One of my favorite lines (of many) in the Vietnam-era film Full Metal Jacket is uttered when the colonel is jacking up Private Joker: “… inside every VC there is an American trying to get out. It’s a hardball world, son. We’ve gotta keep our heads until this peace craze blows over!” I’ve cleansed the racial slur used in the original, but you get the point.
Interesting article, Paul. It pretty well sums up the current status of aviation and where it is going in the future. Modern kids are as used to flashy electronics as my generation was to spinning wrenches and fiddling with carburetors. Their eyes glaze over looking at twitchy round gauge needles that seem to have a mind of their own. They neither grasp what those dials are trying to say, nor do they really care. Now show them a big-screen flat panel with synthetic vision and it at least gets their attention. They still may not grasp what all the numbers are telling them, but it at least speaks their language. In the past year, Garmin has shown us that the future is very near with their new auto land system and their glide distance indicator on the GTN series navigators. The step from auto land to total auto flight is a fairly small one that involves more interfacing with ATC than building the hardware needed to accomplish the mission. At that point, pilots become true button pushers. While that may rankle the old guard it is coming and it is the future. If Tesla can make a functional car autopilot, building autoflight is a piece of cake by comparison. From there, the major hurdle is, as always, building an aircraft people can actually afford. As you say, general aviation has never been a high-volume, mass production kind of business.
The “growth” of the student pilot population in the last 10 years is driven only by a change of FAA recording as stated in Note 1.
Note 1: In July 2010, the FAA issued a rule that increased the duration of validity for student pilot certificates for pilots under the age of 40 from 36 to 60 months. This resulted in the increase in active student pilots to 119,119 from 72,280 at the end of 2009. Starting with April 2016, there is no expiration date on the new student pilot certificates, which generates a cumulative increase in the numbers.
The student “growth” you mentioned is in fact the student dropout rate. It is increasing (especially among female student pilots). Meanwhile, the level of annual student starts (table 22) is decreasing - from 66,953 in 2006 to 55,298 in 2011 to 49,933 in 2020.
Pilot candidates who go through the trouble of getting a medical certificate (the only students recorded by the FAA) know about the cost of learning to fly. That is not the deterrent. As an flight instructor, I have found that the deterrent is two folds: unexpected complexity (flight environment + new avionics) and uncontrollable training timeline. This does need to be addressed if we are to grow the Private aviation sector.
I do not know if Eagle Flights are an effective recruitment too but, as the founder of the current movement to introduce women and girls to aviation opportunities, hands-on, I do know that Fly It Forward flights for women and girls are. Many young - and not so young - women who received one are Commercial pilots today. Others were inspired to become aircraft mechanics, traffic controllers, etc… Those who did not join the industry still became friends of the industry. That’s a win in my world and worth the investment.
I am a relatively low hour private pilot that flies as a hobby, so I am not nearly as qualified as many others that comment here. However, I always found the cerebral aspects of flying (communicating on the radio, weather decisions, the initial hours of memorizing rules and regulations) far more of a challenge than the actual stick and rudder aspects.
Granted, uttering “Say again” on the radio won’t result in the same kind of physical damage as forgetting to maintain airspeed on final. But I question if there are really that many people that don’t have the brain power to learn the basics of flight control, yet do have the brain power to exercise the judgement and other skills of a pilot in command.
Cormac McCarthy has shown us the future (“The Road”). I think we have like 10-12 yrs according the “experts”. No mention of aviation. Your point is mute Paul!
Sorry, moot, not mute.
I’m not buying into this hypothesis.
Light Sport was gonna revolutionize aviation, simplify training and bring the acquisition cost down to reality (sub $100K) … where did that take us? The move to instrument panels filled with flat screen avionics was going to simplify manufacturing ergo reduce costs and lure millenials to them … where did that go? The move to limited ASTM standards was going to simplify things; what meaningful success did that have and where is MOSAIC? Cirrus was going to be the answer yet all they did was become the airplane du jour for the very well heeled. Mooney’s were gonna wow prospects with efficiency of speed and where did that get them? So now someone wants me to believe that SVO airplanes flown with an iPhone are going to do it. It’s just another bump in the road for GA unless and until mere every day mortals can afford to buy a decent entry level airplane that isn’t 50+ years old. The success of E-AB airplanes – built in numbers greater than certificated airplanes proves it. In the end, it’s all about acquisition costs. Sure, there are a bevy of other irritants and obstacles in the equation but the MAJOR factor is cost.
