GA activity and its decline

LeSving wrote:

I’m not desperately trying to do anything. I’m just telling it as I see it. You on the other hand (with several others) seem very desperate trying to depict a PPL level aircraft as the only alternative for “serious touring”. Serious touring, what does that even mean? All the pilots touring around Europe in microlights are not “serious” enough, is that it? Honestly, I don’t know what you mean? Who needs patronizing clubs when we have EuroGA ?

For me touring is important. I’d love using a modern UL for that, but that’s impossible for two reasons: payload and IFR.

I know you don’t need IFR for touring, but it does substantially increase dispatch rate, it makes flying easier and also gives you great peace of mind in marginal weather.

As Peter recently said about the IR, once you have it you will never want to go back. Once I started flying again after my 18-year break I knew at once that I had to get my IR back as soon as possible.

OK I have an IR, but it’s used for work. Like the 90% I prefer my PPL flying to be comfortable VFR. May lower the despatch rate but the grasshopper is not on an AOC. Equipment wise I may improve the quality of the camping gear on board. A lot of professional
pilots hang up their IR headset (some can’t wait to hang up) and ‘go back’ to VFR only.

The hard in hard IFR in a light category GA aircraft is hard work.

The UK has the perfect balance with the IMC rating, which adds some safety margin, some utility and is easy to maintain, but doesn’t necessarily increase the despatch rate. A real tragedy that this rating, which has never led to an IMC fatality, will soon go the way of the dodo.

LeSving: Hell no. I am just objecting your biased claims. If anyone can get along with the constraints of a microlight, I am happy to admit that it’s the right aircraft for him. But that doesn’t make it the right aircraft for me or for many other people.

The WT9 of a befriended club is a nice towplane but with only 148kg useful load I can’t even think of using it for touring, not even solo. Yes there are microlights with higher useful load but being a 130kg pilot any of those planes are severely limited in useability for me. And even normal people of 80-90 kg struggle with the useful load while touring.

I am advocating that you need to be free to chose the aircraft that fits your planned flight. Not push everyone into microlighting based on your own limitations or false description of certified aircraft ownership or maintenance.

Anyway, non of this is a description of decline, nore a reason for local decline. In my experience there are plenty people interested in aviation and ready to join our community, but they need to be adressed properly. No new pilot can see the difference between a nice C150, a nice Katana or Aquilla or even Dynamic. But they can see if the aircraft is neglected dirty rusty or has cracks all over. New students usually want a solid education by a friendly instructor and not being yelled at by some grumpy old pal who knows only one way to operate an aircraft (that possibly contradicts all the books and articles they read…). Aviation needs instructors and mentors who explain the true merits of ownership and infrastructure to use it. If we manage to change the initial address, aviation will take on again.

BTW: Our club members are allowed to take the aircraft anywhere the manual permits operation. We do not restrict useage other than legal limitations of the specific aircraft.

mh wrote:

But that doesn’t make it the right aircraft for me or for many other people

I have never said that either. You have to remember that alternatives to fixed wing PPL aircraft, did not exist before 1980-1990 (20-30 years ago). In the 60s and 70s there were no microlights, no reliable, cheap and easy to fly small helicopters, no experimentals that the average pilot had any real chance of building in less than 10 years (often the second, third, or fourth builder finally finished them). Microlights with normal aircraft performance and handling, came with the Rotax 912. Kits that the average pilot had a fighting chance to finish in 2-4 years came with Vans, then came “quick bult” that can be finished within a year or two, today you can “build” an aircraft in two weeks. Private helicopters came with Robinson. There are alternatives today that did not exist in the so called “golden era” of GA.

mh wrote:

Anyway, non of this is a description of decline, nore a reason for local decline. In my experience there are plenty people interested in aviation and ready to join our community, but they need to be adressed properly

Why? because otherwise they would fly microlights, experimentals or helicopters, as well as other things like para/hang-gliders or gliders? We have three big, international ventures for light aviation. Aero started as a glider thing with a handful of participants. Then microlights was included, and it took off big time. It wouldn’t exist today without microlights. AirVenture, the largest aviation gathering of any kind in the world, is a the heart of EAA (Experimental Aviation Association). It would not exist without experimentals. Sun ‘n’ fun is more or less the same, started and run by EAA. “GA” is as large as ever, but it has moved on from the 60s and 70s, it has changed. Sure, certified GA wants to piggyback on this, which is fine, but it is symptomatic that certified GA is not capable of creating something remotely similar.

Today we can chose from hundreds of different new factory built microlights. We can chose from dozens of experimentals, most of them high performance, IFR capable machines, or whatever else the heart choses. We have one, ONE, factory built PPL GA private high performance aircraft that is reasonable modern, the Cirrus, and it cost from €500k and up, and sell a couple of hundred each year worldwide. Robinson sells more helicopters, and they are all cheaper, except the turbine version that costs the same as a fully equipped Cirrus. The rest of factory built PPL GA are recycled stuff from the 50s and 60s, with one exception; Diamond.

