The Future of General Aviation
For decades, the flight training industry has been grappling with how enrolment numbers in flight training are declining. While the "professional" side of flight training (those training for aviation careers) is one side of the story; today, I'd like to focus on personal flyers.
These are the general aviation (GA) pilots that in the 1960s and 70s were buying up new Cessna, Piper, and Beech aircraft. They were flying around the continent conducting their business meetings or taking their families on vacation. Many of these aircraft now are the workhorses of flight schools. Today, we find some different names in the mix, like Diamond and Cirrus, but we don't see nearly the number of GA pilots. We are of course talking about those flying themselves, not commercial pilots operating for remuneration in the GA arena.
The big question the industry (flight schools, aircraft manufactures, FBOs, etc) are asking is - why? Cost is of course a big one. As the world of aviation becomes more and more advanced, with crowded airspace and more topics to cover, the price of flight training is the first hurdle. The second is of course is the aircraft itself; it's very hard to find a new airplane for under $300,000 - $500,000 if you want to carry a decent payload at a reasonable speed. And few people want an old C172 with limited payload and archaic instruments that make their personal cars look like something out of Star Trek. Finally, ancillary fees such as nav, landing, hangerage, fuel, and so on continue to go up as big airports get bigger and smaller airports are shut down.
In an attempt to bring back the "good old days" of GA many initiatives are underfoot, especially in the USA. For example, the FAA developed a new category of aircraft called Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) in an attempt to make new aircraft more affordable, but less "complete" (no IFR, for example). However, manufacturers haven't quite met the goal, with one offering an LSA with full glass suite for $250,000.
In Canada, the CARs were amended to reflect the Recreational Pilot Permit (RPP) in 1995. The idea being that it would be suitable for those who wanted a pared down version of training and whose goal was to do some fun local flying during daylight.
A question we should be asking is, are we too focused on GA at all costs? In other words, are we trying to keep something alive that really doesn't exist anymore?
Let's start with our target GA Pilot. She flies to her business meetings, and does some sight-seeing with friends on the weekends. Well, some things have changed since the 1970s. For starters, her friends have probably been on many commercial flights and the lure of the local sight-seeing event isn't as exciting as it was decades ago (thanks Google Earth). For her business meetings, it makes much more economic sense to buy a $300 round trip ticket between Toronto and Ottawa than pay $800+ for aircraft rental, landing fees, parking fees, and fuel. Perhaps if she owns her own aircraft her time isn't worth opening and closing the hangar, checking the tire pressures, ordering fuel, and so on... only to find an airworthiness defect that grounds the aircraft. In fact, if her time is really valuable, she probably owns a fractional share in a NetJets or AirSprint type company so that she can focus on business and leave the flying to the professionals after a long day at work. A PC12 fractional share isn't that far off from buying a decent piston aircraft - and the economies of scale aren't working because manufactures can't sell the number of GA aircraft they used to.
In other words, it's going to be an uphill battle to build our population of GA pilots because economically, it makes little sense. So let's look at what organizations are trying to do in the face of that challenge.
We can start with the LSA category and RPP. These are two examples where there are potentials for problems. One is certifying aircraft that don't meet the same standards as Utility or Normal aircraft, which has the potential to reduce safety levels - especially when you equip them with a full glass suite and tempt the pilot to go into weather she shouldn't. At them same time, the RPP pilot has not received adequate instrument training for such a scenario, or adequate training for other events such as transiting busy airspace. These might not be such big issues if the pilots were to not take unnecessary risk... unfortunately GA Pilots have the worst safety record in aviation and the TSB cites the number one cause as poor decision making.
Poor decision making takes many forms, but manufacturers are not helping the pilots. Recently, Diamond announced a new satellite data option so that, as their sales rep said, it will allow email to be caught up on during flight. I would argue we already have enough issues with pilots being distracted by XM music, weather apps (when unnecessary), and other functions such as TIS distracting pilots from their primary task of flying the airplane (often manually). Conversely, the FAA recently banned many unnecessary technological devices from airline flight decks, where there are two crew members and an autopilot.
On a final note, the FAA is also looking at eliminating their 3rd class medical for private pilots and allowing a driver's license to pass as proof of being medically fit. As anyone who's had an elderly or sick relative knows, doctors are unlikely to report medical problems to departments of transportation in all but the most extreme circumstances because of the consequences to the patient.
In summary, the idea of the GA pilot is quickly dying. The economics and aircraft performance equations don't work the way they did 50 years ago. So we need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves, should we prop this up at all costs? Should we add tech to airplanes to make them toys that simply increase risk? Should we reduce the amount of training pilots receive? Should we throw medical standards to the wind? Or should we maintain our standards and accept that Average Joe GA Pilot isn't going to be around much longer?
There will always be a niche market in flight training for the well-off individual who wants to fly for recreation. And there will always be a niche market for flight schools that offer this training to a high standard in good facilities with quality aircraft.
Outside of that small niche, as flight schools, should we re-think ourselves before it's too late - and focus on what the future of aviation is going to look like? In an upcoming article, I'll discuss where flight training is going in the future.