At last, the truth...

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:%SULe.254010$_o.767@attbi_s71...
I address this "scared straight" issue as just another small piece of
the "Why is GA dying?" puzzle

This assumes, of course, that GA is dying. I don't really believe that. It
is morphing, as do all pursuits.

Ask surfers about their passion, and they'll tell you it has become too damn
crowded over the past year or two.

Ask bicyclists and they'll complain about the increase in traffic, but will
also comment on the new found (and probably short-lived) visibility
resulting from Lance.

Ask rock climbers and they'll tell you about new technology and the impact
of rock-climbing gyms.

GA is under pressure because of the misguided focus of anti-terror issues,
regulatory issues, (resulting in economic issues), etc. It will continue to
change, in some cases for the better (see the recent success of Cirrus and
the development of the GA glass cockpit), in some cases for the worse. But
the very small incremental change in pilot population that results from "Be
a pilot" programs really won't have much effect. Pilots have a small and
decreasing voice. That's just part of the landscape. But it is a vast
overstatement to say that GA is dying.

GA is under pressure because of the misguided focus of anti-terror issues,
regulatory issues, (resulting in economic issues), etc. It will continue
to change, in some cases for the better (see the recent success of Cirrus
and the development of the GA glass cockpit), in some cases for the worse.
But the very small incremental change in pilot population that results
from "Be a pilot" programs really won't have much effect. Pilots have a
small and decreasing voice. That's just part of the landscape. But it is a
vast overstatement to say that GA is dying.

The pressure exerted on GA by anti-terror or regulatory issues is
insignificant compared to the damage being done to it by Father Time.

The pilot community is very old, and getting older by the minute. Already
most of the WWII generation has hung it up, and the Korean War generation
ain't far behind. Why do you think formerly busy little airports all over
the country are now nearly deserted? The guys who used to fly there are
"flying" walkers and wheel chairs nowadays.

Take a look at the "Gone West" page in EAA's Sport Aviation magazine every
month. It's astounding the number of members EAA is losing each month due
to natural attrition -- and there simply are not enough student pilot
start-ups to make up for the tens of thousands of post-war pilots who are
pushing up daisies.

GA is dying -- literally -- right before our eyes. And we are going to have
to get a whole bunch of young people interested in flying to keep this ball
rolling.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Check http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/trend.html for a quantitative
summary of trends. Private, commercial and instrument issuances are
down 12% since 2000. New aircraft shipments are down 10% since 2000.
Avgas sale is down almost 25% since 1999. OK, dying may be an
overstatement, but it is not looking rosy either. On the other hand,
this year's Airventure drew record crowds. I am not sure what to make
of that, but it is probably something similar to what happens in
spectator sports. Large number of people turn up to watch but very few
are able to participate.

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote:
On the other hand, this year's Airventure
drew record crowds.

Using their claims of attendance, and ignoring the fact that
they're bogus, the highest they've ever claimed is 855,000
"attendance-days" in 1998; this year it's stated as "nearly
700,000."

Fred F.

"TaxSrv" wrote in message
...
"Andrew Sarangan" wrote:
On the other hand, this year's Airventure
drew record crowds.

Using their claims of attendance, and ignoring the fact that
they're bogus, the highest they've ever claimed is 855,000
"attendance-days" in 1998; this year it's stated as "nearly
700,000."

It is impossible to know about attendance for the whole week, but every
person I talked to that has been there every day for decades, says that the
Saturday crowd was BY FAR the largest one day crowd they had EVER seen. I
agree.
--
Jim in NC

"Morgans" wrote:

It is impossible to know about attendance for the whole
week,

It's not impossible. They use convention management
software which was a finalist in Microsoft's annual world
Windows competition, with awards handed out by Gates himself
at COMDEX. I'll assume that the simplest thing that
software does is tally up the number of daily tickets sold.
Then just add the freebie tickets given out, like to media
and exhibitors, for total attendance.

Fred F.

"TaxSrv" wrote

It's not impossible. They use convention management
software which was a finalist in Microsoft's annual world
Windows competition, with awards handed out by Gates himself
at COMDEX. I'll assume that the simplest thing that
software does is tally up the number of daily tickets sold.
Then just add the freebie tickets given out, like to media
and exhibitors, for total attendance.

