Who do you blame for GA downfall.

Ed Haywood said:
Great post. At least once a week we get a college-aged kid wandering into our strip asking about lessons.
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I keep hearing about GA dying, but in my local area, it's growing. Clubs are expanding, people are buying planes, the hangar waiting list is getting longer. In the 6 years I've been around, the hangar situation has gone from several open, to kicking out the non-fliers to make room, to now having a list that's 20 deep. The shop that works on my plane has gone from three mechanics to five.
 
schmookeeg said:
I'd say more than half of my prebuy/ferry/training work has been for 20-somethings in the last few years, from numerous walks of life (of course tech heavy where I am, but not as heavy as I'd have thought before moving here). I've had to check a few presumptions of my own when I rock up to meet a new owner and he's tattooed head to toe and looks like 21 year old darth maul. Then we chat and share aviation together and it's awesome.

There's still new blood and they're just as enthusiastic as the old blood used to be.

The airports all looking like supermax prisons isn't exactly the welcome mat. Bystanders still think this hobby is for insane people. I'm not sure they're wrong, then or now. :D
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Yeah, while it's not the late 70's anymore the "demise" hasn't hit my local area. Busy as ever around here.
 
Jim K said:
I keep hearing about GA dying, but in my local area, it's growing. Clubs are expanding, people are buying planes, the hangar waiting list is getting longer. In the 6 years I've been around, the hangar situation has gone from several open, to kicking out the non-fliers to make room, to now having a list that's 20 deep. The shop that works on my plane has gone from three mechanics to five.
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I've thought the same at our airport too. Hangars are going up, waiting list are getting longer, the FBO's flight school is as busy as they can handle, ground schools are overbooked, not just with career pilots but hobbyists too. Is GA secretly growing, or is it just becoming more concentrated at certain airports?
 
midwestpa24 said:
I've thought the same at our airport too. Hangars are going up, waiting list are getting longer, the FBO's flight school is as busy as they can handle, ground schools are overbooked, not just with career pilots but hobbyists too. Is GA secretly growing, or is it just becoming more concentrated at certain airports?
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That is the question. I do think the sleepy grass strips, where a lot of the hobbyist training used to take place, may be in decline, but I don't have direct experience.
 
TCABM said:
Do you mean it could be possible the hobby is evolving and may be influenced by changes in population densities over time?
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Possibly. Like the ever prevalent hangar shortages we all hear about. Theoretically there are less and less GA aircraft operating in the US, we are destroying them faster than we are building them, yet we have hangar waiting lists? Where are these aircraft coming from? Are we losing hangars somewhere else, or even entire airports? Is the shortage only at population centers while rural airports are going vacant?
 
Ed Haywood said:
Great post. At least once a week we get a college-aged kid wandering into our strip asking about lessons.
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The aviation ground classes at my university are always full, each is 30-35 students. On the other hand so are the computer Science classes. Both depts always have to create another 1st year class section due to demand. But CS has a higher dropout rate than aviation.
 
The insurance industry is forcing the older pilots out of GA. They change the rules on a regular basis. We’re loosing a bunch of airplanes with the major storms . Not enough hangers to protect your investment. Just a thought from an older pilot.
 
Corin said:
It does not help if those college aged kids become airline pilots, and never step foot into GA again.
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Most of the airline pilots I know are also GA pilots. Kid next to me flies long haul to Europe, and flings his Pitts S2B around on the weekends. Another buddy is FO on 747 freight runs to Singapore, and turns wrenches as an A&P during his down time.
 
While not dying by any means, the cost of entry is higher than it was in the past. I do think change is on the horizon. In particular, experimental amatuer-built aircraft (while still expensive) are way more affordable than certified aircraft. With MOSAIC changes coming, I think there's an opportunity for a market shift. Someone like Vans or maybe one of the Eastern European folks could market EAB 2- and 4-seat, modern aircraft for half the price of certified that require pilots to only have a sport pilot license and a driver license for medical. Based on the very broad range of aircraft and missions that could be flown in this category, if any one particular company could get enough volume (why I single out Vans), I really think that could become the de facto standard for GA, instead of the 60-year-old spam cans.
 
brien23 said:
Who do you blame for GA downfall, parts price, insurance cost, FBO surcharge, manufacture price, maintenance, FAA. Are we headed to a Europe style GA with the cost, "Pay to fly".
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Gravity.

Is this the semi-annual Brien23 “General Aviation is dying/dead/etc.” thread?
 
Anthem said:
haha. . maybe people were not as concerned with getting hangar space before vs now. . as in they just "tied down" on the field before. But the hangar space phenomenon (as in waiting lists everywhere) does seem to counter the argument that GA is going down unless some other factor is in play.
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It does seem like less and less aircraft are just tied down anymore. I wonder if that has anything to do with their value going from $20-40k to over $100k?
 
