Comments

I completely agree about the cost of new piston aircraft killing GA. I’ve been following the reviews of LSAs in Flying and other publications since they and the Sport Pilot certificate first became available. The hoopla indicated that they would reduce the cost of obtaining a pilot certificate. Yet, as a pilot and CFI, I just don’t see it happening. I understand the partial truth of the recent AOPA study that show that the quality of instructor is a factor in the decline of the student pilot population and the number of new pilots, but I don’t believe that the quality of training is any worse than when there were many times more pilots in training and actually flying in the mid-70s. Instead, I believe that the cost of flying, renting, and owning even the simplest of new aircraft has become prohibitive for most pilots - or potential pilots. As a comment above says, I don't know anyone who can afford a new plane. When I started flying in 1973, a new Cessna 150 could be purchased for less than $12,000, and a Cessna 172 or a Piper Cherokee for around $15,000, about 3-4 times the cost of a basic new car. Now a new Cessna 162 Skycatcher sells for about $112,000, nearly 10 times the cost of the 1973 C-150 and about 7 times the cost of a basic car. And the June issue of Flying featured an article on the Piper Archer that sells for slightly more than $300,000, a whopping 20 times more than a basic new car. But what about technology? The new car is far better than the 1973 version; it is fuel-injected, computer controlled, requires minimal maintenance, and lasts for 200,000 miles or more. The Skycatcher? It is a new design, but with the same basic construction, engine, and carburetor as the 1973 C-150 in which I learned to fly. The Archer is a design that has hardly changed in 50 years. Yes, it has a glass panel, but as Don Harrington of American Flyers aptly pointed out in the same issue, “glass is overrated”. Sure, the moving map technology is nice, but I have a GPS in my car that keeps track of my position to within a few feet, and it cost less than $100. As a CFI I can testify that, for flight training and most flying, glass cockpits encourage pilots to ignore the most basic part of VFR, simply “looking out the window”. (There’s a reason it is made of plexiglass and not aluminum.) And it seems to me that many pilots produced in aircraft with the new avionics seem to be proficient in pushing buttons, but lack the basic stick and rudder skills that pilots trained in aircraft with no avionics at all seemed to possess (see the Colgan Air and Air France crash details for proof). So the pages of Flying and other aviation magazines are filled with articles touting the wonders of “new” aircraft like the 50th anniversary Beech Baron that (other than trim and avionics) is no different than the 1975 model (but sells for $1.4 million), and the Archer ($300,000) that is essentially the same airplane that Piper produced 16 years ago. I'd love to own an airplane, but any new production airplane (and most used ones) are so far out of my price range as to make even dreaming of owning one unrealistic. And even if they were not outrageously expensive, there’s little about them that is really "new". Yes, LSAs are new designs and quite interesting, but the overview of 3 models in the June issue gives a hint about why the cost of flying hasn’t come down… the price of the 3 models – the aircraft that were supposed to cut the cost of flying – ranged from $131,000 to $163,000! A local flight school near my home rents their new LSAs for $150 per hour. Add the instructor, and the cost per hour of training is in the $175 per hour range, meaning that obtaining even a limited Sport Pilot certificate can cost well over $5,000. One local flight school that uses Cessna 172s with glass panels estimates the cost of a Private certificate at $11,000, but that only includes 45 hours of flight time, so the actual cost will likely be significantly higher. Compared to the $750 cost of my Private certificate in 1973, the current cost of learning to fly is 15 times what it was then; not even the cost of health care has risen that much in this time period! So what does this mean in the real world? In my opinion, the unrealistically high cost of aircraft is driving all but the most wealthy out of the market, both as student pilots and as buyers of new aircraft. (And the "really wealthy" seem to be buying bizjets, not single engine piston-powered planes.) I don’t know the answer, but I do know that the cost of most other new technology has fallen drastically during the last 30 years while flying costs have dramatically increased. (For example, I am writing this on a $400 computer that has thousands of times more capability than a computer that sold for $4,000 in 1980.) The truth is that if I wanted to learn to fly today, I would not be able to afford it, and I'm not actively flying for the same reason. If Flying, AOPA, EAA, GAMA, and other GA organizations are to be effective in preserving aviation for future generations, they must work together to find a way to cut the cost of flying to a level that the average person can afford. A hundred years ago a politician made a name for himself by quipping “What this country really needs is a good 5 cent cigar.” I don’t think it is entirely tongue-in-cheek to say that what GA really needs is a good $50,000 airplane. If someone could build it, it could very well save GA. But if not?