Is the GA aircraft owner profile changing? A gradual decline in "touring" GA.

etn wrote:

My experience exactly. With a 3-year old child, relatively long commute to the airfield, a job which restricts flying to weekends, and weather limitations, I am lucky if I can dedicate 2 days per month to flyin

I experience the great luck that my wife supports my flying and she says where we’ve got to go. With the kids, of course. And she has some good ideas! So all is actually family time when I’m flying. Downside is, that I’m always filled up like a caravan, but the plane is quite roomy, so no problem. Unfortunately she’s not interested at all in “fly-to-fly”, so I’m always looking for a possibility to have some training every now and then to stay current. That’s not family time. But other than that, any trip is welcome. This morning I asked her what about a flying trip to East Africa, one of my dreams (who don’t?) she said: we’ll do that in a couple of years when it’s easier to go without the kids!

I love her :-)

MedEwok wrote:

Well, one has to do one 150 nm flight for the PPL. Maybe that requirement could be increased? I spent about 10 hrs of my PPL just randomly flying around to reach the 45 hrs minimum, including doing another solo 150 nm flight, and those 10 hours could of course have been spent on a “touring” like training flight. Of course I know that other pilots might actually need those 10 hours to reach a level fit for the exam flight.

I did something similar. The instructor threw in a couple of extra, but fairly short, trips to places the school wouldn’t usually take students – Shoreham and Manston (now closed), but in the main the spare time was filled flying around and doing extra practice of the ‘set piece’ aspects of the test. Such practice wasn’t really necessary, but did mean the test itself was a total non-event.

It’s the one regret from my PPL training that I didn’t realise this extra flying time could have been used more productively. I could easily have got the retractable and VP prop differences training done, perhaps tailwheel too. The night rating would have been harder logistically given that I did my PPL across a summer, but possible nonetheless.

With the kids, of course

How old are they?

I know many friends who packed up flying (or doing anything really) after getting the kids…the majority can’t even organise Sunday afternoon sortie with kids to see aircraft in hangar or get fresh air in an airfield, let alone fly with them !

They have to stay at home until babies or kids are 18 years old…they don’t even change nappies, cook, study or clean house: they are simply sucked into 20 years old black hole where you do nothing meaningful with their life: not even walking, let alone flying

Ibra wrote:

the majority can’t even organise Sunday afternoon sortie with kids to see aircraft in hangar or get fresh air in an airfield, let alone fly with them !

I’m very proud on having finally managed to drag my wife and the kids to the hangar to see the aircraft up close. Son (6) got very interested, wife was much more interested than I feared and only daughter (5) was terribly afraid of even sitting down in the parked aircraft inside the hangar, apparently afraid we would take off suddenly.

Wife’s main problem is that the aircraft (a C172R) isn’t spacious enough inside and that seating both her and the kids is difficult (who sits upfront? And who “manages” the kids if she does).

Yet this was the closest I got any of my family to my hobby apart from having done a 30 minute local flight with my dad two years ago.

@MedEwok – play the long game. A few gentle hints and I’ve just done my first couple of short trips with my daughter, who is 10, this year. Sold as alternatives to driving or a trip otherwise not possible (Le Touquet), but we are only 3 in total in the 172. Enthusiasm is growing, but I had to very consciously hold myself back from pushing it too hard.

Winston wrote:

For what it’s worth, MedEwok, my budget is the same and I also think that’s a lot! I would not have my share in an aircraft had my (second) long-term partner already have her mortgage paid off (I moved in with her).

Thanks @Winston. I occasionally feel “poor” compared to many EuroGA users, which is of course a silly conclusion. There are several here who earn roughly the same or even less than I do, but have given a higher priority to flying in their lives than I have, or don’t have kids and a wife, or both. Others have more disposable income, usually through entrepreneurship, which is admirable but it is fairly pointless for me to be envious of. Even with my limited funds, I could afford to fly nearly 50 hours in the aircraft I currently rent, per year, but do fly much less due to time constraints.

To relate this back to the OP, GA and especially touring GA is a very time consuming activity which needs someone with lots of disposable income and “disposable time”, the latter of which is probably the hardest to come buy in our society, especially among people with the former.

Airborne_Again wrote:

I’m not sure I agree with either of these statements. But it is indisputable that training is very important for a club, not just money-wise but to provide replacement for those members that leave – for whatever reason. Generally speaking in Sweden clubs with a flight school prosper while those without slowly wither away.

The situation is that 60-70% of the flying is instruction. The remaining 30-40% is flown by less than 5% of the club members. That 5% can have a good flying life being essentially sponsored by the students. From the outside it looks like a success. Lots of planes, lots of “activity”, Lots of people getting their PPLs (of which 95% will never use). The UL scene is a bit different. The normal situation is the instructor (any instructor) gets himself a plane he uses for instructing. The club members get their own planes when finishing with instructions. There are clubs nonetheless (a requirement in Norway the way the UL regime works), but the focus is more on infrastructure (hangars, runways and so on). There is no dependence on anything in particular to keep it going. The activity is 100% true. If people stop flying, there will be less planes and less activity. Today, the average age is creeping up to dangerously high levels though, and few young students.

LeSving wrote:

The situation is that 60-70% of the flying is instruction. The remaining 30-40% is flown by less than 5% of the club members. That 5% can have a good flying life being essentially sponsored by the students.

That’s not what we see, but YMMW.

Peter wrote:

To see Europe from the air, one needs more range than that.

Probably right, but anyone taking non-pilot passengers knows that their endurance is often less than the aircraft range. If we stay with the PA28-161 of your example, you will take about 2 hours to fly those 250 nm and by that time your passengers will probably want a pit stop anyways.