I have zero insight into actual decline, if it exists.

I suspect a few things are going on...

When was the heyday of GA and what were its driving forces? Was it a young industry full of innovation and drive of the inventor set coupled with combat returning aviators or those associated with flying? Innovators are frowned upon or at minimum not held up as examples to follow. What do the youth of the world marvel at? Not flying! Perhaps the drivers of the heyday are no longer present?

I think there might be some barriers to entry also. Most airports appear locked down tight, not so easy to hang out. Shops might not be as kind to youth with society on a high efficiency time management kick. Access to instruction might be minimal also, many of my local airports do not have "learn to fly here" signs flying.

I suspect there are too many hangars occupied with boats, entertainers, or infrequent fliers. Space seems precious, so why buy a new Cirrus if nobody will let me keep it inside?

Couples with access to resources (money) likely have fewer kids so the available pool of candidates to enter GA is low.

The stuff that has been going on with SpaceX over the years should have been inspiring others. But we have a world full of useless college degreed underachievers that lean towards communism or anarchy instead of capitalism.
 
4RNB said:
The stuff that has been going on with SpaceX over the years should have been inspiring others. But we have a world full of useless college degreed underachievers that lean towards communism or anarchy instead of capitalism.
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You don't find many of them as engineers. I've worked with some truly great young engineers that look at the world, success and responsibility much like I do at age 61. Can't speak for the One armed, Lesbian, Inuit, studies degreed kids..
 
Jim K said:
That is the question. I do think the sleepy grass strips, where a lot of the hobbyist training used to take place, may be in decline, but I don't have direct experience.
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C81 is sleepy. It lacks a full fledged flight school and a full time shop. It's pretty crazy if you hit up Google earth and look at it from early 2000's to now. Nearly 50 planes outside back then. No new hangars have been built. Around 2012, the flight school and maintenance shop closed up. Planes started disappearing. Some went over to 10c which built more hangars. But that's only a few. Most just left the area. Recently got a letter that they've agreed to sell it to a group from Florida. So we'll see what happens.

Now, you look at 10c. They have 2 shops on the field. One serves the light sport/ rotac crowd. The other more conventional. Both offer flight training. Aviators are more active overall at the airport. It's further away from a populated area. Narrower and shorter runway. But much more active.

3ck is always busy. I didn't like going there during private training because it was so busy most of the time. The flight school there is top notch. Definitely a more populated area than 10c. So perhaps it's not a good comparison. But, I can't help but wonder if a more active airport manager that brought in a flight training/maintenance could improve the overall health of the airport. Thus improving revenue.
 
My finish-up flight school requires a 100k insurance policy to rent their aircraft. It costs me a significant amount of money annually in addition to flight time and instructor fees to take lessons there which only increases the barrier to entry. And their newest C172 is a late 70s model. It's hard to justify the cost if you're not planning on eventually getting paid for it. Rare are the "steals" for airworthy aircraft at a reasonable cost that don't immediately need overhauls.

It was mentioned earlier about the comparison of car travel vs. plane travel. My wife's family lives a 12-14 hour drive away. I can be there in 3-4 via the club C182. Granted, it costs me many hundreds of dollars more but how much is one's time and sanity worth. It's way nicer flying OVER NYC and the Jersey Turnpike than it is to drive ON it.
 
Didn’t we just have this same thread like 3 weeks ago? Has anyone’s opinion changed since then?
 
One other thought as far as contributor to the heyday:

The workforce has changed such that I wonder if onsite management not as needed, zoom and others takes the place. So the executive need might not be there. The CEO might have private jet out of the realm of GA
 
Anthem said:
haha. . maybe people were not as concerned with getting hangar space before vs now. . as in they just "tied down" on the field before. But the hangar space phenomenon (as in waiting lists everywhere) does seem to counter the argument that GA is going down unless some other factor is in play.
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I think the prices of hangar rentals (on fields where they’re all city owned) has not kept up with inflation.

I know nobody wants to pay more for hangars, but realistically, renting an asset that would cost $300k to construct for $250/mo throws supply and demand way out of whack.
 
General aviation isn't shrinking, it's growing. There's no "downfall." Check out the private ramp at any reasonably sized airport. I guarantee there are more planes parked there today than ten years ago. Not to mention the proliferation of fractional operations, public and private charters, non-airline passenger service, medical flights, etc

Oh, did you mean light, single engine, hobby flying of planes based on really old technology? That's like asking to what we attribute the fact that no one is building or driving 80-year-old cars and why there's limited parts availability for them.
 
