Flyer59 wrote:
Why would it interest me much if future generations fly? I don’t reall care …
Unfortunately that is an attitude that is still quite popular. We do what we do and future generations should see how they get on. You have children, I understood? So how can you be so indifferent to the society they will live in? I’m sorry, but I am simply unable to turn my head away from these issues.
We are discussing aviation here but it is just one issue in the great scheme of things, one indicator where society is going and I do have to tell you, I am worried and I do care. WE are building on what our parents built up for us to enjoy. So what gives us the right to stand aside and simply give a damn what our children will have or not have?
Flyer59 wrote:
In the US, and especially away from the big metropolitan areas, “self flown GA” is probably still “transportation”. But what most of us over here do, has little to do with transport, and it’s really a very small minority who will use GA for transport.
Again, YOUR interpretation of things. It could not be further from mine. Circuit flying has never interested me and it doesn’t now. GA is a very efficient and fast way of transport, even if that transport only is used for recreational purposes. If I want to attend certain venues which are 4-5 hours by car, trains, even airlines but 40 minutes by GA, I choose GA. Time today is the most expensive commodity which most of us have to fight for every single minute to have for themselves. In 3 hours I can do a whole tour of Switzerland, see the mountains from Matterhorn to Säntis, from lake Geneva to Lake Constance. Try doing that by car or much less by train. If I want to go to the Ticino for a bit of warmth and sunshine, GA is much faster than any competing means of transport, likewise if I want to go to the seaside for a day trip.
And that is why I believe it is worth fighting the mounting obstacles GA faces.
If Le Sving believes that the non-certified market will overcome that, well, it does overcome to an extent the expensive certification hurdles, at the price of reduced flexibility, but it does not overcome parking PPR, it does not overcome outpricing at large airports, it does not overcome the mounting lack of infrastructure and so on. So there is NO reason why an experimental pilot should not take part in an organisation like AOPA who is active politically on all these issues.
LeSving wrote:
One could argue that the “decline” of GA is just an elitist/AOPA “invention” with no ties to reality other than a sort of last cry from a stranded and dying whale
Well, it is perfectly clear from your posts that you think that certified aviation is something which you don’t care about. . You are obviously fine with the restricted kind of aviation that experimental and UL flying offers. That is fine, your good right. But why do you think that this is applicable on a broad basis?
I do agree with you on one point however: I do not think that the decline in GA should be measured in new airplane sales exclusively, this gives a massively distorted view. The situation re new airplanes is comparable to countries which have been under Embargo: The lack of new goods or the lack of funds for new goods make people maintain and keep up the old ones. Cuba is a nice example for that: Because they were shut off from the world since the Castro take over, people made do with the cars they have. For that matter, no new cars were available there for decades. Has the amount of cars and drivers reduced? Yes, but not in the same quantity as the sale of new cars, which went towards zero. The same goes for GA: We sell a lot less new airplanes mainly because they are WAY to expensive for the normal guy. BUT this alone sais nothing about the total amount of GA airplanes flying, even if you only look at certified aviation but particularly if, as you did, take into account the soaring experimental market.
But again: The division between certified vs non certified is an artificial division by the legislators who in that hope that they can deal with two smaller organisations than with one large lobby. I do argee with you as well that if the artificial hurdles thrown against non certified airplanes were adapted to what they are in the US, that is no more restrictions on where to fly, IFR, e.t.c, GA would profit greatly from this. So would innovation.
It is this garden thinking which divides aviation so much. Gliders against engine driven GA, airlines against GA, GA against airlines, e.t.c. No wonder those who want the skies emptied of private flying have such an easy game with us.
C210_Flyer wrote:
I would want to give the next generation the same opportunities I had. So I will do my best to support that goal.
Exactly.
C210_Flyer wrote:
But can understand the mentality of flying clubs thinking they will lose control when members join AOPA or they support AOPA.
