What happen to British GA

By: John Green - 17th March 2016 at 10:38 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

Blame the lack of an adequately educated youth, able to cope with the theory of flight and the subsequent exams. during ab initio training.

By: charliehunt - 17th March 2016 at 11:12 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

Might it be that there is such a diversity of leisure distractions now that other, perhaps less expensive choices are made. I speak without any knowledge, just the thought that crossed the mind.

By: J Boyle - 19th March 2016 at 14:00 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

Instead of blaming Thatcher, how about the simple rise of fuel prices?
Any government fees are minor compared to that.

Also, the cost of aircraft, maintenance, airports, hangar costs, the decline of flying clubs and other low cost options.
Also the decline of the ATC, fewer ex-service members (people who are exposed to aviation), and the relative lack of business aviation caused in part by the size of the UK (it's so small firms don't need a business aircraft wheel you have high speed rail service).

But it's more than just costs. Here in the U.S., the cost of aircraft has remained fairly consistent...since I started following GA in the early 70s, the cost of new aircraft is up ten-fold...but so are autos, and like autos, new GA AC are munched more advanced and hopefully safer (due to avionics). Look at the number of expensive autos on the road (though many in the UK are company cars) and the expensive holidays and non-essential items people buy...people have the money. They just don't seem to have the desire.

You might consider these factors instead of blaming Maggie...as an ex-UK resident and frequent visitor, I think that UK residents are so used to government fed and taxes that th they're pretty much taken for granted as by the public...so people aren't dissuaded by them.

By: John Green - 19th March 2016 at 16:43 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

I don't think that the level of cost attached to learning to fly comes into it. As for the cost of new aircraft !! How would that be material ? Most FTO's, with the odd exception, use American spamcans. These have paid for themselves over and over again.

When I started, my hourly flying costs were £7. 10 shillings (£7. 50). Average wage was a bit less than £20 per week. So, my flying cost was about one third of the average weekly wage.

National average wage is now about £450 per week. Student flying costs are now either side of £150 per hour eg. one third of weekly wage. So, the ratio is still about the same.

What has changed is that when I started, all my compatriots could read and write and, add up and subtract. That has now changed. The OECD regularly reports that Britain's State school leavers are bottom of the international league tables of numeracy and literacy. So, when they are confronted with the idiocy of multiple choice exam questions they can't manage. So, they don't bother with learning to fly.

By: John Green - 20th March 2016 at 10:55 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

You've got it see #5.

As for your comment re Mrs/Lady Thatcher's alleged responsibility, I laughed so much I almost forgot to ask from where did you get that piece of idiocy ?

I expect that it originated from one of the aspiring Marxists to be found on these forums and was issued on the 1st April.

By: John Green - 20th March 2016 at 14:22 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

What were the 'additional fees/costs' that were being added to British GA in the 80s ? I'm mystified.

By: Propstrike - 24th March 2016 at 23:27 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

Flying and aviators have slipped from the public consciousness . Post war it was our BIGGEST industry, but declined, and shrank away to what we see today, ie Airbus wings, some Typhoons, and a few Hawks. Manned space flight is negligible, supersonic services are finished, and flight is normalised, though a hassle and rather tiresome. What was once glamourous is now routine.

Even in the 70's, there still remained a whiff of wartime 'derring do', the heroic exploits of the RAF, and the pride of the nation in its Air Force, but certainly times have changed. The Air Cadets have for years opened the door on the world of light aviation, but their resources too have been slashed, and the present aim is one flight per year per cadet ( gliding has only just re-started)

For many young people, with no particular introduction to the world of flying, I struggle to see how/why they would find their way to self-funded recreational flying, and certainly for those raising a family, massive housing costs ( far greater than in the past ) will dent disposable income. Flying is perceived as expensive, indulgent , difficult, dangerous and perhaps a bit pointless. Those of us who do it know this is not the reality, but it is still a hard sell.

