What ‘delivers value’ for me was and is (for 20 years now) flying and owning 40-80 year old planes that I love, because of their longevity and engineering quality as much as anything else. It is very exciting, and whether Joe Average and his facile world view is interested is of zero concern to me. The world has always been filled up with people like that – my job is to avoid them and go where they aren’t 
Flying model airplanes, hanging under parachutes and owning throw away 21st century consumer goods as a consolation prize is not quite the same thing as flying and owning a real, timeless and beautiful airplane, or a series of them… and I’m very happy to enjoy the privilege.
Ibra wrote:
So are we expecting a comeback of the mighty Mooney M20J? back in 70’s there was a huge obsession with efficiency after Golf crisis
Well, efficiency is a massive issue in this whole story indeed. And the M20J still is the most efficient airframe ever built on the certified market with a gas mileage of 18 MPG at 160 kts, followed by the C model at 17.3 MPG @140KT. Funnily the AA5 Tiger is also a very efficient airplane with 17 MPG…. Everybody else is at 16 or below.
The only airplane which does better is the Panthera, if the 195KT/10.9 GPH figures are correct with 20 MPG, but that one is not certified or really verified yet.
The POH is a bit optimistic. I don’t think anyone is getting 160 kts on less than 10 gph! I wouldn’t swap mine for anything else as it is. Family and baggage for 3 hours is perfectly doable and will be until they don’t want to go with us anymore.
Doesn’t the diesel DA40 do something like 20mpg?
If efficiency and four seats in a new production certified aircraft is the requirement, the US suppliers are not the place to look. The certified travelling plane design that sells currently is the SR22 which uses quite a bit of fuel, but I don’t think fuel prices are high enough to make a difference to the new plane buyer in the main (US) market. Not a lot of people in the US who want an efficient aircraft would look to the certified designs, so the efficiency comparison between them is largely irrelevant to the market. Obviously some people do like Mooney 201s etc and good luck to them, but they aren’t going back into production and those who really prioritize cross country efficiency tend to buy an RV nowadays unless they absolutely need 4 seats, which is rarely the case. RVs are in the 20s mpg.
I have flown M20J and DA40NG (probably 400h in each), 20MPG is a bit high: POH figures are slightly exaggerated but for relative comparison things would average out the same for the two aircraft in economy cruise settings, I would say 17MPG are more realistic
You could run both 6GPH-7GPH with 120TAS-130TAS in 6kft, the 115KIAS at 25L/H is boring as hell: it’s what you would get in shinny new 100hp-120hp UL/LSA, same price for the trip but you are sitting “3pob on 20lb/ft2” not “2pob on 10lbs/ft2”, the former is way more comfortable on +5h max range: 1.41 times if you think in terms of air-solid elasticity…
Yes, 2 seats RV do consistently hit 20mpg on real flying but it’s beautiful weather flying, although some people fly them in clouds (when I tried with someone, his mount was not even IFR certified, it reminded me of Astir glider, without airbraks or parachutes)
We’ve had many debates on price elasticity of demand in GA.
The problem is that it gets politicised. If someone says that avgas can go up by 2x and they will fly just the same, they get labelled as “filthy rich” This is partly due to present-day society (a bit of “socialism” is regarded as desirable virtue signalling) and partly due to GA having a large % of people who are really struggling to afford flying – something which I think few other hobbies have (nobody tries to go fishing, and complains on a load of fishing forums about it, if they really cannot afford a fishing rod, for example).
If avgas price more than doubled, say to €5/litre, that would pretty well kill off certified GA. But certified GA has almost vanished in places where avgas has not been pricey: Spain and Italy are two examples where it collapsed without much input from avgas pricing, leaving a lot of “under the radar” UL activity, and most of that is not the €200k machines. So that is an interesting counter-example. Something else was responsible for that.
What was it? Hard to get Spanish and Italian pilots to tell us, but I think we know. It’s the collapse of their infrastructure.
I think GA is sensitive to lots of things but it isn’t simply fuel cost and landing fees. So long as these are not completely crazy (say, avgas below €3/litre and landing fees below €50) I think it is more sensitive to the general ratio of value versus hassle, much as discussed in so many threads. And GA is always full of hassle. Even just keeping a plane somewhere is hassle, due to airport politics, maintenance politics, revenue protection, etc. Flying is generally a lot of fun anyway, so GA enjoyment is sharply related to how this hassle is managed. Among those who drop out of GA after some years, the inability (or failure) to manage this hassle has usually been a key factor.
Of course there are sub-communities in GA which loudly demand landing fees below £10/€10 and will fly another 100nm to save 10p/10c on avgas, but any research on who posts that stuff on forums leads to the discovery that these are 0-10hr/year pilots whose activities don’t feature on the GA economic landscape anyway.
I’m with Peter and LS. I love airplanes and flying them to cool places. I love sharing this with as many people as I can, not through lobbying or participating in a movement, but one by one through experience. There was a brief moment many decades ago in one corner of the world when GA had its boom time. But that moment is gone, and now we’re back to small aircraft being a niche hobby.
And what’s wrong with that really? Flying takes lots of time and money to do safely and proficiently, and it’s unrealistic to imagine a sustainable model of personal flight at scale unless the skill barrier drops to the level of driving. Which it never will, because the operating environment is too complex.
So let’s enjoy the privilege, share it as often as possible, and seek to inspire someone to follow in our footsteps.
Peter wrote:
What was it? Hard to get Spanish and Italian pilots to tell us, but I think we know. It’s the collapse of their infrastructure.
At least for Spain, that’s incorrect. It was the bursting of the real estate bubble followed by the global financial crisis. How do I know – I lived there during these years.
Again for Spain, there’s another factor: there are many, many more UK fields than airports / airfields for certified a/c and from what I read here (thanks @Bosco!) same appears to be the case for Italy. While I gather this is changing, at the time these fields were pretty much off-limits to non-UL airplanes. If you live in Spain and don’t need to fly internationally or need four seats, a UL simply makes one hell of a lot more sense than anything bigger.
dutch_flyer wrote:
There was a brief moment many decades ago in one corner of the world when GA had its boom time. But that moment is gone, and now we’re back to small aircraft being a niche hobby.
Many people do seem to see the viability of an activity being tied to its visibility and status in mass culture. I’m not wired that way at all, quite the opposite, and being a bit contrarian can work out especially well in relation to either personal investments or hobbies, or both if they end up being the same thing. Arguably the best time to be engaged in any activity is when it has yet to be, or is no longer, of interest to the mainstream. In the former case, when it comes to hobbies you find more genuine enthusiasm and creativity among participants. In the latter case, you get a lot of nice hardware for pennies on the dollar.
I gave up buying classic cars and motorcycles when the prices went nuts, and was particularly enjoying certified GA for the two decades up until 2020 or so… at which the market caught up and plane prices took off again. These things seem to go in waves (not a single boom) and IMO the best plan is to be out of phase, particularly if you can avoid living where you may be coerced into conformity by an authoritarian society that would prefer for you to have neither money nor any pleasure outside of mainstream activity.
Experimental category aircraft are currently a near-mainstream activity in the US, with RVs in particular being built by the thousands from kits. I was around as a kid in the 70s and 80s when that was not the case, and despite Jim Bede’s failed efforts there were no viable kits until the Christen Eagle and Sequoia Falco kits came along. The level of knowledge among homebuilders was much, much higher and it was a great time to be involved. The flip side is that I’m now waiting for the post-boom time when all these RVs are sitting around unwanted, and aren’t appreciating over two years from $80K to $140K or whatever. The problem is that I may be too old or already dead when that occurs!
