The difference @172driver is that a significant number of people “around here” aren’t near broke and otherwise lacking in resources, while meanwhile attempting to remain relevant by clinging to the latest inexpensive toy presented to them on the consumer spending treadmill, and trying to convince themselves that it is all for the best that they remain broke and lacking in resources.
Meanwhile a guy in his 30s who once worked for me as an intern sent me a photo yesterday of his similar aged colleague’s ’new’ Mooney M20F. I told him to ask the owner about ‘Positive Control’ and the response was apparently an excited 15 minute spiel given by the proud new owner… That made me smile 
I resisted providing my view of ‘Positive Control’, figuring enthusiasm is a good thing.
Flying is definitely still seen as very cool. Not as much, but still a lot. It may not be as put forward as before (just like other forms of economic success through visible wealth), and some people would choose to stay away from it for environmental reasons just like many stay away from commercial aircrafts and cars. How much impact do these people have on commercial flying and cars ? Basically none. So I really think you can’t explain the decline of GA that way.
Cost is for sure a factor, and I have many relatives who are surprised by the (relativeley) low cost to obtain a PPL or even renting for week-end trips. It’s but a little more than a TGV ticket if you share the trip with 3-4 people, and many people don’t realize that.
Apart from visibility and representation, there’s also a lot of hassle involved (just by the nature of it : preparing a flight, coping with weather, uncertainty, refueling, etc.), and you have to be very much enthusiast about flying in order to overcome them. It will never be as convenient or easy as jumping into a car or a commercial flight.
I too think GA flying is regarded as very cool. Lots of people are interested in having a little local flight. If I advertised this, I could probably get much of the neighbourhood to go on flights with me. Well, subject to them not being female and attractive, as I posted previously 
And this is in a country (UK) where – outside specific socio-economic / IQ groups – displaying any sign of having money is frowned upon.
The problem is that you need to have a nice plane, or access to one, at a low marginal (hourly) cost. If you are renting, the plane is likely to be junk, and the marginal cost so high that you will be looking at you getting value out of each flight. And I suspect that not many owners want to be flying with too many “strangers” who tend to leave the plane in a mess; one sees this in how many people – especially in syndicates – fly with the same 1 or 2 people most of the time. When taking various people up for flights, it is very difficult to not end up with the plane in a mess… just a basic human factors issue.
As I’ve said before, I think the rather poor social scene here in most of Europe is the main factor. That in turn leads to not much money ending up in GA activity – because a good social scene is what drives spending by younger people (not the other way round). So the average age goes way up, which in turn demolishes the social scene even more. Actually one sees the same complaint about the US (on their social media) but they are starting from a much better place.
Re social media presence, this is normally managed by some representative body. For example if you are making pumps then you will be a member of a pump manufacturers trade association (yes they have really exciting dinners ) and that association is constantly promoting that business. GA doesn’t have such a thing in Europe.
@Dan wrote “IMHO the main reason for the demise of GA is the whole list of constraints… as in currency, medical, weather, fleet availability, initial training, recurrent training, constant law and rule changes, system complexity, physical fitness, language proficiency, time invested, and so on.”
(Sorry have followed instructions and still can’t get quotes to work. I don’t have a 2 year old handy)
Anyway I think Dan has perfectly summed it up. The problem is those constraints are getting bigger.
We had a security meeting/lecture at the club yesterday. It was attended by around 30 pilots. Many would have turned up anyway because it is an interesting subject to many of us. This used to be the case. But no longer. Because we are a DTO we get regular audits by DSAC (a section of the DGAC). Part of that audit is the security update so all pilot members of DTO clubs now either have to attend the lecture or arrange to receive it in a solo situation.
This is just rules for rules sake IMHO.
To answer some of the other points. Talking just about France here. French ga is well covered on social media, particularly YT, both from passionate individuals and the FFA, FFPLUM etc. It is also reasonably well represented on television. The FFA even ran it’s own channel for a while. It might still do. Through the BIA ga is well known in various Lycee and junior schools, at least around here organise “Vols de decouverte” for all year 6, mostly paid for by the town or village where the school is located. On top of that students passing the BIA can get government subsidies to cover some of the cost of the PPL/LAPL or ULM licence. Clubs tend to have lower membership fees and no instructor fees for students under 25.
