If there were 25 million active GA pilots...

On 16-Oct-2003, "Dan Luke" c172rgATbellsouthDOTnet wrote:

...in the USA instead of 400,000 or so:

There would be GA airports *everywhere*. They would be like beehives on
the day before Thanksgiving.

I think what you mean is that there would be few places without convenient
access to/from a GA airport


You could rent a T hangar for less than the cost of a 1 br apartment.

More likely GA airplanes would be designed with features like folding wings
to make storage more efficient


The accident rate would be about the same but the fatal accident rate
would be lower due to modern, more crashworthy designs.

The real key to even getting to that level of GA use would be to make it
practical for GA airplanes and pilots to safely operate IFR in pretty much
the same mix of weather that the airlines fly in. The biggest challenges:
practical and low cost ice protection and weather visualization (the latter
rapidly becoming a reality) and greatly simplified IFR procedures (so that
25 million pilots could operate "in the system."


You'd give the engine in your airplane about as much thought as you do the
one in your car. The idea of sending oil samples off for analysis at each
change would seem absurd.

But aircraft engines would continue to cost a lot more than auto engines --
just not ten times as much.



Your new "family" airplane would be air conditioned.

Maybe. Still a big weight penalty and not needed nearly as universally as
AC in cars

It would have a headup synthetic vision/HITS display, emergency autoland
capability, real time data
link weather and a CD/DVD player.

It would certainly have a lot of "high tech" avionics, but the demands of
traffic control in an environment with 25 million pilots would dominate
their functionality.


You'd have a second, "fun" airplane.

Maybe, but even with mass production techniques airplanes would still cost
lots more than cars -- just not 10 times as much.


40-year old airplanes would all be junkers or lovingly restored classics.

Probably right.


Vacuum pumps would be deep in landfills.

Everything that COULD be electronic WOULD be electronic. You would
certainly have redundant electrical systems


Air traffic control would automated for most functions.

It would have to be to manage the 50-fold increase in traffic. Oh, and by
the way, there would undoubtedly need to be enforced positive control in
virtually all airspace with the possible exception of parts of Alaska

Regulation enforcement officers would be flying around, watching and
listening, but federal enforcement actions would be more uniform and fair
due to more lawyers and politicians getting busted and raising hell.

The reason for more uniform (and aggressive) enforcement of regulations
would be that with 25 million users the system would collapse without it


Frogs could dance and the Cubs would win the World Series.

Naw, its not as unlikely as the Cubs winning the Series.

-------
-Elliott Drucker

wrote in message
...

The real key to even getting to that level of GA use would be to make it
practical for GA airplanes and pilots to safely operate IFR in pretty much
the same mix of weather that the airlines fly in. The biggest challenges:
practical and low cost ice protection and weather visualization (the
latter

Even with a terrific TKS known-ice system and 5-minute weather datalink from
Weatherworx, my plane is nowhere near as capable as an airliner. Airliners
have advantages in altitude, speed, and range that make a big difference
compared with my piston single.


--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

On 23-Oct-2003, "Richard Kaplan" wrote:

Even with a terrific TKS known-ice system and 5-minute weather datalink
from Weatherworx, my plane is nowhere near as capable as an airliner.
Airliners have advantages in altitude, speed, and range that make a big
difference
compared with my piston single.


I think you missed my point. In order to attract 25 million active pilots a
vast majority of them would have to view GA aircraft as a reliable means of
transportation for trips of modest length. That means reliably being able
to operate in IFR environments in all seasons and in all regions of the
country. That does NOT mean they would have to match the airlines in speed,
range, or altitude capability, or that they would have to be able to go in
unusually nasty weather. But they would have to be able to operate safely
in TYPICAL bad weather. Put another way, how many people would own and
drive cars if they could only be used for sightseeing around town on sunny
days?
--
-Elliott Drucker

wrote:
I think you missed my point. In order to attract 25 million active pilots
a
vast majority of them would have to view GA aircraft as a reliable means
of
transportation for trips of modest length. That means reliably being able
to operate in IFR environments in all seasons and in all regions of the
country.

....which I personally regard as an impossibility in any practical sense.
That was the main reason for my OP, to generate discussion about why there
*aren't* 25M active GA pilots. There is no reasonably economical airplane
that I can envision that could fulfil the requirements you describe - NASA's
silly Advanced General Aviation Transports Experiment notwithstanding.

Put another way, how many people would own and drive cars if they could
only be used for sightseeing around town on sunny days?

Bingo.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM