Money is like potato chips. "Crunch all you want. We'll make more."
While that is indeed true (if you want it bad enough, you'll find a way), by the same token I believe we have a financial problem on our hands in aviation. We can all quibble about the drivers (tort, insurance rates, market domination by selected vendors, government regulation, so on), at the end of the day, the product is just too damn expensive on a unit basis.
I can walk into most any boat dealer and walk out with a boat, slip/mooring, and winter storage yard for a fixed monthly payment all wrapped together. It requires freakishly little knowledge and the financing of the asset is very simple.
OTOH, if I walk into a FBO, the process is entirely different. What, you want me to spend $120 an hour to learn how to fly, and it could take me more than the 40 hours to do it? There isn't a fixed price? Aside from putting it on a credit card (antithetical to many; yet they'll happily finance something for 7% over 5 years), and purchasing an older, run out plane that is only good for you and MAYBE friend, this is one heck of an expensive hobby that has significant barriers to entry compared to most other "luxury" pursuits.
As an example, an old co-worker bought a brand new Trophy 25 CC saltwater fishing boat. Twin Merc 175's and a panel full of Garmin, Honeywell, and Icom's, trailer, winter storage rolled in and a trailer, all for $82,500. Took out a 7 year note on it at a (decent) 8% interest rate. He put a few grand of cash into it, upgraded to a new truck, and voila, he's a fisherman who can go fishing any time with up to 6 other friends. Weather? He has radar, a GPS, and weather uplink; he can just drop the boat in in-shore and not make a run for the canyons.
A brand new plane with all the pretty glass, and the ability to run most weather (save for icing and severe turb), and to move 4 adults around, I'm in the game for $500k with a plane, insurance, my license, and a storage fee for the plane. This is not how most pilots I know would start; however, this is how most people think - how can I get all the bells and whistles? What do you mean there isn't a warranty? And so it goes.
Now, from a financial perspective, you can do aviation for a heck of a lot less. But the sheer uncertanty of it all, plus with the cost of an airframe that can hold more than two adults, with all the pretty glass and factory new, adds in the barriers that keep new pilot starts so dang low.
I liken aviation to those into classic cars, sailboats, or old wooden boats - people who are passionate about something to the point of all logical exclusion. At the end of the day, GA makes financial sense for very, very few of us - and for those that do, they represent a very small fraction of pilot starts (but a very large fraction of owner/pilots, I bet)
I don't think Light Sport is the solution. I don't think VLJs are the solution. How do we drop the cost of building and certifying 4 place, 4 "modern" (read: 200#) adult capacity, with some bags and gas, such that it is no longer comparable to a beach house and a really beautiful sports car?
Cheers,
-Andrew
