The Airport Fence

writes:

The middle class, once a vast section of the population, is
shrinking. The airplanes they flew--the older, plain-panel VFR stuff--
doesn't use NavCanada services. No transponder, no IFR flight, not
even many flight plans.
In place of that shrinking middle class we have a growing
wealthy class that flies airplanes that cost as much or more than a
house, and those things use all of NavCanada's services. At the other
end of the scale are most of those that used to be middle class, now
the working poor, who, through various changes in the economy, find
themselves making little more than they did 25 years ago, which is a
lot less when adjusted for inflation. Lots of jobs with no benefits,
jobs that are part-time, non-union, temporary. And wiith little
opportunity for advancement. College or university becomes more and
more important.

An excellent summary of why GA is in trouble. The threshold of income that
makes GA as a hobby practical has gone from middle or lower middle class to
upper class, cutting out a huge chunk of the potential flying population.

Of course, these effects are not limited to aviation.

In place of that shrinking middle class we have a growing
wealthy class that flies airplanes that cost as much or more than a
house, and those things use all of NavCanada's services. At the other
end of the scale are most of those that used to be middle class, now
the working poor, who, through various changes in the economy, find
themselves making little more than they did 25 years ago, which is a
lot less when adjusted for inflation. Lots of jobs with no benefits,
jobs that are part-time, non-union, temporary. And wiith little
opportunity for advancement. College or university becomes more and
more important.

Dan

Dan,

Even college educated workers are sliding down the pay scale. Unless
you own your own business, or have climbed reasonably high on a
corporate ladder, odds are you have seen a significant decline is your
inflation-adjusted income since 2000. Lots of layoffs and offshoring
in the past 7 years that is driving down incomes. Energy costs are
soaring and with that other staples go up as well. Housing costs have
gone up quite a bit since 2000 as well.

Its getting to the point where you need to own substantial real-estate
and have a lot of money invested so that you can have enough passive
income to live well. Most people don't have the seed capital to do
much of that.

Dean

Fwiw, and I've only been flying a year and a half now, but if
anything, I've been watching the Bay Area GA community growing
stronger since I started. The other day I got talking with the San
Carlos (SQL) Manager, and he mentioned that they are now on track to
break 200k operations this year, well above the 170k they saw last
year, in fact, they're now well past the threshold where their
contract tower is supposed to be replaced with an official FAA tower
here shortly (not entirely sure what that means, I'm just quoting).

Among my social circle (young, bay area tech dorks), there has been a
_sharp_ upswing of interest in GA in the past year. When I first
started flight training, my co-workers and friends could hardly
comprehend that was something a person could even do. Now, a year and
a half later, I'm giving two or so bay tours a week to various friends
and acquaintances, and I know at least three others who are actively
working towards their PPL, and when the topic comes up at social
gatherings, you here lots of "Oh yeah! I have a friend who does that!
I've been thinking about getting started myself.", a sentiment that I
never heard when I started flying.

So yeah, take it for what its worth... but to say the GA worlds news
is _ALL_ bleak is certainly an over-generalization.

EridanMan writes:

Fwiw, and I've only been flying a year and a half now, but if
anything, I've been watching the Bay Area GA community growing
stronger since I started. The other day I got talking with the San
Carlos (SQL) Manager, and he mentioned that they are now on track to
break 200k operations this year, well above the 170k they saw last
year, in fact, they're now well past the threshold where their
contract tower is supposed to be replaced with an official FAA tower
here shortly (not entirely sure what that means, I'm just quoting).

Among my social circle (young, bay area tech dorks), there has been a
_sharp_ upswing of interest in GA in the past year. When I first
started flight training, my co-workers and friends could hardly
comprehend that was something a person could even do. Now, a year and
a half later, I'm giving two or so bay tours a week to various friends
and acquaintances, and I know at least three others who are actively
working towards their PPL, and when the topic comes up at social
gatherings, you here lots of "Oh yeah! I have a friend who does that!
I've been thinking about getting started myself.", a sentiment that I
never heard when I started flying.

