why would a young boy go to the trouble begging his parents to get some expensive equipment, having to spend time finding and going to a field, taking care of the batteries, and fixing his models, when instead he can fly day and night using the fantastic simulation software at disposal. Nice and cosy at home…
My younger son used to be heavily into RC flying but had to fight a lot against the typical model flyer club official personality profile (pompous, arrogant, officious and generally a dickhead). Model clubs attract those types in large numbers.
I used to “mentor” a few young lads, taking them on local flights, but they gradually disappeared as they “grew up”. Also, with today’s mad CAA no-prisoners policy I have stopped all mentoring because one needs to only chat with a passenger and BANG you are busted. I’ve done two busts and both were the result of taking someone for a fun flight. No wonder many/most UK FIs turn off the transponder…
I think the decline in GA is mostly caused by a broader social change: it isn’t fashionable anymore. The lives of typical young people are different from what they were say 30 years ago. Central to this is the near total absence of women: getting women in is a very strong driver of male participation. There are many examples just here in the UK where e.g. Biggin Hill has gone from a lively club-type community (full of women) in the 1970s to an aircraft owner milking graveyard today. Shoreham 15+ years ago had a lively scene in the evenings (and very busy jazz nights in the decades before that) and today is socially dead after about 4pm. The people who used to hang out doing these things moved to other stuff, but what? GA has not kept pace with social changes.
with GA increased cost and disproportionate regulation is likely a far bigger factor.
I think, adjusting for inflation, the costs have not gone up. What has been lost is the willingness of young people to spend the money for the meagre return they get in terms of social life. Young men are pretty focused on where they spend their time and money – basically where there are women hanging around. And women are found in the social parts of GA: gliding and aeros. IOW, not much flying and a lot of chitchat 
Peter wrote:
I think, adjusting for inflation, the costs have not gone up.
In 2019 I happened to find the annual report of my flying club from 1992 and did some comparisons. It turned out that – adjusted for inflation – our rental prices had doubled in that time period. Fuel and maintenance had both gone up 4 times.
When I learned to fly here in L.A. in 1998, I paid $35/hr for a PA28 (wet) and $20/hr for the instructor, so a total of $55/hr. Adjusted for inflation, this comes out to about $101 today. However, today these costs would run to about $ 210 (at the very minimum in a club scenario) to about $ 300 in a school environment.
Most people I talked to while getting my PPL are complaining about the price tag. People just can’t afford it. They can only dream about buying and renting to really fly somewhere is just too expensive and not practical. Of all the reasons I suspect money is the main reason GA is in decline in Europe.
From European perspective, lot of aviation costs tend to weight more of USD FX rate in addition to “average domestic” inflation rates, the majority of stuff is imported
Like all hobbies, GA is (relatively) expensive and needs lot of time & effort, I gather now it’s a hard sell as people can find easier hobbies?
Even “grass root” or “microlights”, they may have small marginal running costs? and flexible maintenance? but hey they still involve lot of hassle and need lot of capital, time and effort… long story short, it’s not for everybody
You have made a lot of awfully good comments about why ga is slowing down. I want to add some memories to them:
I still remember many costs from 1972 when I got the licence. Inflation is something pretty obscure – depends on the job and purchases if your personal inflation has gone up or down. For example here in Finland a phone call to another city 400 km away was 1:60 marks per minute. A really good salary would be about 10 mk per hour. So with one hour work you could talk for 6 minutes if you did not have to pay taxes.
A beginner mail man got 800 mk/month – talking for 500 minutes. Today that mailman gets 1600 euros and calling is around 7 cents/min or free.
But my flight school PPL was 2700 mk (others 2600-2800), renting a two seater 60 per hour. So the mailman had to pay 3,5 months for the licence (if no taxes taken) or fly 13 hours with his salary.
Today commercial PPL goes at 16-20000 and rents 200. So he would pay 10 months for the licence or fly for 8 hours/month.
Of course at flight clubs LAPL goes around 7000 and rents 140 (two seater) so they are pretty close to old commercial schools.
Cheapest new planes in Finland were AA-1 37000 (45 months), Ralley Club somewhere around 43000 (55 months), C150 50000 (63 months).
I don’t know prices today for the 1600 euro mailman… but to be flying seems to be more expensive than before if you have to rent a plane. An own plane is cheaper to use (not to buy) today, as the rules have turned much easier for private use – often you are even allowed to use not-aviation-qualified spare parts which was fully fobidden then.
Also I remember how airports did not have fences around, planes were not locked and the keys were inside. The idea was that the office is not always open. So if you want to go flying in the summer evening, just walk to the plane and take off. If flight plan was needed, you always could tell it trough the radio – no need to hassle with advance plans. Write the flight into the logbook and pay afterwards. They were so easy times compared to this day.
In many ways ultras have taken the positions of the old time “normal” airplanes but they still can not do quite the same.
It probably depends on which time span is taken. 1992 is before by time. I started in 2000, bought my plane in 2002, and now, 20 years later, fuel is no more expensive when inflation adjusted. And maintenance likewise.
Renting may have gone up faster. But renting has always been crazy expensive. People have always really struggled with renting. I knew a group which rented a C172, 3 of them, flew EGKA-EGMD-LFAT-EGKA, 3 legs, changing the PIC 3 times, at LFAT they ate sandwiches they brought with them, to save money. The way to fly is a syndicate… renting has always been a total desperate dead end – in Europe.
The costs debate may be addressing a community which has not got money and never really had the money. One of the characteristics of GA is the number of people who are trying to hang in there at 3-5hrs/year while slagging off airports charging a 20-30 landing fee – comparable to a taxi fare into town. All the while, you stand next to a motorway (I work next to the A23) and you can count the 100k+ cars go by, one every not many seconds. Those people, if captured into GA even at a tiny rate, would revitalise it, but they are going nowhere near it.
New planes have gone up a lot but then almost nobody is making them, so they control the market. 1M+ for an SR22 is obscene and unsupported by the actual manufacturing cost of the plane.
Yeah but those people in the 100k cars like their convenience and GA is not that. If we had things like they do in the states, where the FBO will give you a car to drive to the city for free that could be different and other benefits. But the reality is first you fly somewhere, you probably fly in an older plane without AC, it’s stressful since you are weather dependent and you may not even get to your destination and once you are there, you have to deal with extra rules and fees and figure out some sort of transportation. 100k car owners don’t want any part of that. They much rather pay for a commercial ticket, to be sure they’ll get where they’re going without any extra hassle and in the comfort and safety of a nice modern jet cabin. I mean we have to be honest with ourselves that what we do is because we love to do it not because it’s a super convenient mode of transportation. It used to be but it isn’t anymore unless you have the money for a nice fast modern plane as it can’t compete with the modern commercial alternatives.
What is needed are modern SR22T spec planes for 200k€ max with way cheaper fixed costs and many more and way more accommodating airports and airspace.
Dan wrote:
The simulators have reached astounding levels of realism in the last years, and one can fly his heart’s contents at basically no cost.
I’ve been in flight simulation as long as I’ve been in real aviation. Clearly, there is the major difference, that after a simulated flight, you can’t really go out of the airplane and see the place you are at. Other than that, I have to agee.
As some of you know, I recently got involved with a real good 737 sim. Having that thing at my disposal 24/7 at literally no cost other than working to keep it running is indeed a huge incentive flying it. It’s an airliner, so my original ambition, it has stunning scenery, it works really well and is quite realistic and I am surprised to say that I enjoy “flying” it VERY much.
Moreover, I can decide, at a whim, to go over there, fire it up, fly around for an hour, go home. Taking the Mooney for a flight takes much longer, involes a lot more preparation and hassle and costs close to 500 CHF per hour these days, and that is me kidding myself because looking at the hours this plane does, it’s more like 10 times that. I could rent a biz jet for that money.
Many people, myself included, had the ambition to fly airliners as youngsters and saw GA as a way to get there. Many of those will equip their GA plane so it behaves like an airliner, and flying like that again is a lot of fun. But I have to admit, sitting in a full size 737-NG FTD (fixed base) with 120°visual and really nice systems simulation, gives me a satisfaction just as real, particularly knowing that I don’t have the time to actually go places, as my use of time is usually determined by others. But nobody will stop me from going after a late shift and take the sim for a spin. The family is asleep then and I bother nobody.
Today even flying commercial is a total nightmare. I used to love going on short city trips or the occasional long haul. No longer. Today I hate flying commercial with a passion, not because of the actual flying but because of the 3-4 hour lead times, the hassle you are subjected to at most airports and the total non-chalance with which airlines cancel flights, rebook people and generally have become unpleasant. Bad news is, they can afford to be because they are swamped with passengers. If I recall the “Go 70” Qualiflyier motto for a 70% seat occupancy, today that factor is 90% plus on a regular basis. But in contrast, punctuallity is down to 60%, which would have been a total no-go in the 1990ties.
hazek wrote:
Of all the reasons I suspect money is the main reason GA is in decline in Europe.
I think you are right. People are notoriously short of both time and money. Those who earn well enough to actually be able to afford GA will have to work hard for it, 70-80 hour weeks and then care for their families too. Those who have time, usually have few money.
Airborne_Again wrote:
In 2019 I happened to find the annual report of my flying club from 1992 and did some comparisons.
Yep. At least double. And that is corrected for inflation too.
In the 1990ties, I could rent a Seneca for about 350.- CHF per hour. Today, my little Mooney costs that much if it was flying 100 hours a year. Sencas are 700-900 CHF per hour. In the 1980ties a guy I knew well flew a King Air 90 which they rented out at CHF 600 per hour. Today, you can rent a Cirrus for that .
Those who kid themselves thinking that their salary has actually gone up? Not much if at all. The figures have, but so has inflation.
