Peter wrote:
If you are running a school then you are passing on all the costs to clients anyway, so why bother?
Unless you’re running a monopoly you want to charge students competitive prices.
My 0.02
1) requesting a transit from north to south across (e.g.) Bristol Airspace and hearing those fabled words “remain OCAS due to controller workload” – heading south down the Severn you then have the option of either detouring east around past Bath or descending and taking your chances flying low over Avonmouth, down the MiG alley there. I’ve never met an Airspace controlling organisation that has been so reluctant to give support to other airspace users than that particular unit – the fact that they stopped providing LARS showing the sort of contempt that they hold GA in – along the lines of “this is my airspace, you’re not allowed in here, burger off”.
2) The NIMBYs, especially the retired squadron leader types living near to airfields with a pair of binoculars, with the local police chief on speed dial to report any aircraft not exactly flying the proscribed circuit.
3) The word “Certified”. Just replace it with “extortionately priced”.
you want to charge students competitive prices.
Indeed, but
Peter wrote:
airborne time is extra admin over “hobbs time” (traditionally a mechanical engine revolutions totaliser)
I don’t see how this extra admin time is even noticeable – particularly if you use electronic logs which I would expect any flight school would. My club uses the web-based booking and logging system myWebLog, which is used by over 100 clubs in Sweden, more than 60 clubs in Norway and lots of syndicates and commercial flight schools. The system automatically keeps track of when maintenance is due including forecasting the date based on bookings.
everybody else at the airfield is doing the same thing as you
So there is a cartel?
you planes are already being maintained just well enough to not fall apart
Well, our aircraft aren’t maintained that way….
I think Sweden is not representative of the state of the GA club/rental scene elsewhere in Europe
Let’s say that I wish it was like you describe, Airborne_Again, everywhere else too.
Alpha_Floor wrote:
In general, my main issue is how bloody expensive everything is and how everyone tries to rip you off on the basis of: “screw you, if you do general aviation you must be rich!” Medical examinations, CAA fees, exam fees, ATO fees, landing fees, aviation supplies etc. Everything is ridiculously expensive.
Agreed. Aviation in general is a highly regulated environment where certification and paperwork/red tape have escalated to an extent, where particularly GA reverts to a rich man’s hobby and middle or lower income classes are priced out. This obviously fits into the world of socialist and environmentalist goals, whereby attacking the “rich” and envy politics are their primary reasons of being.
Personally I think this has to be addressed more vigorosly by the GA lobbies such as they stand, but they appear to be tied down with trying to keep regulators in check.
Also it is very important not to allow monopolies of any kind. Unfortunately, all of our component producers are near monopolists, be it power plant, avionics and most others in the certified market.
We can see the consequences clearly in the US market, where the certified market has collapsed to basically insignificance whereas the uncertified or experimental market booms, as IFR e.t.c. is all allowed over there for this kind of airplanes. To an extent we can see the same here with the move towards UL, for all those people who can do with local flying and day VFR. The question may well be if Part NCO might hold a possible future for this kind of thing, in as so far if it was revised to allow non certified avionics and powerplants as well as reduction in red tape (minor/major change documentations e.t.c.) for airplanes operated strictly under part NCO.
Alpha_Floor wrote:
The absolutely ridiculous opening hours of most airfields. It’s a Summer Sunday and the airfield is only open 10:00 to 16:00h? What bloody joke is that? Nobody can do any meaningful day-trip with those opening times. And all because there’s nobody in the tower to give me a QFE (which I don’t need).
Again agreed, also for the night flying part which go in the same area. Airports and airfields should be declared infrastructure and opening hours and PPR be abolished.
Wet dream in a society more and more guided by envy and who demands more regulation in the vain hope that this would actually improve what amounts to incompetence. Personally I believe in Europe the main problem with this is overcrowding. Many parts of Europe today have no more vacant spaces where there are actually few people living, most of it is like a large metropolitain area grown together. Maybe that explains why in many places in the US and e.g. Australia aviation is looked at very differently… while in built up areas similar problems are present like in most of Europe.
In the other parts of Europe opening hours and PPR is just a justification for laziness and red tape, particularly where airports are actually manned but still labled shut. This is something which should be outlawed.
The issues regarding club / school flying with all their creative bookkeping and ways of keeping their pilots on the short leach clearly has to do with the fact that ownership still is something here which is regarded as the exception and “for the rich only” rather than the rule. Clubs would not be able to use such extortive pricing and treat their membership like this if they were not a de facto monopoly. So the answer to that is as simple as it is deemed impossible for too many: get your own plane and let them fleece somone else.
It seems like the GA scene in France is more like that in Sweden, than it is Switzerland or the UK.
Sweeping statements about what is happening all over Europe just are totally incorrect.
Most of our airfields do not reqire PPR or PNR.
Most of our airfields are dawn to dusk. Those with lighting are often 24hr.
You don’t need and don’t have an ATS at the great majority of airfields.
Private airfields, well there are a lot of them so they can’t be that difficult to get permission.
Many airfields are free of landing fees and those which are not in the vast majority of cases are under €20 including parking.
ATS are very helpful.
ULM in France is very big now but so is CNSK (kit planes) CDNR (orphans and experimental after they are no longer experimental).I can’t remember the other categories. So there is something for everyone and not just the rich.
We could improve things dramatically with a GAR system IMO.
On a European level I would like to see CDNR aircraft permitted for IFR flight throughout Europe, or at least within all EASA signatories.
I would also like a similar situation for all ULM throughout Europe without the need for prior agreement.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
This obviously fits into the world of socialist and environmentalist goals, whereby attacking the “rich” and envy politics are their primary reasons of being.
Isn’t it strange then, that Sweden, which has traditionally been among the most “socialist” and “environmentalist” countries in Europe, doesn’t have this kind of “envy”-based opposition to GA flying?
Or maybe you are misrepresenting both “socialists”, “environmentalists”, and the reasons for “GA-envy”?
Sweden does have its GA problems though…Have you tried visiting Stockholm by light aeroplane?
There are something like 30+ countries in “political Europe” and in most of them GA is struggling, with very small numbers. In some of the big ones (Spain, Italy) it has almost collapsed into an UL scene operating under the radar from strips. France, Germany, UK, and a few others are still doing well, arguably largely supported by the “WW2 inheritance” of many runways.
Getting a complete picture of the rest (the majority) is going to be difficult for the reason I posted above 
