Young pilots promoting GA

I’ve noticed that the questions of how to promote GA to the public and importantly, make GA accessible to younger people come up quite frequently.

Perhaps you have heard of this (and some French forum members may have been in it?), but every 2 years, the French Aeronautic Federation organises a competition for 18-24 year olds of which the principal purpose is to promote general aviation and aeroclubs. I was forwarded the photos and videos of one of the participants from the event last year and thought it might be of interest.

Funnily enough, the Robin that the participant flew in the competition was the same aircraft in which my relative passed his PPL 20 years ago, the same relative who took me for my first GA flight resulting in me going for my PPL. I am too old for this competition, but I do still aspire to the ABAR after Rob Vee’s excellent write up last year.

Does this exist in other countries? It does not in the UK.

I’ve summarised some key points of how the competition works below, but have a look at this video or some photos here (I cleared this with the participant).

I’ve translated some background info from the participants’ own words:

The Tour Aérien des Jeunes Pilotes (Young Pilots Air Tour – TAJP) is a competition organised by the Fédération Francaise Aéronautique for which the principal purpose is to promote general aviation and aeroclubs (which don’t seem to exist in the UK). At each stage of this “tour de France”, the pilots become ambassadors for GA, sharing their passion with the general public.

The TAJP takes place every 2 years and approximately 40 pilots between 18-24 years old take part in this event which lasts 15 days (18 July – 3 August). These young pilots are selected based on their piloting skills and ability to share their passion. Each day, the pilots must undertake an assessed navigation. A GPS tracker records their actual flight path and enables the competition officials to score that flight accordingly. It covers 3,000 km, 20 flying hours and last year, pilots from all over France and 5 from overseas.

However, the TAJP is not just a competition, it is above all an adventure in which young pilots, representing their aeroclub, live their passion by communicating it to the public whilst benefiting from a unique aeronautic and developmental experience.

Apart from the precision of each pilots navigation, other, more specific criteria are used to judge the pilots:
- Estimated fuel consumption
- Quality of landings
- Maintaining runway heading on departure and rate of climb
- Maintaining appropriate flight level [possible incorrect translation]

Selection is done in two stages:
1) within the aeroclub, a 100 nm flight which the pilot has 1 hour to plan; and
2) a theory test similar to a QXC as well as an interview to determine attitude and motivation.

Scores are then aggregated and selection completed.

The pilot must pay for his own training and aircraft rental although fuel during the TAJP is provided by one of the sponsors. The pilot can seek his own sponsors but as you can see from the pdf document in the photos link, this pilots budget was approximately €9,400, a significant portion of which consisted of 40 hours training (not sure if this is mandated) and there is a €1,150 registration fee (see the pdf for the breakdown).

Competition sponsors include the French Air Force, Army and Navy, DGAC, Air France, Jeppesen, Total fuel and various government ministries including Defence, Youth and Environmental Development.

Interested in your thoughts (hopefully not a list of all the reasons why it is not possible due to cost/weather/airfield closures/pop culture/global warming/my dog ate the tyres!).