IMO the social scene is very important, at least where I am. This can be demonstrated by the fact we have a dynamic, young and social gliding club, here at LFFK. And its membership is growing. Their age split goes from 14years old to 80years old.
Our club used to have a very vibrant social scene and we used to fly 4 SEPs ranging with about 1600hrs a year. Back in the 1990s we had 90 pilots who flew regularly.
Nowadays we are down to 1 SEP and 1 ULM. The DA40d is doing less than 400hrs a year. We have 9 or possibly 10 pilots who fly regularly. We try to attract young would be PPLs but in small town and with several other airfields serving larger towns, nearby this is not hugely successful these days. Despite the BIA and financial assistance offered to them.
When young potential pilots do join the club and gain their PPL they are at an age where they are just starting a career and many leave to work in larger towns and join an aeroclub nearer their work.
And although they remain members here and return to fly here in their vacations they are not able to take part in a regular social scene.
The ULM has this year, for the first time been flown more hours than the DA40.
This is not surprising at €80 an hour and with an increasing number of ULM fields in interesting locations, plus as @LeSving writes little regulation and an almost a get in and fly it, in that one can become a ULM pilot or at least solo at 14years old and you get your licence as soon as you can demonstrate you can fly the aircraft, safely.
The problem with the ULM crowd is that they tend to join, get their licence and then after a short while, buy their own ULM, allowing them to be more adventurous.
One young member I talked to is thinking of buying a Jodel D21 a homebuilt tricycle ULM from someone who has built and flown several Jodels. He is talking of an investment of around €20,000 but he wants to go places for days or weeks at a time.
All this leaves little or no time for an aeroclub social scene. There is also an owners club. Cheap membership, they help each other out with maintenance, mentoring advice and hangarage. This club has a super social scene but it is limited to once or twice a year and the occasional fly outs.
But for the aeroclub there is a steady decline in SEP hours flown, number of active members and less and less people turning up for social events. On the 3 latest social events we have had, if the gliding club members had not joined in there would have been very few people in attendance.
On a bright note at the beginning of the year we hosted one of Le Boutique’s breakfast fly ins and that was a great success with around 80 aircraft flying in from all over France to chat over coffee and viennoise (pain au chocolat, pain au raisin, croissant etc).
So we have tried many things to rejuvinate the club and I will be studying this thread intently for any new ideas. We are not yet ready to accept that the young people of today all just prefer other forms of leisure activity.
I am completely prepared to believe that the US has a totally different dynamic. It has a population broadly similar to Europe but has about 5x the GA activity of Europe (numbers further back in this thread).
The near total lack of cost sharing discussion in US GA social media shows yet another aspect of it. It is a lot more affordable over there. It is cheaper to fly and people earn a lot more money.
Here’s a counterpoint:
When I joined our club about 7 years or so ago, the average age was in the high 50s / low 60s and we had an exit list (meaning people wanting to leave, but had to wait until someone bought their share).
Today the average age in the low-mid 40s, with the median probably in the high 30s. We also have a waitlist (membership is capped). So, what happened? Most of our new members work in the tech industry and have very nice salaries. That money has to go somewhere, and quite obviously GA is attractive. What is interesting, though, is the mission profile. When I joined, there were lots of long x-country flights, often several days. The newer members, however, prefer to stay close to base and don’t do much of what I would call ‘real’ x-country traveling.
What may also surprise some (most of all @Peter) is that we have no social scene to speak of. The only social event is the monthly membership meeting, and even that is sometimes done via Zoom.
So there – it’s not all doom and gloom!
The social scene needs improving!!
So many airfields were busy with social activity 20-30 years ago and are dead now.
As I have written before in this and other threads on this topic, practically everybody who has enough money to actually fly in GA, is going to be in one of two groups
Also participation time is key. Of the young people, are mostly working Mon-Fri and are very focused on where they spend or waste their weekend. Women almost totally want a social scene, and the guys are not going to sit around all day if there are no girls!! You get exactly the same situation in sailing clubs. I used to do water-skiing many years ago (stopped mostly because the club lost access to the lake) and this situation was totally obvious.
There is a lower limit on how financially accessible (how cheap) you can make GA. The numbers have to add up somehow. If the DOC (direct operating cost) is say €100/hr then you have to recover this somehow. You can push club members’ annual time down to say 5-10 hrs/year (probably common in the French club scene, I am told) and that means they can participate for €500-1000 a year (plus some extras, depending on how the “club” deals with cross-subsidies taken from the higher time flyers 
) but then you will end up with pilots with so little currency they will never gain confidence to go anywhere, so they will drop out and will need to be continually replaced by newcomers.
gallois wrote:
What can be done to change this trend who knows?
I don’t think there is anything that can change this. Lots of other related activities compete also, like paragliding, skydiving, all sorts of kite surfing, and of course boating. While not being extremely related, the bang for the buck with a boat is literally orders of magnitude larger, and it fulfils some of the same ich, only in a much better way for all practical purposes. Then combine that with some paragliding which can be done everywhere all over the world with no bureaucracy or insane rules and regulations. You won’t get closer to being a bird..
