MedEwok wrote:
As Peter correctly pointed out, time and money required to fly GA tend to be concentrated among those over 50.
Not necessarily. In our club, most new members are in their 30s. That said, most work in some sort of internet startup so have money and quite often can adjust their free time (doesn’t mean they don’t work hard, it’s just that in these companies work tends to be more flexible).
The underlying reasons are manifold and cannot all be tackled by GA itself, the main reason probably being our economic and political system failing the young people.
I am not at all sure that’s the case. When I was “young”, say 40 years ago (I am 61) we were poor as rats 
My college and univ jobs paid 25-50 pence an hour which even allowing for inflation was derisory but I had holiday jobs, lots of pocket money, and could run a series of motorbikes. In 1983, running my own business for 5 years, I was paid 6.2k and I managed to get a 100% mortgage for a 18k flat, which practically bankrupted me for the first few years. At home, the phone rarely rung. But when I got a company car (a Datsun 100A F2; I am sure I posted all this before) the phone started ringing quite a lot. Why? I was the only in my “peer group” with a car so I became useful for the pub run. The only more popular person, today, would be the only person in a group who has an Iphone charger 
Today, 40 years later, the univ car park is packed with students’ cars and these are people who haven’t even got jobs yet. Today’s young people have way more money to spend on “stuff” than ever before.
I think attracting the “young” means creating a nice social scene. Those who will ever be able to do much flying anyway have the money, especially for cost-shared flying. They just choose to spend it elsewhere.
Weather is #1 while Cost is #2 I think.
Without good flyable weather and affordability, the GA scene is probably as good as dead.
I’m not sure about this being a national issue relating to particular countries, although they can certainly screw things up locally. In the US, which most of us regard as the ultimate flying country, overall pilot numbers and flying hours are still way, way down. One of the pleasures of flying there is the wide open ramps and the obvious pleasure with which FBO’s (even the contentious ones!) greet an unexpected visitor. I can personally contrast this with the same airports on the same days 20 yrs ago when the ramps were crowded and a line formed in the FBO’s office to pay for the fuel. Not now.
Al the more alarming, this decline has persisted in the face of fantastic technological developments – GPS and Foreflight – which have made flying vastly more accessible and practical then ever before. Still the decline goes on. The difference between US and other countries is that the airports and FBO’s are kept open in the face of clearly unviable traffic levels by the local and national funding structure – for now. Even that can’t save formerly crucial airports like Meigs field and Santa Monica.
So my point is that the flying culture, or environment, in a country doesn’t solve the problem no matter how beneficent that country is. There’s something else. My own bet is on the pervasiveness of electronic devices that give (mostly) young people all the thrills they need at zero cost and especially zero effort. Just like the car was the unexpected vanquisher of the train, our future is tied up with technological alternatives that many of us older types only dimly understand. And that technological evolution is only just beginning.
But I don’t mean to be depressive about this. For us, the present environment gives a golden age of empty skies and affordable flying, almost everywhere, even in UK. Just as some of us fantasise about driving beautiful steam engines across limitless distances of unspoiled countryside where the only light at night belonged to a solitary railway policeman, I believe our descendants will look back on our freedom of the skies as a romance, lost for ever but still there in our innumerable flying stories.
Just as we have the compensation of having quiet, clean and convenient automobiles to take the place of the dirty, slow and inconvenient steam trains, they will have skies full of autonomous, reliable and convenient flying machines that are simply waiting to take that future generation on a GA trip whenever they want, even if the devices don’t actually have any windows.
MedEwok wrote:
our economic and political system failing the young people.
I applied for a British Gliding Association scholarship in my early teens, but never heard back. One section of the form was to explain in 500 words why I wanted the scholarship; at that age I probably needed parental input writing this. Ironically, the people who need the funding most probably won’t get it because they’re from the ‘wrong’ background and aren’t articulate, self-confident etc. My gliding career didn’t last long: the club wasn’t set up for young people and I’d spend all day waiting for a 10 minute flight. This might have been a test, but I’m not so sure.
Learning to fly in France, I received grants from the FFA after first solo, BB (brevet de base), and PPL, in the form of credit on my aéroclub account. There were no forms to complete, selection criteria or first come first served basis. The club membership was also reduced by 50% for under 21s. Looking now, the total funding for all stages (BIA, solo, BB, PPL, aerobatics, mountain rating) is €2175. The Brevet d’Initiation Aéronautique (BIA) is extra classes for high school kids in aviation history, principles of flight etc, with an exam at the end. The reward is three flights with the aéroclub, and some flying credit should they decide to learn to fly. The downside is a high dropout rate once the money runs out: pocket money, weekend job and Christmas & birthday presents soon disappear into exhaust. A few do come back twenty years later, and it does create a social climate where GA is more accessible and acceptable.