So yeah, take it for what its worth... but to say the GA worlds news
is _ALL_ bleak is certainly an over-generalization.

How much do you make per year?

Even college educated workers are sliding down the pay scale. Unless
you own your own business, or have climbed reasonably high on a
corporate ladder, odds are you have seen a significant decline is your
inflation-adjusted income since 2000.

Owning your own business doesn't insulate you from the effects of a
down economy. If anything, it accentuates the effect, and makes the
impact more immediate.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck writes:

Owning your own business doesn't insulate you from the effects of a
down economy. If anything, it accentuates the effect, and makes the
impact more immediate.

Owning your own business insulates you from corporate management decisions
that can put an instant end to your career and income. It's unusual to lose
_all_ your clients and _all_ your revenue at once when you're running your own
business, but it's routine to lose all your income at once when you are laid
off from a job working for someone else.

By most metrics my social circle is quite wealthy, but not
'extraordinarily' so. Upper middle class engineers.

For the past five years, my strata has been obsessed with real
estate. All spare resources dedicated to latching on to every-
increasing property values. This past year, that has utterly died...
Those of us who still have not bought have realized we will not be
buying for a few years until housing prices return to some semblance
of sanity (fundamentals), and even those who did buy are cashing out
now while they're still above water.

The result has been more funds available for something other than real-
estate among my local upper-middle-class peers. For many of them,
this is the first time in their life they've had any income
'surplus,', having been dragged by the real estate boom from basically
the start of their professional careers. Take a surplus of money, add
an engineer mentality that _adores_ its toys and loves 'out there'
hobbies and experiences, and I think the resurgence of aviation in
Silicon Valley is hardly surprising.

I'm in NO WAY saying that this particular region is indicative of the
rest of the country, nor do I believe that the growth in bay area
Aviation can in any way offset losses throughout 'bread and butter'
America. I'm just saying that the picture isn't _ALL_ bleak.

wrote in
:

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 22:25:49 +0200, Mxsmanic wrote:


How much do you make per year?

You never give up.


Anyone making more than ten cents per hour is rich to MXmoron.

--
Marty Shapiro
Silicon Rallye Inc.

(remove SPAMNOT to email me)

wrote in message
...
On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 22:25:49 +0200, Mxsmanic wrote:


How much do you make per year?

You never give up.

If you have to ask.........

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 10:19:50 -0400, The Visitor
wrote:

Can't say I have really. For those that have dropped out, many more have
come in.

My other expensive hobby is opera. The opera newsgroups are always
moaning that the audience is dying--just look at them! They're all so
old!

What they neglect to factor in is that there is an endless supply of
old farts to go to the opera, that they're living longer, that they
have more money, and that they're about to be joined by the Baby
Boomers. Almost all the performances I go to are sold out, at least in
the expensive seats.

In the first half of the 20th century there were three classes: poor,
middle, and upper. Then by the 1950s plumbers and auto workers were
making more money than teachers, so we changed working class to middle
class, so we had underclass, middle class, and wealthy.

Gradually however the (temporary) forces that made American workers so
valuable began to disappear with the economic recovery first of
Europe, then of Japan and the Asian Tigers, and now of China, India,
and the rest.

However, it's still true that a Detroit autoworker earns $75 an hour
including bennies. So for an hour of work he can take a 45 minute
lesson at my local airport.

Amazingly enough, a Tennessee autoworker on "Japanese" cars earns
almost as much. He too can well afford to take flying lessons.

I was young in the 1940s and graduated from college in the 1950s. The
minimum wage was 45 cents an hour, and lessons cost $7 an hour. That's
about the same ratio as today.

I suspect the main reason folks can't afford flying is that they're
spending so much on swimming pools, whole house air conditioning, and
trips with the kids to Disney World, none of which existed for us in
1954.

And speaking of the 1950s--gasoline was 29.9 cents a gallon. That was
actually MORE expensive by earning power than $3.60 gas is today. Try
to hire a college student today for the price of two gallons of gas!

Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941-1942
new from HarperCollins www.FlyingTigersBook.com