JCB's G650 at Monterey - and the freedom of flight.

I think GA can deliver fantastic value for seeing places.

Certainly. But the cost involved raises faster than the (average) income, so less and less aviators will be able to benefit from that.

Mali Losinj is one example…

Yes and no, because one can only fly there with a lightplane (900m runway, max. AUW 6000kg). So Adam’s intercontinental bizjets have to stay out…

You can also buy a bizjet quite “cheap” nowadays. A $10M one can be had for $2M, in a good condition, from what I am told.

That’s true. I know quite a few very good such bargains around here. Excellent aircraft offered for a tiny fraction of their value. And there is a reason for it: The cost of ownership and operation has risen to levels which makes them hardly affordable any more. A Citation that you buy today for one million $/GBP/Eur may well cost you the same amount again over the next two years. Unflown, just the privilege of owning one… Many corporate aircraft get dumped on the market way below their value because the accounting department can not justify the cost of ownership any longer.

because the accounting department can not justify the cost of ownership any longer.

I think there are multiple issues here.

One is that in today’s “eco” world it is not politically correct (especially in Germany) for a company to own or even overtly operate a jet – regardless of how productive a business tool it is. Historically many have placed their planes into trusts, off the company accounts, for this reason, even if there was no reason for the trust. I would bet this is one reason for the M-reg being popular. The FAA don’t like trusts which conceal the beneficial owner’s identity. It can’t be Part 91 maintenance, since they got bent over the barrel and shafted by the UK CAA and now suffer the full Part M stuff (I had a meeting with a senior official there earlier this year, who tries to say that Part 91 in the USA is not the same as Part 91 outside the USA!).

Another is that Europe is small enough for land transport to be quite effective for business travel. Also you are not going on business to little islands. Island countries have virtually no economy on the islands, apart from tourism, with business travel going to the capital cities which are served well by airlines.

Another is that Europe is big enough for the small bizjets to not have enough range for some significant % of trips which one might want to do and by that I mean leisure use by the management. A CJ1 or 2 is of the order of 1500nm to zero fuel (I am sure I am teaching you suck eggs) which means you can’t just jump in and fly UK to some Greek island. Well, not in the very bottom models…

But business use is not the same as flying wholly or mostly privately. For the latter, GA offers a lot of value. It’s a great way to get to scenic places.

One is that in today’s “eco” world it is not politically correct (especially in Germany) for a company to own or even overtly operate a jet …

The “eco” part is not so much the problem. After all, the executives would fly anyway, if not by private jet then by airliner which is not much eco either, especially on the typical business routes where load factors rarely exceed 30 percent. The bigger problem – and I see that with my employer and quite a few of our clients – are actually employment laws/regulations and the trade unions. In a lot of businesses, in order to make any money at all, part of the production must be moved away from the high labor cost of central Europe to somewhere more to the south and/or east (often the reason for having the business jet in the first place!). But in order to do that, jobs must be cut here and unprofitable plants need to be closed. And as long as the company has it’s own aeroplane(s), the “works committee” (google translation of “Betriebsrat”) will veto every single job cut.

Island countries have virtually no economy on the islands, apart from tourism,

There isn’t that much tourism in the UK, is there?

Avionics will continue to improve and go down in price.

Hmm, I might have missed that development. I have been observing steady increases in price and an increasing pace in required cockpit updates in order to stay compliant (not even state of the art).

With electric propulsion, we’re finally starting to see that it might be possible to build aircraft that have 10% of the operating costs of today

One could also say that electric/hybrid propulsion will have the status of private airplanes today and the wasteful and poisonous gas engines will become unaffordable. Powering an airplane will always require significantly more energy than ground transport and it seems like energy will remain expensive.

the wasteful and poisonous gas engines will become unaffordable

That’s only if you make the electricity in coal fired power stations (the nuclear option being politically unacceptable) and dump the toxic stuff into Poland

I can see an electric plane being workable for PPL circuit training and very short trips away, but the technology is a long way to even doing the 150nm qualifying cross country (with reserves in case the student gets lost, which they frequently do).

Also such a product will be good only for people who do a PPL to tick the lifestyle achievements box. I can’t see anybody wanting to learn to fly for any real purpose if they know the plane they are learning in can’t even make the €100 burger run.

I know that the great majority of PPL students end up throwing it all away, but I don’t think the great majority intended to do that. I think it happens because they realise just what an uphill job (time and money and hassle) it is to make good use of the PPL.

I know this is not the intention, but learning in a plane which is useless for anything else can be seen as a pretty cynical exercise. I could not sell such a PPL to anybody while keeping a straight face.

And if a school keeps the old iron for the longer portions of a PPL (which they will have to) that stuff will be under-utilised and its operating costs will go up.

Also there is zero infrastructure for charging the batteries, away from base.

I think a better solution for schools will be car petrol burning engines (currently illegal for PPL training in the UK – even MOGAS is illegal) and lightweight (stripped down) planes. The other day I saw the Tecnam P2008 and that looked pretty good.

More than 80% of the pilots at my airfield do not use the airplane to travel, only for local recreational flights. The ones that travel distances are very few. Given that GA has very little practical use, it is a lifestyle thing and flying around the globe is as valid a use of GA as a €100 burger. A hangar neighbor of mine bought a 700k€ 2011 SR22T and only uses it for local VFR flights.

I’ve been exclusively relying on an electric car with about 150km range for the last 6 months and I have not had the situation once where I needed more range. Our lifestyles are changing with more and more people living in urban areas.

And there is no reason why electricity has to be produced by burning coal (which btw, is very clean nowadays and only produces CO2). In 2013, Germany had 30% renewable electricity and Norway is at more than 100% (they export). All hangars at our airfield are covered with solar panels so I could claim they produce the energy for my electric plane

I think there is a big difference between a car and a plane in the way one views the longer distance capability.

A lot of people can use an electric car – particularly the more wealthy who also keep a petrol car in the garage for longer trips. They use the electric one for journeys which they know will be short. I live in the countryside but could use an electric car for travelling to work and the airport.

But very few people are going to keep 2 planes. I have known a few who had say a TB20 and a TBM700 but they are very rare, and massively rich.

Also doing burger runs is utterly soul destroying and just makes people throw it all in, due to the boredom and the utter waste of money relative to what they get out of it. People who are budget limited (but not so limited they can do burger runs) would be much better off cost sharing a 3-up trip (a different PIC for each leg) going somewhere interesting.

I know I would never make money with this attitude but I can’t see much mileage in encouraging people to fly short and pointless trips – the sort of trips you can do in a car in less time.

I can understand your thinking Peter and share the same but rest assured, this is not a majority position. 80% or more only do local flights where I am based. It’s even “worse” in France, there GA seems to almost exclusively limited to doing local flights.