Regarding Mogas. There is nothing to stop a club or group at an airfield having Mogas delivered. The problem is that you need a reservoir and a pump which costs a lot of money whilst at the same time not delivering/selling enough fuel to cover the costs of pump maintenance, even when much of the admin of the pump is carried out on a voluntary basis. You also need fire protection and checking which also has to be paid for.
Conviviality as we call it has seen the greatest decline. People just have other things to do than hanging around an airfield if they are not flying.
40 years ago at most clubs there would be groups of pilots picnicking at weekends around the club as they maintained, helped to maintain or just spectated the maintenance of the club fleet. Nowadays, many don’t even clean the mosquitos off the aircraft following a flight. A one hour flight in the DA40 takes up about 3 hours without cleaning the plane and even with faster nav planning tools. And the more modern CERTIFIED aircraft cannot be touched by the willing club amateur. There is no time and no motivation for conviviality. No time means no club. No conviviality means partners don’t get involved in the club and flying experience, so club pilots fly less. Go for a flight on a sunday morning and after all the non flying stuff that goes with taking the aircraft up for an hour pilots are rushing home to be with their families for lunch whereas 40 years ago the families came to the club with a picnic, especially on a nice summer’s day. Without the family support pilots fly less, clubs need a smaller fleet. Now there is only one plane to go for Sunday lunch if the pilot has persuaded the family to go for lunch and a long lunch is out of the question because that aircraft might be reserves by another member in the afternoon. Possible new members turn up at the club and there is never anyone there. And so there are less hours of flight, prices go up, members call out for more planes, cheaper planes, newer planes more advertising. I’m surprised that FFA membership has remained stable over the last few years.
Just my 2cts on current club problems in France.
IO390 wrote:
there is an increase of “gatekeeping” at existing airfields with clubs and ownership circles becoming more cliquey.
Why would that be? It seems totally counterproductive.
maxbc wrote:
Flying is definitely still seen as very cool. Not as much, but still a lot.
Peter wrote:
I too think GA flying is regarded as very cool.
That’s my impression, too. We have regular social events at work where people take turns talking about non-work things. I talked about private flying and what I do when flying. That clearly was seen as cool by the audience – many of whom were young (and left-wing) Ph.D. students.
dublinpilot wrote:
he club I’m with at the moment, seem to have found a really good formula.They operate a fleet of four new, Savannah aircraft.
The club owners build one (they are home build aircraft) bring it into the club and operate it there. After a while someone comes along and wants to buy one. So they sell it, and build another one. This means that the club has new aircraft all the time (not old clapped out aircraft that its struggling to keep airworthy) and I’m sure the sales probably helps to bring a little income. The buyer also gets a really good aircraft build by very experienced builders and the aircraft turnover is helping to build a community of Savannah operators in Ireland.As a result, the aircraft rental is very cheap at just €110 per hour.
The low rates being in lots of people for whom aviation was previously unaffordable, and indeed has lots of members of both genders.There is really no foreign touring, but that doesn’t seem to bother anyone. They are all happy to do local flights and just be in the sky.
It seems to be a model that is working really well for everyone involved.
Now that’s seriously cool. Some 20 years ago I visited a club here in Norway that did something similar (not the Savannah though). One guy there just built aircraft all the time, financed by the club. The club eventually sold them to club members mostly. The Savannah is a perfect aircraft for this. Easy to fly and seriously fun to fly, sturdy as a tractor, and easy to fix/maintain. It’s certainly is no fast cruiser, but with enough time and the extra tanks, it can go anywhere. A true bush/STOL plane for sure.
A guy close by, he owns a Savannah too, has purchased a Ventura kit. It’s a larger 4 seat Savannah more or less and with a 915 engine.
there is an increase of “gatekeeping” at existing airfields with clubs and ownership circles becoming more cliquey.
Why would that be? It seems totally counterproductive.
Certainly the “farm strip” scene is highly cliquey but I am not sure it is due to there being fewer airfields. I think it is just the way these places are – self selection on personality type. When I started to look at ownership c. 2001 I contacted various “grass strips” around here (Deanland is one example) and quickly found that unless your grandad fought in the Boer War with the owner of the strip, you had little chance. Admittedly I was only making a casual (phone) enquiry rather than hanging out at their clubhouse for a year, but one quickly gets the idea. These places are full of “summer toys” and the people there like to keep it that way. You get exactly the same with sailing clubs, golf clubs, etc.
