State of the Industry

Tuesday, February 25, 2020 at 11:43 AM ET

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Key Takeaways:

The article highlights a paradox: advanced aviation technology development is flourishing despite a declining pilot population, raising the question of who is buying the new products.
The author proposes that existing aircraft owners, often older and with more disposable income, are driving this trend by heavily investing in upgrading their current, older aircraft with modern avionics.
This phenomenon is exemplified through an anecdote where a pilot progressively modernizes a decades-old aircraft with comprehensive panel overhauls, including touchscreen EFIS and digital autopilots, effectively making older planes "new to us."

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Those of you who regularly read my remarks have probably noticed that I don’t often take on global subjects, instead preferring to discuss narrow or even personal situations. After all, there are commentators out there who are far better informed than I bother to keep myself, so I’m happy to let them comment on things like, well, the state of the industry.

But I don’t ignore broader happenings. After all, for example, who isn’t aware of the declining numbers of our ranks? Yet, the pace of aircraft and avionics development is unprecedented. I find it challenging to reconcile a dwindling pilot population with all that new-product development. Who’s buying all that new stuff? I can guess.