A SVO airplane isn’t going to make them any cheaper. The trial lawyers and the intransigent FAA will see to that. Your own statement, “Oh, the wealth is growing, all right, but the industry’s efforts to divert it into new airplane sales have yielded survival, but not meaningful growth” hits the problem on the head but evades the root problem … acquisition cost. When is the last time anyone here knew any individual who went out and bought a new airplane? Flight school puppy mills are buying some but not individuals. Bring the cost of a new Cessna 172 down near the cost of an E-AB RV-7 and ‘they’ will come. Until then, all everyone is doing is throwing golf balls against a wall hoping that one of them will stick. The VFR Piper 100 comes close but they are still a bit high and – as I understand it – aren’t available to individuals in meaningful numbers.
Let’s just see what happens when Van’s reveals his RV-15. I’m betting they’ll have to hire still more employees to fill the clamor for them.
I have a friend who is buying and selling used clean Cessna 182’s like hotcakes for between $100K - $150K, sometimes less. THERE is your problem. Pilots and pilot wannabe’s ARE there, they want airplanes but just can’t afford it so they take their discretionary dollars elsewhere or buy nice used airplanes. Every time I tell someone I own a M model Skyhawk, they ask if I want to sell it. THERE’s your problem.
Gregory, You’ve hit the nail on the head. The youth on this planet are bombarded by the “world is coming to an apocalyptic end”… ‘soon’. Politicians, News Broadcast, Movies, Social Media, Video Games, Advertising, Books, The Education Industry and everywhere else you turn your head. Our youth feel the future is hopeless.
If the apocalypse is coming why should anybody study hard and better themselves?
I love your pieces Paul and you are correct in everything written here but you somehow lost sight of the elephant in the room…
In N years time (choose your own value for N but the outcome will be the same) gasoline cars will cease to exist. The gas station will cease to exist. Gasoline will no longer be a mass market fuel, but rather a speciality chemical with a price to match. The current debate about 100LL vs unleaded will be rendered completely academic. The entire fleet of current gas powered GA aircraft will become totally uneconomical. And for the few who can afford it, how ill it look to be the running the last gas burning machines in existence. Even heritage flying will look increasingly difficult.
Maybe there will be SVOs, electric air-taxis, hybrid commuter aircraft etc. Perhaps the hydrogen fuel cell will hold sway. But all this machinery will be new and expensive. GA as we know it now relies to a huge extent on the capital cost of the equipment having been depreciated years if not decades ago. The cost of all those Cubs, Luscombes, Bonanzas, Cessna 17-somethings, PA-28-xyz and all the others built between 1946 and the turn of the decade have long been written down. The cost of replacement with new metal or composites is simply beyond the majority of recreational flyers.
The elephant tells me that recreational flying is past its zenith and the only way now is down. As my doctor so kindly told me, after forty, it’s just managed decline. So too, it inevitably is for General Aviation.
I don’t believe that petrol-fueled cars will cease to exist anytime soon. I know plenty of people who own an electric car, but I don’t know anybody who ONLY owns electric cars. They either have one as a daily commuter, or they have one as a weekend toy. But they all seem to also have a gas-powered car or truck for the “fringe” uses that don’t suit the usage profile of an electric car (such as a family vacation road trip, or the odd home/garden construction project). Also, electric power is not well suited to commercial trucking and other heavy equipment.
Paul,
I’ve viewing SVO in the context of the FAA’s recent adjustment to the definition of the word ‘astronaut’. They made the word apply only to individuals who participate in the operation of the vehicle in some way. In other words, passengers aren’t astronauts. By the same token, passengers in busses and cars aren’t “drivers”. Passengers in planes aren’t pilots.
How does one “drive” an autonomous car? You don’t. You’re a passenger. Which means that one does not pilot an automated flying machine either. You’re a passenger.
Which makes my next question, “Does the world need pilots?” I’m not discounting that there is entertainment value in flying, whether it’s a little yellow taildragger or an F-15. Certainly I like it quite a bit in my 172. But that doesn’t mean that we will always need folks like you and me to keep the world moving forward.
I still see young people who are bitten by the flying bug. They are sure not in the majority, but they never were.
The last time I took a young man for a flight in my Nanchang I warned his father that he might love it. He did and his father told me he now eats, breaths, and sleeps flying. Excellent I replied, another life ruined !
Poignantly funny, David 
I was one of those kids whose life was ruined. Now I’m old. That, money, and complexity, oh and inconvenience, make personal aviation a shrinking niche. For most people it’s just not “special enough” anymore.
