As with many things now my guess is that things are getting more polarised. Those that have the aircraft or access to and willingness have continued to fly perhaps down on hours but still flying. Others who perhaps don’t fly so much, find reasons not to and I think that’s a slippery slope, once you’ve lost currency and are doing other things it’s easy to drop flying.
I am pleasantly surprised to see several renters getting into ownerships this year.
I wish you my best !
Yes I think we will lose a lot of pilots.
Also, looking at some of what I see and hear, I think we will lose a fair number of higher-hour and experienced pilots. A lot of people seem to give up around the 20 year mark – e.g. here – and this is likely to push many to re-evaluating things.
Ibra wrote:
U.K. average is less than 10h
Isn’t that almost true on any given year, in most countries this side of the Atlantic? Seeing how many people in our club hustle to scare up a revalidation flight as their SEP(L) due date approaches and do not manage to get a renewal by experience makes me wonder…
The UK average is thought to be 20-30 in normal times.
But yes there is a fairly big standard deviation around that 
We have had plenty of previous threads on this. In certain countries which have a lot more GA pilots than the UK the average is actually a lot smaller and probably is ~10hrs.
The Inverness Flying School operated until near sunset on 24/12, then closed until 16/1. That made sense because of a Scottish shutdown starting on 26/12.
But the movement shutdown has been tightened and extended. They will likely have to delay restarting until movement is freely permitted.
Patrick wrote:
Btw, here’s a toast to all those who contributed to my thread about this and all who helped out via Telegram further on. Special thanks to @By9468840 for countless tips on Arrow ownership.
hey buddy. I am glad to have helped you even a little bit.
So here is how 2020 worked out for me.
Jan-March amazing flying with my Arrow 200. I finished my NVFR just in time before lockdown
Lockdown from April to June, so no flying. I ended up temporarily signing up at a flight school in Switzerland and did 1.5 hours with a flight instructor.
In July, I took the family along for an amazing 18 day trip across Graz, Losinj, Brac, Dubrovnik, Venice, Cannes in our Arrow 200.
When we got back we decided the Arrow is just a little too small and slow for our trips.
In October we sold the Arrow 200 and bought a PA24 Comanche 250 with 120 gal tanks!
I started by CBIR training, took the first theory exams and passed the first 4 topics. Now studying the 2nd exam for the remaining 3.
Flew 10 hours in the amazing Comanche and came the 2nd lockdown. Airport closed 3 weeks ago.
Now, I use the lockdown time to do avionics overhaul and to put the Comanche in perfect mechanical shape.
all in all, I think I have just about 40 hours this year unlike the usual 80-90 per year.
I tried to remain productive during lock downs and it between I managed to do our summer holiday, sell and buy my dream airplane, finally start working on my instrument ticket. I can’t wait to get my IR and use it for the trips in 2021 all over Europe.
I just looked up my totals for 2020 and was very surprised to find that I got a total time of 73 hours. About half of that is dual time, most of which was training for the Instrument Rating. That I was able to finish in August, and that means I actually managed to achieve my main flying goal for that year!
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to use it much yet, not because of CoViD- there never was an explicit ban on flying in Germany- but because of a bad combination of personal availablity and European weather.
All in all I think I managed to get the best out of it!
For 2021 I think I will finally get the TMG class rating, not out of a newfound love for these, but to be able to revalidate these class ratings as well. There is a certain demand in the German club environment, so I’ll get it.
The other plans are to use the IR more- and to do a night flight in the literal sense. The idea is to take off at our unlighted grass field as close to EECT as possible, fly through the whole night at loitering power and land the next day at the same field at BMCT. This is doable for an Aquila 210 with full tanks around the summer solstice, so the date for this is pretty much fixed.
I know this might sound crazy, but I calculated that it can be done- so I have to try!
CharlieRomeo wrote:
fly through the whole night at loitering power and land the next day at the same field
Wow!
Completely crazy
What a way to get night hours
Let us know how it goes in June
That would be very cool indeed. If I didn’t fear to fall asleep, I would plan for it.
You could fly a huge distance while making night hours.
