GA activity and its decline

RobertL18C wrote:

A 4 place SEP fixed gear/prop should only be around €100-120 per hour in a half well run syndicate.

That’s with no depreciation costs, right?

Noe wrote:

Jesus! I think I’d rather save shower water (I am born French after all!) than subject myself to that type of fast food. That’s good for someone who has given up on health – if you are being rational, why would you ever skimp on your body?

IKEA restaurants are not fast food places – at least not in Sweden. They serve a variety of “proper” food including salads, fish etc.

Airborne_Again wrote:

IKEA restaurants are not fast food places – at least not in Sweden.

Not here either even though quality varies massively. Passed through there on Saturday… queues were tremendous at their food stand in the hall. They have got a great soft ice cream though. Treated myself and my daughter the other day :)

Had another interesting discussion last night, guy who is notoriously short on cash came by for a beer. We talked about it… he smokes… made the math… got pretty big eyes on what he can save only by giving up that particular habit.. close to 500 Euros a month and he would do something for his health too…

And I regularly (every 2 years or so) check my mobile subscriptions for better variants (within the same provider as I am happy with them). My subscription went down 60% in cost for more return last time I did so and I got a S8 for free in the deal. With the roaming packages I used to have to buy, guess this move will save me at least 1500 a year, incidently the cost of my 50 hours check when I need it…

And @zuutroy please understand this is not at all about being stingy: It is about freeing means up for fun things and making the fun things affordable so when you want to celebrate or do something special you can do it.

Absolutely agree! Instead of going to a middle-of-the-road restaurant once a month and having something I could probably cook myself, we go probably 4 times a year to the best ones in town. I’ve read a few good articles about using your money to buy experiences rather than things and completely agree with it.

the big caveat is that the movements are only from airports that report movements, which is only Licensed airports.

I have never fully understood why smaller aerodromes in the UK are not regularly/officially reporting on movements to the CAA.

I had suggested that they do, mainly to prevent them from being built over by other interests.

In the UK, aerodrome infrastructure is mostly privately owned / operated, unregulated, and receives no public funding, meaning the ability of GA to exist and to go to meaningful places is essentially decided by the goodwill (or lack of) by a few dozen aerodrome operators / owners.

The ability to sell off, hike prices, introduce mandatory handling, limit opening hours, or apply any other “difficult” measure may be done without due transparency and accountability to various stakeholders. It remains a substantial risk in my opinion, to the viability of many GA focused FBOs (including flight schools, maintenance organisations) and aircraft/group owners, as they are not operating on a consistent playing field across the country.

This coupled with the fact that UK light GA wants to land everywhere at US-like prices, without a united view (or sufficient lobbying funding) of how the shortfall should be made up for, means that light GA doesn’t have much hope if it continues to want to operate this way.

@Airborne_Again in the case of a Cherokee 180, about the most straightforward of the share-o-planes, and a decent four seater with fuel at the tabs, the engine fund would cover depreciation – the hull values with run out engines being low five figures.

No mention of LAPL in these stats.