Having gotten my tailwheel endorsement about a year ago in a Cub, and now trying to become friends with a Cessna 140 (almost there, initial rotation to takeoff is still sending me into the weeds), I must say that the tricycle landing gear is a wonderful invention. Can you imagine how many fewer pilots we would have if this game-changing technology hadn’t been developed? Maybe in addition to SVO, manufacturers should concentrate on what I would call, “full envelope protection”. Allow the pilot to operate the plane but provide hard protection against stalls, over speed, spins, and the like. These protections could be disabled as a pilot becomes more proficient. Motorcycles have this now, where the rider can choose different profiles based on conditions and their level of expertise (BMW has a gizmo that prevents a rider from exceeding certain parameters until the bike is broken in and the rider is used to its handling). If this is an acceptable solution to what I consider a more dangerous activity (been riding motorcycles for decades), it should be acceptable flyers.
Some think that the future of automobiles is robo-taxis where you neither own nor drive the vehicle. GA may go the same way.
I don’t care to encourage “occupants” to be in command of air vehicles, there’s more than enough of them on the road.
If you have the passion to work hard and earn your place as a thinking, responsible, PIC, I will help you as much as I can and applaud your success no matter what airplane you fly. But if your only goal is to dabble, get some “Xtreme” video (of extremely stupid activities), or show how much money you have…please stay in your mother’s basement with your video games.
I would like to know the average age of the pilot population today as compared to the average age 20 years ago. Any bets the avg age grew from 50 to 60 years old? Of the total pilot population, how many (what percent) are active today as compared to active pilots 20 years ago?
Here is a scary stat. In the late 60’s there was roughly 1,000,000 pilots for 202,000,000 population. 1 out of 202 people were pilots. Today 700,000 pilots for 335,000,000 population. 1 out of 478 people are pilots today. 60% more people and 30% less pilots. The pilot population today should be at least double, or 1,658,000 based on percent of population. In the 60’s the vast majority of the pilots were active (and young). Many of the 700,000 today are not active and are older than 65. I am in that over 65 group that was part of the 1,000,000 pilots in the 60’s. A lot of us from the 60’s make up the 700,000 pilot population today.
So what caused the pilot population decline. In a nutshell, and starting about 25 years ago, the airlines began eating their young. The airlines destroyed the farm teams. They hired every warm body with 250 hours and put them in the right seats of regional jets. As a results these young warm bodies didn’t become CFI’s and teach the next generation. Flight schools at almost all rural airports vanished. Flight training virtually came to a halt. After the Colgan Air accident February 2009 the new-hire flight-time rules changed forcing the warm bodies to get 1,500 hours before joining the airline ranks. Hence more flight schools and CFI’s today. Hence the increase in pilots today.
Did you happen to notice that the airline accident rate went down when the mandatory retirement age was lifted from 60 to 65 years of age? I would suggest to the FAA that they raise the mandatory retirement age to 70 years before they lower the minimum amount of flight hours to warm a right seat (See Colgan Air accident 02/09/2009).
God bless.
Everyone is an aviation fan, so there will continue to be demand for the products and experiences- whatever the venue, whatever the requirements, whatever the aircraft. Avoiding the political, we are clearly a diminishing income class that can afford aviation, but electronics have a steeply downward price curve, so as GA aircraft- in whatever format- transition to electric, the long-term prognosis of general aviation may be less tenuous.
Jeff, I seem to fit in the same bracket as you, I too am from the '60s. At the time that I hung up my headset for the last time in a 747, I was flying with a much younger crowd as that is the way of things. The sad part of that was the amount of aviation lore that was going out the door with folks like me and not being passed along. Sure, aviation lore is a broad menu item with a lot of hidden spam in it but most of it stems back to lessons learned the hard way. As I grew older I was more easily able to pick out the “spam” from the “sausage” in that omelet. The point is that even the spam was often worth a nibble because there was usually a kernel of fact mixed in there somewhere.
Today’s pilots aren’t as exposed to issues that “we” faced for a variety of reasons. Mostly, improvements in technology, engineering and quality control, and communications has eliminated the need for a lot of the knowledge you and I learned the hard way. That is good. That said, technology (computers) and communications can fail regardless of what the engineers say. If they didn’t, then why is there a need for maintenance? So, what happens when parts of the gee whiz stuff fails… the pilot is left with his/her own knowledge base. If that “base” is skimpy then that pilot is left with whatever pot of “luck” he/she has. Consider the Atlas 767 crash in Texas a couple of years back… a “fully qualified” crew and a fully operational aircraft ended up in a figurative blacking smoking hole. Not saying that anyone couldn’t have ended up there but a more experienced crewmember at the yoke might have saved the day, possibly, maybe…