Yes and that is where they are totally wrong. First of all, it is that “control freak” mentality which causes a lot of those club run airfields to stop being infrastructure but rather simply private little hobby spaces for one club, not for all of GA. And each of those private little airfields have their own rules, their own peeves, their own ideas who should fly there and who not. All of them have huge waiting lists for hangar space, which by now is a huge comodity and is, in many cases, being kept that as it keeps rental prices up. Lack economy. In the GDR you had to wait 10 years to get your Trabant, in most places in Europe you wait for 10 years to get a hangar space. At the same time, lots of former airforce bases are laying dormant with huge hangars and runways, but are used again by a few who carefully preserve their perogatory use of that facility. Visitors, no, but no thanks. See Oberschleissheim, see a few of those in Switzerland. Thankfully most airfields think differently.
Personally, I would vote for European legislation mandating any airport operator to offer their facilities as INFRASTRUCTURE for everyone to use. If you want to run an airfield, you may do so provided you allow everyone to use it. Infrastructure per definition should be freed from any form of corsett, maximum movement figures to appease the local anti noise folks and Infrastructure should be made to operate withing the maximum of their possibilities, not randomly as often today. Airfields and airports should have the same status as roads, railway lines and shipping infrastructure, that is open to the public without any unnecessary restriction.
With regards to cost control, I think EASA is on the right track with ELA1 and 2 for private ops as well as the FCL ammendments for the IR and other issues which are currently being discussed. I do hope that the current administration of EASA will be in place long enough to implement the GA roadmap fully. This would definitly help GA in Europe.
You have children, I understood? So how can you be so indifferent to the society they will live in? I’m sorry, but I am simply unable to turn my head away from these …. (…) ….I do have to tell you, I am worried and I do care. WE are building on what our parents built up for us to enjoy. So what gives us the right to stand aside and simply give a damn what our children will have or not have?
I said that I’m indifferent about the society I live in? Where does that come from? Am i indifferent about society when i pick up a homeless Bulgarian kid from the street, rent him a room and find him a job? To give you one example. Or when i work in a refugee camp next to a war zone for a couple of weeks? Or when i support parts of my family that are rather poor? Maybe you should know a person better before you judge him? No, I don’t do stuff like that all the time, i am not “Mother Theresa”, nor do i think that i do enough. Just don’t judge people without knowing them. These are only two aspects of my life outside of euroGA, and i only mentioned them to make you understand that people can have more dimensions than you are able to see in a special interest forum.
As i wrote, explicitely: I try to focus on the important things of life, and even if flying means much to me, i see no point spending my (only) life trying to save general aviation.
And what do you mean by “what our parents built for us to enjoy”? I don’t know about your father (maybe he’s the founder of Swiss GA, really no idea!). I can only tell you about my father: When he had enough money, he had bought his first airplane, some years later the second one (the Warrior which i still keep for nostalgic reasons) and he flew it around, with his buddies. It effectively ended his marriage (my mother had survived an airliner crash and would never fly again). When he was 69 he lost his medical, due to a stroke, now he is dead. I guess my father was the typical private pilot if the 60s, 70s … but of course i do not know about yours or C210’s.
Transportation: again you are having a very idealistic view. I like it that, but since i was trying to integrate the airplane into my daily and professional life as much as possible in 2015, i know about the limitations. Except two our three times – whenever i really had to be somewhere, i drove or took the airlines. Still i managed to do four longer IFR flights (Crete, France, Croatia, France), and flew +120 hours. But i can never count on the airplane to get me somewhere, especially since my IFR limits are conservative. I don’t do some of the flights other IFR pilots do, although i do fly in IMC and approaches in IMC occasionally ( but not often enough). Of course it is possible that your utility rate is much higher, i cannot know. I see that pilots like C210, Jason, what_next, boscomantico have a much higher dispatch rate, but i can only fly within my own “safety envelope”.
From what i read here, and having flown 1500 hours now etc. i still get the impression that i am probably still a bit above the average PPL level. And since only 5 percent of European PPL pilots have an IFR rating my dispatch rate is way above the average one. If i lived in a place like Arizona or Texas, i’d fly three times as much. And when Jason finally gives in and gives me his plane (;-)) … too! Until then it’ll stay as it is now, maybe improve slowly with more IFR experience.