I think airfields will continue to come under pressure, will continue to be lost for housing developments, and the declining number of pilots will increasingly operate from more ad hoc un-licenced strips, in small ( though capable) aircraft. On the positive side, the self-certifying medical is one expense/ hassle reduced.

It is not just flying though. I think the same rueful observations are made in many activities, from sailing, railway preservation, and even golf, where courses are closing and they struggle to sell club membership . As a society we have become more passive, risk averse, litigious and enchanted/ enslaved by our computers. Not everyone, of course, but for so many, the online world seems more appealing than the real one :apologetic:

By: Meddle - 30th March 2016 at 16:34 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

Speaking as an ungrateful, ill-educated Millennial of limited attention span, I know of three people my age who fly or who used to fly. One guy was of an affluent background (father was a senior lecturer), but found lessons prohibitively expensive so never got his PPL. The other two guys fly for airlines, and have no interest in flying wee planes between shifts. I know a few people who were in the Air Cadets and were taken up in a glider... once. Perhaps all of this echoes the sentiment above; that GA is perceived as expensive, indulgent , difficult, dangerous and perhaps a bit pointless. A lot of people my age seem happy to drive a Vulcan/Lancaster/F18 on a sim, rather than pay through the nose to fly a 172 in circles around greater Cumbernauld.

A manager in my office used to fly, but couldn't afford a part share in an aircraft (he lives on his own, and earns substantially more than I do). I was at a conference a couple of weeks back where a fairly senior member of Ordnance Survey was talking of how he had just jacked in flying, and was going to have to get into drones. In fairness I did speak to an older gentleman who carried out aerial surveys at the same event, but he had carved out a niche for himself and his company by carrying out survey work deemed too substantial for drones but insufficient for a slower, more costly multi-engine or spaceborne platform.

The RAF have killed off the Tutor and Hawk T2 demoes for this coming airshow season. For all that spotters make a point of moaning about both, it was one way that younger folk could have envisaged a pathway into flying. I do wonder how many kids see the Red Arrows and think 'I want to do that' over anything else. I'm interested in historic aviation, but I have no real desire or motivation to fly a wee plane, warbird or anything in between. I treat that rather like F1 or Rugby; I enjoy watching skilled professionals doing both disciplines justice, but I don't personally feel the need to participate!

By: Meddle - 31st March 2016 at 13:35 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

...think although you obviously have interest in aviation you don't have the need or desire to fly or own an airplane is kind of sad. In the USA still feasible to buy a used 4 seat plane like a Cherokee for about $25,000 or less.

That works out at around £17,400. For £600 more I could have a serviceable Jet Provost. :eagerness:

Expense may be something of a misnomer. As John Green states earlier, he was happy to sacrifice 1/3 of his paycheque to flying. I've seen other self-deprecating pilots share a joke video of a pilot repeatedly turning up to an airfield in increasingly battered 2nd hand cars (he starts off in a Merc or similar) as he funnels money endlessly into his aircraft to the detriment of everything else. I don't see it as the hobby of the super elite, but it does seem to be the past time (in general) of the older gentleman, as this forum will attest to.

I view flying for fun as, in part, a relic of a previous and more industrial era. Perhaps the decline in GA is broadly similar to the decline of the steel industry in the UK (stay with me here). We tend not to make stuff any more. Teenagers tend not to pull motorcycles to bits in their front rooms and sheds any more. Routes into that sort of employment seem to be a lot harder and, in some cases, vastly over-subscribed. At the same time people don't appear to want to spend their leisure time messing around with machinery to the same degree. A culture shaped and built around heavy industry, and being mechanically savvy, just isn't there any more, and neither is the interest to the same degree. Increasingly a portion of the whole ethos of our industrial past is simply critiqued as patriarchal, jingoistic and a bit imperialist, and accordingly shot to bits. You can see this in the way certain museums present certain artefacts, or the explosive discussion between Pat Hudson (Professor Emerita of History at Cardiff University) and Melvyn Bragg on In Our Time a few years back, whereby Hudson stated that 'We must get away from the idea that [the Industrial Revolution] was caused by a wave of gadgets or by a peculiar inventive ability of British science or scientists'. Over the continued course of the discussion Hudson asserted the idea that the industrial revolution was all but synonymous with a quasi-racist sense of superiority on the part of the British. Ouch!