KE5BM said:
My finish-up flight school requires a 100k insurance policy to rent their aircraft.
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I don't understand this. Who is this policy insuring? The last flight school I worked at recommended renter's insurance, but it was not required. The company was insured but the renter might be exposed if it were a pilot error accident. I always told my high-income students that the renter's insurance is a good idea, but for folks without a lot of financial resources, not as necessary. The school had one total loss, and the insurance company tried to recover from the rental pilot, but he didn't really have anything, so they dropped it.
 
As I've posted other times this subject has arisen, part of the blame goes to the Interstate Highway system and the increased comforts of modern cars. Eighty years ago, two hours in a J-3 beat five hours in a 1930 Ford Model A on crappy dirt roads. Not the same, today. I regularly drive 180 miles to visit relatives; takes me three hours from the door to their driveway, depending on the traffic. With an airplane, I'd have to load the luggage in the car, drive to the airport, transfer it to the airplane, fly to the destination, call for a ride, take the luggage out of the airplane, and unload at the destination. Sure, it'd be just 90 minutes in the air, but a lot of hassle on the ground...and I wouldn't have my own car. I can switch driving with my wife, too, which may not be possible for many GA rides.

Complete independence from the weather too. Bad storms forecast today. May have been stuck down there until they cleared, had I flown myself down. In the car...you just turn on the wipers.

Oddly enough, I had to make an "emergency" visit there this weekend (my wife found a house she liked). Booked a ride on a commuter airliner less than 24 hours to departure. On Monday, I got into an Uber at 11:30 AM, got driven to Sea-Tac, and arrived at the destination airport at 2:30 PM. Same three hours, albeit I still had to catch a ride to the relative's place. My brother in law picked me up.

Liability? It makes a convenient guinea pig. But we haven't seen automotive manufactures driven to bankruptcy by liability lawsuits, ditto for any variety of sport equipment manufacturers. If problems happen with my 20-year-old car, the manufacturers issue a recall and it gets fixed, usually with nothing out of my own pocket. AD note on a plane past its warranty? Probably all yours, buddy.

Safety? We decry the nanny state concerns about accidents, but in reality, General Aviation has the worst fatality rate among all forms of transportation, not including gunpowder-powered pogo sticks. Airline accident rates are near zero. Cars see about 0.6 fatalities per 100 million miles. Railroads about 0.2, busses about 0.1

One site says the GA accident rate is about 14 times that of the automotive one. Motorcycles are actually higher, but you don't hear of families of four killed in a single-motorcycle rollover accident.

Folks decry the regulations placed on GA, which makes it harder to get into. True...but those regulations are usually established in an attempt to reduce the fatality rate. Little mistakes that might cause a fender-bender and an airbag deployment in a car may kill the occupants of a Cessna. The regulations...with their emphasis on inspections and pilot currency...are an attempt to mitigate that. A Honda driver doesn't have to perform three parallel-parking cases to a full stop every 90 days. Your VW Golf isn't required to be partially disassembled and inspected every year by a licensed mechanic.

About eight percent of all Cessna 172 accidents are due to mechanical failure. What percentage of auto accidents? Down in the mud, somewhere. In 55 years, I've had brake failure once (on a 1946 Willys Jeep) and never had a steering issue. I've had three cases of "engine failure" while on the road. One fuel exhaustion, the other two ignition-related. In a thousand hours of flying, I've had one fuel-contamination engine failure, and one magneto failure (which was not critical, as those nanny-state safety regulations required my engine carry two). Roughly speaking, driving my car has seen "failure rate" of about 1/50th of my airplane flying.

Now...sure, I've had several auto accidents and no aircraft ones. But all were survivable, none resulted in injury. None were my fault, which IS one of the things I like about flying (if I have an accident, it'll be because of my OWN failures, not someone else's).

So don't fault the average citizen's opinion that GA is dangerous...because it is. Pilots can justify the risk in many ways, but most don't make an appeal to the average citizen.

Ron Wanttaja
 
midwestpa24 said:
Is GA secretly growing, or is it just becoming more concentrated at certain airports?
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Oh the latter. Using OSH or hangar wait lists as proxy for demand, is just the same fallacy. Ask the 10% HHI "my street is fine" crowd how they rate the economy. Silos of "my perception my reality". Rec piston is no different.

Watch pilot starts in 2025, with the airlines halting hiring and displacing this year like it's going out of style. As I said on the other thread, peak pricing (inflation adjusted) was October 2023, Powell just won't let the point be self-evident cuz he keeps stealing my labor via QE. Get that thumb off this potemkin village, and watch true price discovery manifest. They just don't have the stones to do it.

All of my peers are pro pilots. Most don't own. To a man I know their reasons for not owning rec, cuz they always picked my brain throught the years when I owned. All economic. And these are ostensibly 10%ers.