I must add I had two paper rounds, worked weekends in the local shop and did three evenings a week in the pub (plus school holidays 9-5 in the family business unpaid). With no expenditure the ‘buying a plane fund’ was pretty big, but was eventually subsumed into the ‘buying a house fund’; the right thing to do, but I feel I betrayed my younger self.
Peter wrote:
I think attracting the “young” means creating a nice social scene
While introducing gliding to young guys, you hear things like can I book online? how long I will have wait? Who likes to fly in rubbish wood?
(I can guarantee that gliding in France/UK, was the lest efficient way to learn flying you hang all day to get 3 min winch)
The same applies to aeroplanes: if it is not shinny and simple to plug-and-play,it will not attract the whole lot of the playstation generation
At the end, you only left with those young that are intrinsically interested in aviation (not GA in particular) and who view the GA as stepping stone to airliner jobs, aeronautical engineering (usually STEM guys) or attracted to military careers
For those ones, I guess junior flying schemes will help them getting in the ladder (e.g. Cadets (UK), BIA(France)…) for the rest of the lot it’s a hopeless cause: GA is a highly regulated place (XAA + old guardians) for youngs to have fun on a cheap cost !
Interesting to read all these comments about a ‘social scene’. Our club doesn’t have one, yet it attracts young(ish) people. I only joined about a year ago, but listening to some who have been members for longer, the average age has plummeted over the last 3-4 years. At the same time, the local flight school is going gangbusters with loads of young people (both male and female!) learning to fly. If these are attracted by the prospect of airline jobs, I don’t know, but they are there. Again, AFAIK, there is no ‘social scene’ other than the 3-4 BBQs they hold per year (for those of you guys here who are in L.A., there’s one on Aug 10th, all welcome).
Aveling wrote:
Even that can’t save formerly crucial airports like Meigs field and Santa Monica.
Not true at all. Both were (Meigs) and probably will be (KSMO) victims of politics and corruption. Santa Monica city is run by a corrupt cabal of real estate speculators who masquerade as city council. The land the airport sits on, and more importantly the coastline that now is protected by the instrument approach, are gold dust and will be built over in seconds once the airport closes. In the meantime, the city is making life for the airport tenants as miserable as they legally can. Nothing to do with traffic volume.
The problem you point out 172driver, relates to category A
- Category A: airports like (KSMO/EGKB) in a place where aviation is financially accessible, but then GA loose it to estate hunters/bizjet aviation
- Category B: airports like (EGMH/EGTC/EGKA) with low traffic volume that kicks off all airline/bizjet but where GA will be the last zombie survivor, anyway land does not have much real estate interest (probably, EGMH will be used as night parking for cross-channels lorries who know)
Its’s category B, that suffers from ‘social scene’
Airborne_Again wrote:
I agree with LeSving. I have no idea what you are talking about.
LeSving wrote:
Under who’s radar exactly ? Sorry to say, but you have no idea. GA has always been a big part of the common culture here, because people need to get around. Even today, airplane is the only usable means of transportation along the coast due to terrain. It would cost an insane amount of money to build proper roads or railway. It will never be done.
Norway is different. It’s part of the infrastructure there due to long history of bush flying, geography, Wideroe, etc. That’s not the case in Sweden, Denmark. There, they don’t see that benefit. All you need to do is see what happened to GA in Stockholm region when authorities do get a whiff. Regulated away and forced out by Swedavia and politicians. Barkarby gone, Bromma gone, Tullinge gone – nothing left for GA in the whole region. Not even ambulance helicopters were allowed anywhere. The only reason they haven’t forced regulation on GA everywhere else in rural parts (and it’s reasonably free and easy), is because those smaller fields have no scheduled traffic and flies under the radar still, which was my only point. Soon as a scheduled airline starts a route, they will. And GA gets pushed out.
I think you might be saying the same thing, but it comes off as you saying that its due to national leadership that GA is somehow reasonably free. It’s ridiculous to say that Scandinavian politicians (maybe with the exception of Norway as you point out) are somehow friends of GA and see the bigger infrastructure picture or because of them it’s reasonably free. Nothing could be further from the truth. They don’t understand it and they just haven’t gotten around to regulating it yet, that’s all.
Category B: airports like (EGMH/EGTC/EGKA) with low traffic volume that kicks off all airline/bizjet but where GA will be the last zombie survivor, anyway land does not have much real estate interest (probably, EGMH will be used as night parking for cross-channels lorries who know)
Speaking for EGKA (my base) that always had high movements (mostly close to its planning permission limit) but was plagued by allowing too many schools to set up. They then cannot make money and struggle and do everything possible to make money, which includes not supporting a social scene, because that would involve allowing experienced pilots to hang around and PPL students might spend their money flying with them rather than flying with the instructors
So for a healthy scene one needs to be making “some” money. If nobody is making any money, the whole thing gets tight and greedy and the fun goes out of it.
