peanuts.
I dunno.. we're swimming in cash today.. more than i've ever seen. Some areas are suffering, i won't doubt that.. but more often then not, people own huge houses, multiple cars, multiple smart phones, multiple ipads, multiple computers, atvs, motorcycles and tons of other crap. There is simply an absurd amount of competition from every direction from your dollars that aviation is struggling and from my perspective, its struggling largely because of the opportunity to cash out.
Many beautiful private strips around here are closed because the dude bought the property 20 years go for 50k and sold it for 2.5 million dollars today. No flying club can afford to operate on a 2.5 million dollar loan and no sane pilot is going to have such capital sit around to preserve the heritage either because profit profit profit..
heck, even the flying neighborhoods here in texas are largely moving to the 500k+ houses.. (goodby middle class, hellooo top earners..)
50 years ago, i don't think the disparity of income was so vast that those who can afford it, dominate it and do so without regard.
Today, we have tons of disposable income, but flying isn't where people want to push it. The social status is on big houses people can't afford, multiple cars that are shiny and new and all the tech gadgets you can consume and rebuy year after year that everything else seems expensive.. People care more if you spent 3k re-upping your iphone 6 contract then if you had 20 hours of flying time..
and then those that can afford it, seem to thrive on the fact that have carte blanche access to aviation.. heck, most people advertise and market just how "exclusive" aviation is and what pride it is to have your license.
As for the people talking about "man up" and do what you want.. i have to laugh at that too.. i'd wager many people are losing their man cards not because they don't have enough testosterone flowing through their veins and don't already ignore their wives and kids like the plague but that the're so spent on spending money everywhere else and on so much crap that their wives are doing them a favor in keeping them from the airports as many of the dudes i see flying should be the last people in the air.
but thats just my 2 cents.. good to be back on the forums
lets not forget too, its a new generation. The youth doesn't even want cars as cars are getting expensive.. payments of 4-500/month.. Plus parking.. plus insurance + repairs + upkeep + the world being out to destroy/scratch/steal/break your car at every opportunity sort of puts aviation out in the "never ever going to consider it" realm for the young kids..