All well and good, but how do they handle the weekly passes? Are they added
to the total, as new attendees? Do they assume that the holder of a weekly
pass is there each and every day? If so, that could be a big source of
error, since some buy a weekly pass (it is cheaper to do that, if you are
going to be there for say, 4 days, compared to buying 4 daily passes) and
only stay for 4 days.

In my eyes, counting people over and over, for each day is misleading. if
they say 700,000 people, a bunch (400,000 perhaps?) are counted over for
each day. It doesn't seem right.

You know what, though? I don't care in the least bit, what their count is.
It is still a bunch of people, looking at some really cool airplanes, and
airplane stuff. Nothing else comes close. (IMHO)

Oshkosh (AirVenture) ROCKS, BIG TIME!
--
Jim (hooked - hook, line and sinker) in NC

It's similar to the metrics used for website visitors. If you hit the
website 3 times in a day or refresh the page 3 times, are you three
visitors? Of course not. However, there are many ways to identify "unique"
visitors and it sounds like that's the crux of the issue with OSH
attendance. They're only supporting metrics. The primary indicators are new
pilot certificates, first-time medicals (i.e. students), aircraft sales, and
avgas sales.

I believe we'll see a decline for some time. We'll only see a significant
increase when a fundamental change in the way aircraft are flown (such as
full-blown SATS goodies) is in full swing making the task of flying much
more forgiving of mistakes. For many, that's a big part of the reward--a
sense of accomplishment.

Marco Leon

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"TaxSrv" wrote

It's not impossible. They use convention management
software which was a finalist in Microsoft's annual world
Windows competition, with awards handed out by Gates himself
at COMDEX. I'll assume that the simplest thing that
software does is tally up the number of daily tickets sold.
Then just add the freebie tickets given out, like to media
and exhibitors, for total attendance.

All well and good, but how do they handle the weekly passes? Are they
added
to the total, as new attendees? Do they assume that the holder of a
weekly
pass is there each and every day? If so, that could be a big source of
error, since some buy a weekly pass (it is cheaper to do that, if you are
going to be there for say, 4 days, compared to buying 4 daily passes) and
only stay for 4 days.

In my eyes, counting people over and over, for each day is misleading. if
they say 700,000 people, a bunch (400,000 perhaps?) are counted over for
each day. It doesn't seem right.

You know what, though? I don't care in the least bit, what their count
is.
It is still a bunch of people, looking at some really cool airplanes, and
airplane stuff. Nothing else comes close. (IMHO)

Oshkosh (AirVenture) ROCKS, BIG TIME!
--
Jim (hooked - hook, line and sinker) in NC




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"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
ups.com...
Check http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/trend.html for a quantitative
summary of trends. Private, commercial and instrument issuances are
down 12% since 2000. New aircraft shipments are down 10% since 2000.
Avgas sale is down almost 25% since 1999. OK, dying may be an
overstatement, but it is not looking rosy either. On the other hand,
this year's Airventure drew record crowds. I am not sure what to make
of that, but it is probably something similar to what happens in
spectator sports. Large number of people turn up to watch but very few
are able to participate.


Interesting....

Total Student Issuances
59,989
59,311
-1%
-678

Private Issuances
23,826
23,331
-2%
-495




If you use these numbers you would get a pretty good feel for the number of
people who start and then don't get their license. If only 10% of the
drop-outs were retained that would be more than 3600 more private pilots.

"Gig 601XL Builder" wr.giacona@coxDOTnet wrote in
news:3isMe.1815$7f5.1413@okepread01:


"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
ups.com...
Check http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/trend.html for a quantitative
summary of trends. Private, commercial and instrument issuances are
down 12% since 2000. New aircraft shipments are down 10% since 2000.
Avgas sale is down almost 25% since 1999. OK, dying may be an
overstatement, but it is not looking rosy either. On the other hand,
this year's Airventure drew record crowds. I am not sure what to make
of that, but it is probably something similar to what happens in
spectator sports. Large number of people turn up to watch but very
few are able to participate.


Interesting....

Total Student Issuances
59,989
59,311
-1%
-678

Private Issuances
23,826
23,331
-2%
-495





You are comparing the 2004 numbers to 2003. I was comparing the 2004
numbers to the peak year (which in this case was 2002). The change in
private issuance is -18% in that case. Student pilot issuance is also -
11%.