General Aviation Dead?

On Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:20:16 -0400, MU wrote:

On Tue, 11 Oct 2011 19:11:43 +0100, Keith Willshaw wrote:

MU wrote:

I haven't renewed my PPL this year and one reason is that the airport
I fly out of is a) under runway construction and b) filled with daffy
old pilots.

Try sharing a single TO/L runway with a bunch of glaucoma-laden
morons. lol. When you choice on TO abort is "which set of mangroves
do I ditch in", you're better off grounded.

Reality Check

Active General Aviation Aircraft in the U.S. 1973-2011
Current as of March 2011
Source: FAA

Year No Active Aircraft
2011 224,475
2001 211,446
1991 196,874
1981 213,293
1973 153,311

Doesn't exactly look dead to me.

Keith

Dying is not dead. Reality check, truth be known, general aviation is a
dying industry. Every year there are fewer active pilots, "active
airplanes" is a load.

At the airport where I learned to fly in the early '70s there used to be
three flight schools; two were busy enough and the third did some float
training. The tiedown area was covered in airplanes. Now there's one
flight school with a couple of Katanas, and both were tied down off in
a corner the other day when I was there. Maybe a quarter of the old
number of airplanes tied down outside, with a few more in hangars. No
kids at the fence. And this in a city that has seen the population
double in that time.

Transport Canada says that in some areas of the country flight training
is down 50% ( I was a partner Cessna dealer there).

The insurance companies have killed off the flight schools and rentals
in all but the most prosperous locations. The general liability
consciousness of our society has affected mentalities, and the fuel
crunch has done the rest.

I wish I could believe otherwise, but I think it is an unrecoverable
flat spin. . .

Do you keep up with Huffman et al?