To really use a plane for transportation in Europe (for business!) you need to spend more money on flying than the typical pilot can afford to. I am convinced this is true. I just signed up for a week of advanced IFR training, and you don’t want to know how expensive that will be …
To be honest you did come across that way even if you didnt express yourself that way. But then again if I spoke and read German as well as you English I would be very happy with myself.
Flyer59 wrote:
To really use a plane for transportation in Europe (for business!) you need to spend more money on flying than the typical pilot can afford to. I am convinced this is true. I just signed up for a week of advanced IFR training, and you don’t want to know how expensive that will be
This is true in the US as well. Take for instance Flight Safety 210 course. But judging from what Ive seen Im sure a similar course would be 2x more expensive. Its great to do at least once a year. Ask me how long its been since I took that great course. Its been 20 yrs. I make do with my buddies who are mostly CFII. Whenever I go back to the US I do an ICP ck ride. Also try to get some night currency cause its impossible here. The closest airport to Budapest is where my plane is hangared and the owner doesn’t want to spend a cent on it because he hasnt figured out if he wants to turn it into condos or a shopping center. So the “airport” does not have an AIP and therefore is not in the Jepp database. It does have an 8000’ runway which has lights but the building that housed the electric switches had the roof leak and blew out the circuitry. We offered to privately fix it. “we’ll get back to you” Its been 3 yrs. So the knuckle heads are losing money. The place is deteriorating. They outsourced a car club that does nothing but burn tires all day. Then there are the garbage trucks that disappear into the “airport” property dumping who knows what?
But that is Hungary. Thank God from what Ive seen even within Hungary it is the exception rather than the rule.
Getting back on topic a structured course is the best hopefully with some sim training in addition to real world ops. The cheapest is just to have a rated instrument pilot with experience as a safety pilot. Do it right with a pre and post brief and set standards that must be adhered to. As in not deviating from assigned altitude by more than 50’ or when assigned a decent/ascent maintaining 500’/min and not deviating more than 100’ +/ -. for example. That too is expensive if your just burning gas just for the training so the object is to combine it with another purpose. Of course thats self evident but hard to do.
Yes, that Hungarian experience would frustrate me too … But sometimes there’s also light at the end of the tunnel. Our airfield (EDML) will be taken over by a group of investors (flight schools, aviation related companies from the field) and that will maybe change some things to the better, hey we might even get an IAP one day …
@Mooney_Driver
The hangars at EDNX are full of airplanes, no empty hangar on the field. There’s five flying clubs there, and if i invested €20K i could station my plane there, ten minutes from my home. The airfield was bought by these clubs, that’s the reason for the 20K. Fair i think. And most people who want to fly to Munich get the PPR, although it is only 500 slots they can give away. (I decided to stay at EDML though, i don’t care about the drive there and the infrastructure is better).
@C210_Flyer
Don’t compare your flying with mine. You probably have 10x the IFR experience i have. I also don’t care much for hard IFR flying, i find it stressful. Usually i train with some friends who are airline pilots, but this year i’ll spend a week with an experienced Cirrus instructor, and my plan is to hand fly the whole week (and some approaches with the FD)
Back to our topic:
I take both my kids flying as often as they want to come along. Both of them (11,13) enjoy it every now and then, but i see no point in pushing them twds aviation. If they develop the desire, fine, i’ll support it, but it’s not important to me. We all know: Flying really only makes sense if you do it 100 percent, and do it well. I am sceptical about people who do the PPL and fly 13 hours per year, it simply makes no sense. And if you want to become successful in other things (with 13 my kids dream of becoming an architect and a professional dancer :-)) you will not have much time (money?) to become a good pilot. I for one could not have done it between 20 and 35, it was too expensive any i worked all the time, just to pay for my rent, food, car …
Flying, for me, became possible when i was laid off by my company who paid me €50.000 for my job. At the same time i had my dad’s airplane at hand, that wasn’t really flown, because my father built our company. I was also a single … Had i been married in 1995, with small kids, and without the connections i had to the airfield through my father (and his airplane), i probably would not have started, … or quit two years after the PPL.