I don't know if we are more risk-averse as a nation or just taking different sorts of risks. My colleagues with kids seem to subject them to a barrage of extra-curricular activities, including contact sports etc. None of them appear to send their kids to the Air Cadets, perhaps because (again) it is viewed as a bit patriarchal, jingoistic and a bit imperialist.

Perhaps all of this ties in with the theory in the TATA Steel thread about the EU demilitarising individual nations. Children are encouraged to study computer programming from an earlier age (something I missed out on), and car engines are now safely hidden behind covers only removable with screws of some proprietary design. There is no impetus there to change your own oil or fix smaller faults, and instead we are encouraged to consult somebody with a specialist qualification to get anything of that sort fixed. To get ahead in this country, one shouldn't be too handy with tools, but one should be able to write a serviceable Java script. On top of that a lot of new technology cannot be fixed and is designed to break, further discouraging any form of mechanical curiosity for those involved. Perhaps being mechanically savvy is viewed by some as synonymous with building and storing weaponry, or perhaps just patriarchal, jingoistic and a bit imperialist (for the third time). I really cannot say. Perhaps the decline in GA is nothing more than an allegory for the changing views towards masculinity and personal liberty over societal function in our current society (I'm well off the deep end now).

By: John Green - 31st March 2016 at 21:37 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

Apropos the last comment. I think that my generation was the last generation that 'tinkered', We tinkered with motor cycles, old cars and bikes. By the time I was nine or ten years of age, I could build a bike including building a spoked wheel - not as easy as you think !

As a child, I lived not far from the Claud Butler cycle factory in Clapham, London, where they built very desirable bikes and at the end of the day threw out all the misfit parts into a large metal waste bin which we the local bike vultures promptly raided for useful bits and pieces that we could straighten and re-use.

That could not and would not happen to-day. Claud Butler is probably now just a name and located in China or Poland and we have the sanitised emporium of Halfords with not a speck of grease in sight. We regularly got our hands dirty and a consequence was that we grew up knowing how to do 'things'. Which echoes the point Meddle makes.

I do have another interest apart from flying which brings me to my claim that education and certain perceptions play a part in the wind down of GA in this country and perhaps elsewhere.

I like sailing small sail boats and have followed this sport for many years. For as long as I can remember this sport has long been associated with a sense of elitism. Y'know, Hooray Henry's and all that sort of thing. I've sensed this in aviation as well. Let me extend my own argument; my suspicions are that this perception of elitism coupled with an inability to cope with the academic side of flying is, for many, a turn-off.

The educational requirements for sailing are quite limited. They are not as demanding as flying; at least, not if you do not pursue some of the more advanced courses available such as Day Skipper or, Yachtmaster.

So, for me, based on my personal experience and observation over many years, I'm as sure as any one can be without the trappings of a mass survey that, education, lack of, and the sense of elitism are the twin barriers to the enlargement of GA.

By: Meddle - 1st April 2016 at 10:35 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

I'm curious if such a sense of elitism, or perceived elitism, is as present in GA in America, or other countries for that matter.

By: flyernzl - 2nd April 2016 at 10:02 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

This shrinkage is becoming a problem in many countries, and is noticeable even here in New Zealand.
A couple of years ago I wrote an item that was published in a local aviation magazine in which I discussed some of the problems we face. It may also be relevant to the UK scene:

How did you, as an aviation-minded individual, develop you particular interest? I cannot answer for you, but I hung around various airfields as a youngster, soaking up the atmosphere and acquiring the ability to tell a Friendship from a Fletcher. No-one suggested that I was about to sabotage any aircraft or airfield structure, and generally the attitude of those around the place at the time ranged from complete indifference to a sort of friendly tolerance. Try that today at places like Queenstown* or Hamilton and see how far you get. Faced with impenetrable chain-mesh fencing, hovering security guards, numerous signs advising that aviation is dangerous and announcing harsh penalties for entry onto the premises, no budding aviation enthusiast is going to feel welcome or get far.

