Huv wrote:
I do not see the main GA activity challenge in people giving up flying, but in that the number of young people taking up flying are not big enough to replace the number of pilots dying from old age (or loosing their medical a little while earlier).
Good point. Flying is too expensive for the millennial generation, who are, on average, poorer relative to their parents at the same age. Young people are also disinclined to pursue environmentally damaging activities. Maybe electric aircraft can be a solution to both of these problems?
The pilot in question didn’t really do his due diligence. Moving a few days for some initial training with a specialist is an excellent idea.
What causes GA to shrink is primarily it’s inability to unite and speak as one towards the authorities and the public. It is a archipelago of chapters, each hiding in the woods until their own primary interests are threatened. GA is so diverse. It should be an advantage.
I really don’t think the pilot in question here has anything to do with the decline in GA. I mean – you buy an airplane you’re not qualified to fly and then whinge ’cause you need some additional training?
MedEwok wrote:
Flying is too expensive for the millennial generation,
I’m not sure this hold true everywhere. In our club the oldies who either hung up the headset or medicaled out have been more than replaced by millennials. In fact, our biggest problem right now is that we don’t have enough airplanes to accommodate everyone and are actively looking to increase our fleet. Oh, and we also have a waiting list of people who want to join, AFAICT all rather young.
172driver wrote:
I’m not sure this hold true everywhere. In our club the oldies who either hung up the headset or medicaled out have been more than replaced by millennials. In fact, our biggest problem right now is that we don’t have enough airplanes to accommodate everyone and are actively looking to increase our fleet. Oh, and we also have a waiting list of people who want to join, AFAICT all rather young.
That’s great to hear. As always generalisations don’t do justice to each individual situation, but my impression from what I read is that the younger generation, especially in the US, UK and S. Europe, is squeezed between stagnating wages and rising cost of living (especially housing), so they have less disposable income. Of course, this does not apply to all individuals
Most of our new joins work in IT, game development, various upstarts and aerospace, some lawyers and in finance – disposable income is not really a problem for that demographic, time is the bigger constraining factor.
RobertL18C wrote:
Tailwheel and wobbly prop – Cessna 180?
Shameless opportunist LOL
I’d have disguised my intent at least a little bit…. 
I know at least three of my friends who started and dropped out of their ppl in their 20’s. Not so much because of the cost but because of the hassle of all the exams. One chap did nearly all the flying but hasn’t got near finishing the exams. I always think it’s a bit of a shame.
I think a lot of people give up when they open up the books.
The school probably hasn’t told them the books are mostly garbage; the computer route is the way to do it.
I also don’t agree that young people are poorer today, compared to say decades ago. Every metric I see shows them to be generally much richer. Most smart people do well while living cheaply (usually with their parents) and then struggle when they get into the property business, and this never changed. But they have lots of other pressures and distractions these days, and that is why we are seeing the long term decline.
Something needs to be done to make GA fashionable
That said, there is a lot of young people on EuroGA.
Yes. Germany certainly has been doing well economically in the last 10 years (long may it last, but I am not so optimistic, no-deal Brexit being just one of those worries), and whilst not all translates to people being generally better off, I think that disposable incomes for those “candidates” for a PPL have developed very solidly. Exceptions may apply.
The reason for any decline (if there is any in Germany) are mostly different (low-cost airline travel, bureaucracy, simulators, smartphones, “green trendiness”, political correctness, etc.).
I would like to come back to the thread title, which does indeed carry some truth. Maybe the example of differences training for a simple tailwheel airplane was a poorly chosen one, but yes, in some niches of GA, we have really dropped below the critical mass to make it practical.
In training, think of somewhat more exotic types, particularly on the higher end of GA. Think small Turboprops. If you need training in a Piper Cheyenne for example, there is essentially one place in Europe (Germany) which does this. But you could also think of MU-2s, Aero Commanders or even Silver Eagles. People have to travel all across Europe to get such (approved) training.
And even in the twin piston scene, it is similar. Remember that differences training needs to be re-taken each year in the MEP class. Need someone proficient (and approved) for the C421? For a Beech Baron? For an Aerostar? Good luck!
Then we come to shops proficient and approved for certains types. And avionics shops in particular. If you are in western Europe, you might be lucky to have something within 100-300 NM. But if you are in south or eastern Europe, you might have to fly 500 or even 1000 NM to get to the right place…. possibly with an unairworthy aircraft…
I’ve seen a lot of people dropping out in recent years during loss of homebase or rather the homebase doing everything they can to stop small GA and the lack of valid alternatives in a good distance. GA at ZRH is dying a slow but painful death due to total unpredictability whether it is possible to fly the nex day, (VFR and slow IFR get supsended at the smallest problem such as if there are easterly winds in the TAF) and has in the past lead to diversions and other hassle. The airfields around us are unsuitable for what serious GA need, either grass or no night ops and none of them is IFR. This has lead some to quite a few people giving up.
In Switzerland some people also have started to realize how vulnerable they have become towards the law and with the effective end of just culture and at the same time compulsory reporting of even minor incidents it is a deadly combination and creates an atmosphere of fear within the aviation community. It leads to ATC working very conservatively and minimizing any risk of exposure to this threat, which automatically means they reduce to the absolute necessary while stopping everything which is, in the mind of their superiors, unecessary risk. GA is the first one of those. Also pilots have realized that even a minor incident can cause them to have a criminal record and will therefore think twice if the risk is worth it.
And yes, we are below the critical mass but mainly also because our lobby if we even can call it that have been way to quiet and civil in the last years when it came to local red tape and restrictions. Very recently and if I remember right for the first time, 3 main organisations (AOPA, Aeroclub and Airport association) have united in sending an open letter to the FOCA here finally listing up all the problems which have been introduced restricting and exterminating GA: ATC unwillingness to accomodate following the just culture scandal, red tape regulation reducing the capacity on airports, threat of airspace redesign which would close down at least 4 well used airfields around Zurich and some others. Too little and most probably too late.
Also the utility of GA has been massively reduced by problems with PPR all over the place, which takes away the flexibility individual transport should get.
My outlook is very bleak I am afraid. Personally I see GA declining and die out with the older population. I myself am now trying to get my retraining for regaining my lost SEP done, but I notice how hard it is only to find instructors or even more so examiners and get time tables sorted. I also notice how busy people really have become, not only myself who basically has no more free time at all and if I go fly something else suffers but generally if I am trying to make up time for something even not aviaation related, people have diaries full for months ahead of time. How should they go flying with 80 hour work weeks and families who demand attention on top of that? Working conditions in most places have deteriorated massively and people are eager to keep their jobs, therefore will accept almost everything from their employers. Therefore also larger trips with the risk of not being back on time have become impossible for most people as they have to be at work without any tolerance for irregularities which GA flying brings.
