Each State
 

It seems as though each state has a university or two plus a few community colleges and high schools that offer an aviation program. More seem to pop up all the time.

There are more commercial and ATP rated pilots all the time and fewer private and student pilots.

Skyhigh

I just can't pull the trigger on a Harley. As bad as I want one $9,000 sounds better than $20,000.

Bingo. I've said it many times before. If GA wasn't so cost-prohibitive less people would be inclined to turn their hobby into a full-time professional pursuit. This would yield happier people as they're now able to afford recreational flying and better compensated professional pilots as a result of less applicants for the "automated airplane monitoring" gig aka 121 flying.

Case-study. Take the Cessna 162. But now make the price equivalent to an overpriced SUV (40K). Make parts replacement comparable to boats or cars in cost. Presto, you just solved your glut of freelance pilots at the starving regional level. Now back to reality. 110K for a de facto C-150?!?!? And they tout this thing as affordable. Yeah an affordable tax write off/tax shelter, that's about it :smack: . Ain't nothing affordable about it. Does Cessna not get cable TV down at corporate? They do realize there's a recession going on and people's mortgages are falling left and right like flies because nobody can afford jack on 60K/yr with a 250K house and nothing to spare, right? I rest my case.

The problem with the airline industry versus the fishing industry is that flying is still touted as a high-end pursuit, where commercial boating has always had the face of Louisiana shrimpers, Carnival cruise deckhand and Alaskan King Crab fishermen (i.e. 50% chance of cloudy with a 40% chance you don't make it back to port). As long as there is ONE Lebron James, everybody will continue to believe they can become him, at their own expense no less. Cabotage will bring a more real outlook to the professional flying arena and I believe then and only then will people be forced to part ways with their dream of flying on someone else's dime.
This could all be averted by making General aviation more affordable and separate from the zero-to-hero economic dynamics of professional commercial aviation.

I saw them at Purdue all the time; only reason they were in the program was because they couldn't independently afford aviation and figured a crap job at RAH was the closest they'd ever get to affording the miracle of flight....:rolleyes: A pilot career is a crapshoot, buyer beware.

Profession Pilot oversupply
 

In addition our lives have changed so that it is difficult to find the time to dedicate to the training and proficiency required to maintain a healthy hobbyist career.

It seems that those who are active hobby pilots tend to have dedicated nearly their entire lives to it. They usually are single or have a submissive spouse. Most families would not tolerate the consumption of so much of the family resources to support one members interest.

Therefore there is additional pressure to make aviation into a profession since they then would have the time and built in excuse to go flying regularly.

Skyhigh

Skycatcher Pricing
 

A large component of the high cost of the Skycatcher is due to product liability. In additon they only make a few hundred planes per year. There are fewer products to spread out the cost of administration and development on.

As an investment 115K for a new Skycatcher is not all that bad when you consider that you can get a 20 year loan on one and that it could potentially last for 50 years.

I think that the average car lasts for 12. If there were only a few hundred cars made in a year by Ford I bet they too would cost over 100K each for similar reasons. None of that helps general aviation though.

Skyhigh

General Aviation
 

Aviation is still in its infancy. Decades ago they tried to sell us on the concept of using aviation as a common form of personal transportation. As a result there was a national push to get the general public involved in flying.

I think the jury is in. Piston aviation is not all that accessible or useful to the general public. It can not compete against the highway system and the car. Most do not have the time to learn how to fly or to be able to maintain the credentials.

It is much easier and cheaper to pull the Harley out of the garage a few times of the year for recreation and to drive whenever you need to travel. General aviation is not all that useful to the majority.

Skyhigh

I'm not attempting to equate the economies of scale of aviation to cars. That will never be accomplished. Aviation will always apply to a small segment of the population. That's but one piece of the Skycatcher's tale.

The real impediment is the legal liability. The manufacturing of a Cessna 162 is not that complex. They are rather simple machines. More electromechanics go into the median passenger automobile than a Cessna 162. The engines are more complex and efficient on a minivan than a 70 year old Continental O-200, and yet that's the engine they picked for it. And you want me to have the same capital outlay for a new airplane with an old engine that I had for a house to roof and shelter a whole family because I could presumably fly a 162 for 50 years, at which point its engine technology would be more than 100 years old?!? Insanity.

My point is not to attempt to match the economies of scale of auto making to aircraft production, even though by looking at experimental aviation we have empirical proof that absent FAA regulation, aircraft manufacturing would be as cost-effective as mass auto production. Again, piston aircraft are less complex to manufacture than automobiles. They're pop cans, plain and simple, and experimental home builders prove it every day. Hell, Cessna is manufacturing the things in China for Christ sake. And they still can't get it under 100 grand? It's a tort law self licking ice cream cone is what it is.

My point is to impress upon the same peaunt gallery that considers general aviation irrelevant to their condition, that such disparaging views of the community and the legal ramifications of wanting to sue every glorified flying motorcycle that makes an off-field landing actually yields them with a labor pool of pilots more likely to reciprocate them the favor in the form of COLGAN 3407 than they are to stop flying outright because they simply can't afford to, as most would expect them to. If the Skycatcher didn't cost 110K I don't think you would have had those two willing to pay to go to work to fly a Q400 around on two hours sleep and a dream of affording the ability to fly. And innocent people died for it.

Pilots are selfish beings. I'm merely suggesting an alternative to insulate the peanut gallery from themselves by offering a conduit to absorb what should remain a hobby for most. If I could gain access to a Skycatcher with the same ease I could an overpriced motorcycle (which is presumably statistically more likely to kill me while having a similar footprint of collateral damage as a crashing Skycatcher) I would be more likely to go become an accountant during the day and fly my #ss off on the afternoons and weekends, rather than going zero to hero in debt just to land in the right seat of a Q400 with no sense of what's best for me or my passengers and proceed to commute all over Kingdom Come for effectively net zero pay for the PRIVILEGE of getting my pilot's jollies off; solvency, safety and common sense be damned. Pilots are selfish.

But people perceive pilots as rich. Well, enjoy your regional feeder hop then. Bring a revolver and one bullet with you, and feel free to play russian roulette with it during cruise, 'cause that's what you're doing in the back while the knuckleheads up front are dozing off their transcon commute instead of flying a skycatcher.....:rolleyes:

If people actually were able to think one move ahead of their nose, they wouldn't consider tort reform such blasphemy.....

Hi!

"There are more commercial and ATP rated pilots all the time and fewer private and student pilots."

Every year, since about 2000, in the US, the number of ATPs, Comm pilots, PPLs and student pilots, have all gone down. There are about 30% less total pilots in the US now than in 2000. A LOT of people are very worried about the declining number of pilots. We (us) pilots are not worried, and think it is a good thing, mostly.

cliff
LFW

The only entities worried about the decline in US pilots are: ATA and AOPA and they are likely in ___ together.:eek:

HindSight20/20...
Thank you for 2 epic posts.

Respect +100.