Cost, at least around here, is only one of the many factors, but certainly not the only one nor the largest.
As I have written before many times, I agree. Today I was hanging out at Shoreham (cancelled a day trip to Alderney due to much worse than forecast wx) and had an opportunity to chat to some people about how much more social the place was just in my 20+ year flying timespan. Today, there is not a single place to meet up with other pilots, other than the restaurant which shuts about 4pm and serves junk food, and you can’t just sit there without buying something. There used to be at least 3 places. The recently-bust FTA FTO killed the best one (but never used the area AFAIK) and now the empty building is wasted. The result is zero social scene.
If you go back 30-40 years then you see a completely different world, full of flying clubs, loads of social activity, and yes loads of women Ask anyone old enough about Biggin Hill in the 1970s-1980s.
Of course there have been many social changes over 40 years and one cannot turn the clock back. We’ve had a couple of generations, with increasing “instant gratification” requirements and these are incompatible with the “learning to fly” process which – for reasons one could debate – has hardly changed since WW1. This means that for success you need the focus to be something other than learning to fly (which anybody with more than 2 braincells with see as an utterly embarrassing waste of their time) and this brings me back to, hey, the social scene It reminds me of a waterski club I was at ~20 years ago; the focus was not the skiing (for which you had to brown-nose the boat owner, and you got only a few runs a day) but the social scene.
Anybody who has a Masters in leisure management (not kidding) will recognise these challenges immediately.
Sure the national average male wage is around 30k but the national average male is probably emptying rubbish bins and was never doing a PPL anyway. Well, might “do” a PPL in the same way that 20 years ago everybody was “doing” a univ degree in forensic science (because they watched CSI).
how much more social the place was just in my 20+ year flying timespan. Today, there is not a single place to meet up with other pilots, other than the restaurant which shuts about 4pm and serves junk food, and you can’t just sit there without buying something. There used to be at least 3 places.
This is a trend in many areas of life, for example all but one of the motorcycle shops where people hung out on Saturdays are gone in my area, replaced by generic sales outlets with low quality staff. I think the reason is the rise of the internet, with people ‘socializing’ and buying there instead. The nail in the coffin was government directed COVID restrictions that killed many of the businesses and as we’re seeing confirmed now will have a lasting negative effect on society for years to come.
Hopefully people will learn that the internet is useful and good, but not a substitute for real life. I do find that flying and aircraft is one of the more active remaining social scenes in my area. This is a function of everybody having their planes in one place, and in adjoining hangars. As long as everybody goes to the same place to fly and work on their planes, it’s not going to change. Also due to airports and flying being a Federally protected “essential” activity and not state controlled, it was unaffected during the COVID period. Once through the fence you were free, and figuratively it remains true now!
The other one that seems to be thriving and growing is meetings where people bring their special cars for ‘cars and coffee’ events. If you want to learn that lack of money is not the issue in my area these will convince you, but all are welcome regardless and it’s a very positive scene that likewise was never affected by COVID restrictions.
Also in areas where the internet has not been so pervasive in hobbies (Germany and motorcycling comes to mind) I see more continuation of positive face-to-face social activity.
Sure the national average male wage is around 30k but the national average male is probably emptying rubbish bins and was never doing a PPL anyway.
I cannot imagine how anybody lives an ‘average’ life on 30K of any currency, never mind flying and not withstanding the GBP being a bit more valuable. You could barely survive on less, but hereabouts $100K per household is a good start. Two or three times that amount per household provides a decent standard of living given inflation over the last few years. People who fly might likely be in that general range.
Reading thru @Silvaire’s post above made me realise something else… there are vast differences between countries in Europe. Yes, we knew that already, still… one factor bound to influence the popularity of for instance GA, is population density. You guys living in vast places such as France, Spain, Germany, Scandinavia, etc etc, still have tons of space to practice your activity without being constantly under attack by opponents.
Switzerland probably has one of the highest density of people to the Km2, if only the usable or inhabitable surface is taken into account. Generally, any noisy hobby is frown upon. RC flying is slowly disappearing, motorcycling too. The whole mentality of the population is partly dependent upon its density. The country prides itself as being a forerunner in technology and environmental protection, and GA doesn’t necessarily reflect this image. The best example is the still valid UL interdiction.
A positive outcome could be e-flying, whenever this becomes practical enough… in the meantime…
