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Why is General Aviation declining?

Well one of the most positive things for GA was the introduction of BRS Chute. It got a lot of fearful right seaters into the seat who would never have entertained the idea of flying. Why? Well what happens if the pilot drops dead?

Pinch hitters was tried with mild success. A lot of family members wont go anywhere because of the fear of pilot incapacitation.

I just think there has to be a lot more training in when to and not to use the chute.

KHTO, LHTL

Patrick wrote:

Why, on earth, do you have to book out at all? Is there any reason this should be required in the UK while ROW can do without it?

Can anyone explain book out and ROW?

KHTO, LHTL

For once, here is a contribution I am brave enough to make (see other thread on why don’t people post on EuroGA) because I am pretty sure I know the answer to both these questions and hopefully nobody will beat me to it with a much more eloquent reply!

Book out = telling the person on the other end of the radio what your flight detail is to be (although in Alioth’s case it sounds like this is mostly done over the telephone, unless it is late in the afternoon?)
ROW = rest of the world (I think this is what was meant by Patrick)

UK, United Kingdom

ROW = Rest of World. I actually thought that was an American term more than anything else. I frequently see it when big US firms “divide” the world in discrete regions.

Booking out, I believe, is best explained by those who do it. I don’t really get the concept.

Hungriger Wolf (EDHF), Germany

“Booking out” is basically passing your details to ATC or AFIS, normally by phone. You tell them who you are, what you plan to do etc. Then when you start up and call on the radio you just tell them ‘ready to taxi’ (they have your details from your ‘booking out’ phone call). Some airfields do away with the phone altogether (e.g. Oban or Carlisle) and you “book out” on the radio, which really is conceptually little different from giving your details on the radio to ground or tower in the US.

Some airfields have bizarre rules about it though. For instance, Blackpool insist you book out on the phone and if you want to go flying after 4pm IIRC, you have to do it before 4pm (otherwise you can do it just before you crank up your engine). It seems that they have a staff member to take booking out phone calls. Why after 4pm they simply can’t take the details on the radio I don’t understand. They recently changed the opening hours of their “booking out phone line” and I nearly got caught (they said it was NOTAMed but it wasn’t on the website and it didn’t show up in Skydemon), the person on the phone told me that she’d “do it this once since I’m still here”. I wonder what would have happened if she had gone and I had asked on the radio instead, would the guy in the tower simply have refused and told me to book a hotel for the night? This kind of thing can be a huge deterrent to people actually using a plane to travel and airfields doing this kind of bizarre nonsense is killing off their own customer base. It’s bad enough dealing with the weather, but to add petty bureaucracy on top means only the really stubborn are likely to continue flying.

Andreas IOM

As long as you are only doing BRNAV, you don’t legally need database updates. (But then you do need to check in flight that each waypoint is where it is supposed to be and you must be prepared to manually enter any waypoints introduced since your last update.)

That depends on the wording of your IFR GPS AFMS. See the KLN94 Approach Approval writeup on my website for an example.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I don’t really think there’s any one reason, it’s rather death by a thousand cuts.

A big (the biggest?) factor IMHO is the slow demise of the middle class in western societies. Traditionally these were the people with disposable income and, importantly, also disposable time. This group of people is in retreat across our – western – societies.

Next up is prob80 the vastly increased offering of things to do. The choices we have today are simply mindboggling. While this certainly is a good thing, it also means that GA has to compete with a myriad other offerings for the increasingly scarce resources of those interested.

Another factor may well be traffic. Yes, really, I mean the one on the roads. How long did it take to get to an airfield in the 70s/80s and how long does this trip take today? Try to get from central London to, say, Denham during the day – it’s a nightmare. If you don’t live relatively close to an airfield, going for a bimble takes up the better part of your day.

Increasing red tape, idiotic airfield opening times and schenanigans like the above cited ‘booking out’ procedure obviously don’t help either.

The ‘utility factor’ I think was never really an issue in Europe. In the US, sure and it still is. In Europe there was always only a very, very tiny minority who used light GA for any meaningful transport, biz or pleasure

My feeling is that – at least in Europe – most recreational flying will move to the Ultralight (or whatever it’s called) scene with certified light GA slowly disappearing. Hey, the Natural History museum in London might well do an exhibit about the denizens of EuroGA one day

Happy flying!

My feeling is that – at least in Europe – most recreational flying will move to the Ultralight

I think so too, and for most pilots that’s a good thing. I might do that too, …. one day :-)

Peter wrote:

See the KLN94 Approach Approval

Approaches are not BRNAV. You certainly are required to have a current database for approaches.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

172driver wrote:

Another factor may well be traffic. Yes, really, I mean the one on the roads. How long did it take to get to an airfield in the 70s/80s and how long does this trip take today? Try to get from central London to, say, Denham during the day – it’s a nightmare. If you don’t live relatively close to an airfield, going for a bimble takes up the better part of your day.

Never gave that a thought other than the fact that more and more airports around larger cities are being closed. So it adds another nail (loss of practicality) into the coffin. But certainly if it takes an hour to get to the airport it decreases its allure for transportation use.

172 Driver are you in the States?

KHTO, LHTL
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