Which is also why I stopped doing YE; tired of lying to these people about recreational access, plus the usaf can do their own g-darned bait and switch recruiting (aka most won't become usaf pilots by college degree access/aptitude, given the socioeconomic background we were flying around these parts).
 
Enjoyed the discussions and agree with all of the above, not just one. Will only add 1) it is much cheaper to fly airlines today than the 60’s and 70’s before airline deregulations. Back then families did not have the option of airlines and interstate highways with reliable cars. 2) My folks had more time, they told the kids we were going to take a trip, now families have to be sure the kids are open since they have soccer, sports clubs, extracurricular activities, that the parents have to work around. 3) more things competing with the disposable income, nicer homes, multiple cars(for the kids), 2 car garages etc. My dad had a tri pacer, home with no garage, one car(1963) on a teacher’s salary. His house cost 11 T, the tri pacer 5 T. Many people can afford a 300T house, but few of those will pay for a 150T plane. Different priorities now, not wrong but different.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
I don't understand this. Who is this policy insuring? The last flight school I worked at recommended renter's insurance, but it was not required. The company was insured but the renter might be exposed if it were a pilot error accident. I always told my high-income students that the renter's insurance is a good idea, but for folks without a lot of financial resources, not as necessary. The school had one total loss, and the insurance company tried to recover from the rental pilot, but he didn't really have anything, so they dropped it.
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I was shocked when my instructor brought me the agreement showing that I had to agree to it before I could solo. When I called my insurer of choice, the very nice lady on the phone asked me in shock "is there another flight school you can go to?" That alerted me to the premise that this is abnormal. I have no idea why that particular outfit asks so much. That's not just for students but for the run-of-the-mill rentals as well. One of the reasons I don't use their aircraft anymore. For what it's worth, I do not recall needing to carry a personal rental policy at my first flight school back in 2001.
 
I started flying in 1969. If there is a "downfall" it sure is taking a long time and being sneaky about it. Maybe people don't remember but flying your own personal airplane has always been expensive. The one thing I notice is that a lot fewer young people have any interest in it nowadays so maybe blame them?
 
KE5BM said:
I was shocked when my instructor brought me the agreement showing that I had to agree to it before I could solo. When I called my insurer of choice, the very nice lady on the phone asked me in shock "is there another flight school you can go to?" That alerted me to the premise that this is abnormal. I have no idea why that particular outfit asks so much. That's not just for students but for the run-of-the-mill rentals as well. One of the reasons I don't use their aircraft anymore. For what it's worth, I do not recall needing to carry a personal rental policy at my first flight school back in 2001.
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It's not that unusual. Several of the FBO's around here have similar policies. Usually the minimum amount is set to the hull value of the rental aircraft.

You are going to pay for insurance cost one way or another. If not directly, then indirectly via increased rental rates ... or reduced maintenance budgets.

Ain't nobody getting rich running a flight school, except maybe foreign airline puppy mills.
 
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Gilbert Buettner said:
I don't understand this. Who is this policy insuring? The last flight school I worked at recommended renter's insurance, but it was not required. The company was insured but the renter might be exposed if it were a pilot error accident. I always told my high-income students that the renter's insurance is a good idea, but for folks without a lot of financial resources, not as necessary. The school had one total loss, and the insurance company tried to recover from the rental pilot, but he didn't really have anything, so they dropped it.
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I've seen this sort of thing when the rental outfit is trying to avoid buying commercial-rate insurance, but the first mx-induced claim (that non-owned coverage won't pay for) usually kills that dream.

If they're trying to preserve low rates for their commercial policy by having the non-owned insurance cover hull claims, it's an interesting tactic but man, super dollars-inefficient. I guess when you're spending renter dollars you can burn em down, but still. Icky. Since non-owned cover is secondary, does this even get the school out of premium-increases after a claim? I'd be interested in their broker's take. I have a feeling this is a theory that is untested, but I'd love to learn.
 
schmookeeg said:
I've seen this sort of thing when the rental outfit is trying to avoid buying commercial-rate insurance, but the first mx-induced claim (that non-owned coverage won't pay for) usually kills that dream.

If they're trying to preserve low rates for their commercial policy by having the non-owned insurance cover hull claims, it's an interesting tactic but man, super dollars-inefficient. I guess when you're spending renter dollars you can burn em down, but still. Icky. Since non-owned cover is secondary, does this even get the school out of premium-increases after a claim? I'd be interested in their broker's take. I have a feeling this is a theory that is untested, but I'd love to learn.
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Could be they can't get commercial coverage, or only at cost prohibitive rates. For a small operation with only a few planes, some carriers might have a minimum premium that makes the per-plane cost ridiculous. I have seen this in other commercial insurance contexts.
 
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