At last, the truth...

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%.

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
. ..
"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%.



Andrew, that is the worst job of sniping I've seen in a while. You sipped
everything I wrote which was in no way questioning your comparisons or even
your thesis.

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).

That was peak year as far back as AOPA went. It may be
relevant to the discussion that going back to 1971,
according to GAMA, the peak year was 1978, with 58,064 PP
Certificate issuances. And in that period (up through
1982), 8 of the years were over 50,000. It's not in AOPA's
interest to broadcast such things, I guess.

Fred F.