General aviation is doomed by the states and commercial aviation decision!

To the best of my knowledge the worldwide situation is pretty much similar, and General Aviation is loosing not only future pilots by not acheiving new student pilots, but also loosing present pilots (some that also work as liner pilots in real life) to the microlight and ultralight (recreational) world.



V And it is right to happen so, for three main reasons.



The most important of all is people want to fly, but: NOT AT ANY COST, so they get oriented towards flight machines of similar or even better performances than the GA machines, just registered in a "inferiour" class. (who the heck decides what is inferiour or superior??)



They know they are loosing their hard worked PPL and all that pile of cash that went down the drain to get it, but in between not flying or accepting a loss to can fly, one makes a choice, and flyes!



Second reason is the bureaucracy involved in GA flight, it's simply overwhelming and extremely expensive.



Dudes calculated that for every flight hour they waste some 150 euro of paperwork, permits, telephones, and nerves, plus 3 hours of headache.



One must be nuts to waste 3 hours of his life just to take a flight of 1 hour out of which 20 to 30 minutes waiting on the runway for the clear!



The third reason is the price involved in purchase, manttainance and operational costs of an G A airplane.



A Piper GA plane that is so basic even some bicycles are more sophisticated, costs "used" more than a brand new Microlight plane, burns lots of more fuel per hour, requires lots of more paperwork to have it, fly it, and repair it, not to mention all the ground time wasted around it for nothing but mere bureacracy issues.



An Ultralight, microlight (recreational) that has more instruments, and more elctronics than the first "moon module" that went up there and came back safely, operates at 20% of the hourly costs, mantainance is at 30% or less of GA (just do it yourself), you fly it whenever you see fit, no stupid bureacracy and limitations.



Want more? Ask any pilot, the GA industry is about to die, worldwide, the States is killing it.



I wrote it in my book and I am not afraid to say it out loud, there is an worldwide interes to kill GA to free the airports for the comercial liners, whilst the ultralight world is not using their structures, so it has no problem.



Emil Pop



www.mindyourbusines.com