Imagine you’re an employee in the USA, with ten days of vacation. I think it’s a miracle that still many start flying…, i have a lot of respect for people who have the discipline and passion to make that dream come true. I know that i would not fly under these circumstances.
It’s not long ago that i took a guy up in the Cirrus, who loved it. He said: “I would start tomorrow, if i had a chance. But i don’t, i have to my bills, support my kids, there is no way i could ever finance it, because i even think about selling my car, because the insurance is so expensive”.
When my father took up flying i was ten. He was a car salesman with a medium income. Although he had two kids he could easily do the PPL at the flying club and fly the club planes. I do not remember but i think we could easily afford that. Back then you got a medical if you were able to walk from the car to the doctor. The VFR map of the Munich area had one airspace around the old airport, three VORs and some beacons. Fuel was so cheap that i could have filled up my father’s plane from my pocket money as a ten year old (vs € 800 for the Cirrus…)
Compare all that with today …
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Well, it is perfectly clear from your posts that you think that certified aviation is something which you don’t care about
That’s absolutely nonsense. What I don’t care for is this obsession that GA is- and should be like it was in the 1960-1970s. I just don’t care for living in the past in anything of what I do. GA has evolved, AOPA has not, at least it has not evolved with the rest of GA. Also I just don’t like this “we” vs “them” attitude.
If I had the money I would get a Diamond DA42 today, but I don’t have that kind of money. I fly a Cub from 1953 and a Safir also from 1953, so it’s not like I don’t like old planes, or don’t like certified planes. I do however think that certification itself is an unnecessary burden for GA that finally will kill all certified GA. There are other ways of assuring the right quality that is much more flexible and much more suitable for GA.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
You are obviously fine with the restricted kind of aviation that experimental and UL flying offers. That is fine, your good right. But why do you think that this is applicable on a broad basis?
I’m a realist. I fly certified, microlight and experimentals. That is indeed applicable on a broad basis. You assumption is clearly wrong. I really don’t get this “utility” nonsense either. Why would anyone care if you need an external reason like “utility” to justify your flying? Seriously, why? GA is the “grass root” of aviation, nothing more, and nothing less. There is no more utility tied to GA than that single fact. What this means is that the only utility we can expect is to travel around and meet up with other pilots like ourselves, create arrangements, meetings, competitions, fly ins, airshows and so on. Anything more is just a bonus, or requires a whole lot more money than the average PPL pilot has access to. This is no different than any other non essential activity. Passenger carrying electric drones could change all that, and probably will one day, but not technology from the 50s, and certainly not by producing 250 Cirruses each year.
Besides, there are no practical restrictions on experimentals in Scandinavia. They have exactly the same utility value as a certified aircraft, more even, due to performance (so you can get to that fly-in faster, or in more style 
) If you want GA to get moving you should start there with your local authorities.
LeSving wrote:
GA is the “grass root” of aviation, nothing more, and nothing less.
GA is amateur aviation…it’s the average guy flying for fun, utility, and for some an expression of personality. And by utility I mean bypassing commercial aviation for travel or work.
USFlyer wrote:
GA is amateur aviation…
GA is, by definition, aviation that is not CAT and not military. Lots of GA is done for a living.
GA is amateur aviation…it’s the average guy flying for fun, utility, and for some an expression of personality.
Wikipedia:
General aviation (GA) is all civil aviation operations other than scheduled air services and non-scheduled air transport operations for remuneration or hire. General aviation flights range from gliders and powered parachutes to corporate business jet flights. The majority of the world’s air traffic falls into this category, and most of the world’s airports serve general aviation exclusively.
(…)
General aviation is particularly popular in North America, with over 6,300 airports available for public use by pilots of general aviation aircraft (around 5,200 airports in the U.S., and over 1,000 in Canada. In comparison, scheduled flights operate from around 560 airports in the U.S. According to the U.S. Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, general aviation provides more than one percent of the United States’ GDP, accounting for 1.3 million jobs in professional services and manufacturing.
Ok?
USFlyer wrote:
it’s the average guy flying for fun, utility, and for some an expression of personality
Individually, yes. However, GA as a whole is much more than that.