I am sure most microlight pilots would love a higher MTOW, so at least two people can travel in comfort. Some would also like to have IFR, fly acro, fly at night and all the stuff we can do with a PPL. It’s just that the value/cost and value/bureaucracy ratios are way too low today, except for experimental aircraft.

LeSving wrote:

In the 60s and 70s there were no microlights, no reliable, cheap and easy to fly small helicopters, no experimentals that the average pilot had any real chance of building in less than 10 years (often the second, third, or fourth builder finally finished them)

(Bold added by me)

OK, I can’t resist A substantial number of people aren’t “average”, don’t want to be, and demonstrate it regularly.

1955 Wittman Tailwind (this is a friend’s plane flying today, every single part you can see except the tires and the position light on the wing tip was made from raw materials by the builder. >350 examples built, Jim Clements in Wisconsin has so far built 10 of them himself!… Long winters there)

1965 Thorp T-18 (400 built)

1974 Rand KR-2 (1900 of the two seaters built)

And finally, 1976 Rutan Vari-Eze (400 were flying by 1980, just four years later)

Most examples of the homebuilt types above are now 30-50 years old, just like many type certified aircraft. There has been no particular revolution in light aircraft, ever, it’s been a gradual evolution. Most types produced along the way have their benefits for somebody, and personally I think there’s there’s no need to draw endless artificial lines between them. I think the fact that regulators have created greater than necessary distinctions is something that should be culturally minimized by pilots and factually corrected by governments, not celebrated and subjected to endless energy wasting analysis.

Peter wrote:

As Alioth says, this is within pilot maint privileges, both EASA-reg and N-reg.
Also, private operation, there is no need for a 145 company for anything at all. In the UK, even flight training doesn’t need a 145

Try to do that in Spain.
Your maintenance program is prepared by your CAMO. Your CAMO is also your 145…
Ok, now I can hear you telling me that you don’t need a CAMO. Then try to convince the national authority inspector that you’re going to change the oil, tubes, and battery… simply it is not usual at all here to proceed like that. in fact, I don’t know of anybody that does like that. here the maintenance program of any aircraft is a copy-paste of everything proposed/recommended by the manufacturer, including each and every SB, SIL, etc.
As I said in the beginning I only can talk about the situation in Spain. Maybe in France, for example, a lot of owners do this kind of tasks, I don’t know.
I still have hope that this will change with ELA1, but let’s see.

Anyway, the main issue with 145 is not the labor cost, at least in Spain (around 50€/h) but the price of the certified material and the lead time for a lot of this material. I’ve been waiting weeks, some time months, for some items. And yes, I value my own time at zero when performing my own maintenance because I really enjoy with it and because I prefer to do it by myself and be flexible and quick better than having the aircraft on ground for weeks waiting for some part and 145 availability.

And finally, I could have given another examples maybe more relevant, I have a lot of them, but the point would be the same.
I installed a basic EFIS as backup (Avmap Ultra EFIS) by 1000€ and a few hours of work. What would be the cost to install that in a Piper?
I ordered it by internet and the next day it was delivered at home, and one day after it was already installed. How much time would have taken this for a Piper?
I replaced the altimeter on one occasion. It cost +- 500€ and was replaced by me in 30 minutes.
Etc

I think that it would be really difficult to try to prove that certified aviation is not much more expensive than experimental/ultralight. Especially if there is a Rotax involved. I have experience with both.

On the other hand, I’m not even trying to prove that experimental or ultralights are far superior than certified airplanes.
It is pretty obvious that there are certain type of missions that cannot be flown with one of these airplanes. Something as simple as travelling with other 3 people is not possible.
My point, what I said, is just that the 90% of the PPLs don’t fly these kind of ‘missions’ more than twice a year, so they don’t really need the extra capabilities that a certified airplane offers. And I think that this fact, added to the difference in costs, flexibility, etc, are the main drivers of the PPL-level GA decline. At least this is what I see here in Spain.

But in that case you can’t blame EASA if your local people just do stuff way more restrictive than it needs to be and/or your pilots and owners refuse to stand uo to it. In that case you are free to change the CAMO to a german one that is more inline with reality (I never thought I’d ever say this).

The DAeC LV NRW for instance offers cheap and good advice on this topics. They already have a lot of Spanish Planes on their list.

Indeed, quite a few private GA aircraft in Spain (and also in Italy) are D-reg, because their owner want to avoid AENA / ENAC.

In general, the tendency to gold-plate EASA rules and to interpret them a restrictively and rigidly as possible is strongest in countries where private GA is the weakest.

In the “big” GA countries (Germany, France, UK) there are many more pilots, clubs, etc. looking very closely at what the local CAA is doing and involving AOPAs, etc.

I’ve also noticed that the countries with the most indifferent and/or chaotic bureaucracies are also the countries with the most rigid applications of the rules. I love Spain, I love the language and I have many good friends in Spain, but I’d never live there as the rigid bureaucracy would drive me insane in fairly short order. Even just getting a local prepaid SIM card is a half hour rigmarole in Spain (buying a SIM card in the UK takes less than two minutes), even subscribing to a magazine required a DNI to be entered.