Then there are flight sims. Not awfully related to real flying, but for the younger generations, flight sims seems more attractive than real flying. Much more accessible. In most cases the only accessible aircraft related thing they can get their hands on. Flying an F-16 or Spitfire online together with friends of your same age, having great fun, simply beats the hell out of using money on the occasional hour in the air with a 50 year old plane together with grumpy old men discussing rules, regulations and “safety”. Modern flight sims are insanely good, and keep getting better and better. A C-172 just keep on getting older and more costly.
ULs has kept the GA wheels rolling in Europe the last 20-40 years, but the cost, complexity and increase in rules and regulations are all spiraling out of control. The average age of pilots is increasing by one year each year it seems.
We are kind of dinosaurs living on borrowed time. But so what? It won’t completely disappear anytime soon, and in many ways things are also changing for the better (fewer people, better market for those who are left for instance). Young people go for what appeals to – and is accessible to them, while they are young. GA is out of reach for the vast majority of young people, and a C-172 has little to no appeal (let’s be honest here). Flight sims and paragliders are accessible and has appeal and vast communities. When they get older, who knows, perhaps some of them want to try a SEP.
For instance, think of three things that you would change to make GA better in general. My 3 would be in no particular order (and I’m sure most agree with me):
As far as I can see, the exact opposite is actually happening. Accessibility is getting worse and worse (in general). Cost is steadily increasing. Bureaucracy is increasing and changing faster each year. Yet, nothing here is in fact impossible to do, it’s more that the will to do what needs to be done and to change what needs to change is nonexistent, also among the GA pilot communities. Yes, we want all that, but not if it means giving up on something else we also want or already have. Look at UL. It was pretty much all that, buuut retract is nice, 600 kg is nice, 8h endurance is nice, all carbon all glass is nice,150 knots+ cruise speed is nice, 160 hp and turbo is nice. Besides, the conundrum is already solved (in the extreme, but nonetheless), and is called paragliding: accessible everywhere, cost near nothing, no bureaucracy.
We are our own worst enemy. What is “in” nowadays. Lots of stuff, but one thing is some traffic warning system. What will that do" Will it increase accessibility? No, no particular effect either way. Will it reduce cost? certainly not. Will it cause less bureaucracy and complexity? not by a long shot. It’s another step in the wrong direction for some perceived/imaginary sense of “safety”.
I don’t watch videos where Americans just talk into a mic, over some random footage
Why Americans? They produced the plane most of us fly; yourself included 
Anyway, the guy is prob99 a Brit.
YT is full of clickbait and only some % is American. Half the world is doing it.
We’ve done the reasons for the decline in this thread, but probably most of them are to do with factors not related to aviation. So not mostly what the video lists. Stuff like most people looking for “instant satisfaction” and flying the old iron is just not cool anymore. Private flying needs a lot of dedication and modern life has too many distractions. The social side of GA has died out in most of Europe and that has rapidly narrowed the sort of people who want to participate on it.
I don’t watch videos where Americans just talk into a mic, over some random footage.
The guy has a strong northern UK accent, and is not American. His interest in commenting negatively is evident but I’d doubt he has much if any actual exposure to US general aviation in 2023. At least fourteen other videos that he’s made for his channel are per the title intended to explain why something else in aviation has “failed” or “is failing”. It’s superficial clickbait.
Is GA on the decline?
I would agree that ownership of certified aircraft is in steep decline for many reasons cost of purchase has risen greatly over the past few years. Just compare a simple aircraft on Planecheck now compared to 5 years ago. Then there’s the cost of upgrading the avionics which pilots now want (if they can actually do it at all) Then there is the cost of updating databases every year, the cost of the hourly maintenance rate has almost doubled in the last 10 years . On top of that you have the increase in fuel cost (for many certified aircraft), insurance increased cost.
And if you want to go anywhere and take the family with you (that’s if the family are happy to get up early, stand around for half an hour or longer while you pull the aircraft out of the hangar and prepare it for flight). Then you fly to an airfield, either in the middle of nowhere and wait for a taxi which might take an hour to turn up or you fly to an airfield with transport links to the nearest town and need to PPR hours in advance and pay handling and other fees which have a non negligeable cost.
And who needs all that? Certainly young people don’t seem to. The average age of non career minded PPLs is rising. New blood is in short supply.
ULs, and Annexe 1 aircraft appear to be fairing much better. Much of that will be down to lower costs all round. But perhaps also because pilots here have accepted that GA is not about transport, even when going from A to B, sometimes hundreds or even thousands of miles apart, but is about the journey. They accept that flying is a leisure activity, a sport or hobby. The £100 hamburger is more about meeting up with people of a similar ilk.
But even in this UL or Annexe 1 environment the average pilot age is increasing. Although, anecdotally this part of GA seems to be holding its own in terms of activity and number of participants, most of this is down to pilots switching from other sectors of aviation, often certified GA, and not through any great influx of young people.
From my perspective the only sector of ga that seems to be attracting the young away from other activities is gliding.
What can be done to change this trend who knows? I’m sure many club presidents, here in France, would love to know the answer.
We did have a pick up after Covid restrictions were lifted but I don’t think wishing for another pandemic is the answer.🙂
I don’t watch videos where Americans just talk into a mic, over some random footage.
Hey guys,
Sorry for bumping this old thread again but I’ve just seen this YouTube Video which imho does a great job at summarizing the factors that led to the decline of GA in the last decades, although from a US centric perspective:
[ Youtube URL fixed up – see here ]