To my mind, aviation, both as an industry and as a recreational activity, already has a large and growing PR problem. The attitude of the general public ranges from regarding aviation in all its form as an irritating, dangerous and polluting nuisance indulged by wealthy risk-taking playboys to seeing airfields as a necessary but repulsive activity akin to a rubbish tip or a sewage farm. In the early 1930s it was generally held that a town without an airfield was destined to quickly become a municipal backwater. These days any plans to set up a new airfield will instantly cause a storm of hot opposition from all quarters ranging from the Green Party to Federated Farmers.

Yet interest in aviation in all its forms is still out there. Go to an SAA fly-in at a local airstrip or the nearest airshow during the season and you will still see young and old turning up, all keen to look into our world. We need these people to see that aviation is not a black art but as an activity carried out by real people who do not have any superman abilities, who are individuals that have taken the necessary steps to apply time and effort to get where they are today. Perhaps then some of those people may become involved themselves, and hopefully many others will think a little more about that experience before they instantly adopt a hostile attitude to any proposed aviation activity in their area.

To encourage taxi drivers, car park staff, cafe and retail workers at airfields to adopt a suspicious and intolerant attitude towards anyone who is not actually climbing aboard a scheduled flight is in my view short sighted and ultimately fatal to the image of aviation. I can go up the road on a Saturday afternoon and see a yacht club in action. Adults and children assembling, launching, racing and recovering all sorts of water craft. No signs warning of danger or possible prosecution, no security patrols, no ‘keep out stranger’ fencing. Hang around long enough and you will find yourself hauling on a rope, getting your feet wet, or helping time a race. Contrast that with someone arriving at an airfield to whet their aviation interest. No wonder aero clubs are struggling. I know of at least two long-standing aero clubs that have closed after their membership faded away, due, I’m told largely to recent difficulties with security access at their fields. They were no longer pleasant social and relaxing places to be. Losing outside involvement and support from their local community, they died. If Mum and the kids cannot picnic on the grass while they watch Dad go flying, you have a problem. The interest (and the money) will go elsewhere.

The current emphasis on security issues may well provide lucrative employment opportunities, remunerative supply contracts and a sense of personal importance to those involved but, to me, this attitude will ultimately be fatal to aviation in New Zealand as we know it. I have been in countries where any aviation activity at all is as far removed from almost the entire population as Grand Prix racing. I would not like to see this situation develop here. Historically we have had a strong grass-roots sport aviation and GA movement, and adopting a ‘Fortress Aviation’ attitude full of suspicion and fear will in turn engender a similar hostile and intolerant attitude back from the general population and eventually seriously damage aviation at every level.

* Since writing that article, the Queenstown Airport Authority have evicted the aero club and removed any recreational aviation activity from their airfield.

By: John Green - 2nd April 2016 at 11:49 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

You make a very accurate and well defined point. I've always understood that aviation - here in Britain at any rate - is rather inward looking and conservative. All the various aspects of 'security' to which you draw attention are an accompaniment of that conservatism.

A club atmosphere, friendliness and hospitality are still to be found at GA airfields but they are rare. I could offer a dozen recent instances of visits to GA airfields where the staff seemingly go out of there way to be unhelpful. I was recently told - by a senior manager - at an airfield I know particularly well that, if all the resident aircraft disappeared tomorrow and GA ceased, how much it would please him !

Maybe all those rather poor experiences can be contradicted by others with more pleasant ones. Pressures to provide airfield re-development for housing means that GA will continue to shrink. The future of GA will, possibly, be shaped by the increasing number and availability of farm strips. They have an attraction not possessed by conventional GA airfields.