Pretty sure if GA existed and thrived in the Great Depression, the Great Recession and COVID its going to be around through this little inflation hiccup. People still need to move around and GA presents the very best way to do that. That hasn't changed and neither will GA (or the piston market).

Lets fact it older pistons sucked. They were loud, uncomfortable and had terrible ergonomics. Traveling somewhere in a 182 or even an early Bonanza at 7500 feet on a hot summer day SUUUUUUCKs.

Yes they will be replaced with newer piston airplanes that are expensive. New airplanes have always been expensive.

Mark, have you studied GA in the Great Depression.?. It barely survived and struggled until WWII. WITHOUT THE LEGACY PISTON MARKET to help support our GA infrastructure the Turbines will pay a lot more to keep the system going.

Most GA pilots cannot afford Turbines.

have you compared cars from the 70's and 80's to what is being sold today?

what we were comfortable in the 80's is not the standard for pretty good today. new aircraft need to have the quality, and capability of today's cars. no wonder Cirrus is selling a lot.





Mark, have you studied GA in the Great Depression.?. It barely survived and struggled until WWII. WITHOUT THE LEGACY PISTON MARKET to help support our GA infrastructure the Turbines will pay a lot more to keep the system going.

Most GA pilots cannot afford Turbines.

Mark, have you studied GA in the Great Depression.?. It barely survived and struggled until WWII. WITHOUT THE LEGACY PISTON MARKET to help support our GA infrastructure the Turbines will pay a lot more to keep the system going.

Most GA pilots cannot afford Turbines.

our present piston engines if built and maintained by knowledgeable people (that could be a question) are very good there are several regenerated small turbines that promise good fuel economy and as they use simple compressors and turbine stages and could be very good especially in the under 150 hp class but they are not flying yet. (perhaps dual turbines for the 300 hp category)

Diesels could also be an answer but Diamond is really the only one that is building a really good engine in that category right now and it does not reach the 350 hp + category yet.

a number of other diesel engines keep threatening but you can tell their stage of development as not one of them es being offered on a production aircraft or even in the experimental category.

History tells us that recession will ALWAYS follow Inflation and we are in hyper inflation.

Mark, you better go back and study again, check out all the plane manufacturers that went broke in the depression. Beech and Piper nearly went broke and WWII saved them.
How many times has piper, Mooney etc gone broke. Where are all the companies from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s? Does Aero Star ring a bell.

Yep, doing quite well in Idaho (I owned one) after it was sold to Butler and then passed through.

Calm down. Everything will be fine. GAs future has never looked better!

Aerostar doing quite well in Idaho (I owned one) after it was sold to Butler and then passed through.

Calm down. Everything will be fine. GAs future has never looked better!

As far as piston twins their time has passed… and it has nothing to do with age of pilots. There passing has more to do with the fact they were no more safer than a redundant alternator single engine airplane.

Aerostar doing quite well in Idaho (I owned one) after it was sold to Butler and then passed through.

Calm down. Everything will be fine. GAs future has never looked better!

As far as piston twins their time has passed… and it has nothing to do with age of pilots. There passing has more to do with the fact they were no more safer than a redundant alternator single engine airplane.

A huge part of that is that planes have a lifespan closer to that of a house than a car.
In 1979, you couldn't buy a 43 year old airplane that would fulfill a typical business mission. A 1979 plane was an enormous leap over a 1936 plane.
Today, I can find plenty of 1979 airplanes that fulfill my needs perfectly. A 2022 plane is a marginal jump over a 1979 plane. The laws of physics haven't changed. Moore's law and the silicon revolution lose to Bernoulli.

That's the single biggest reason GA production volumes are down from 40 years ago - we have enough planes.

A huge part of that is that planes have a lifespan closer to that of a house than a car.
In 1979, you couldn't buy a 43 year old airplane that would fulfill a typical business mission. A 1979 plane was an enormous leap over a 1936 plane.
Today, I can find plenty of 1979 airplanes that fulfill my needs perfectly. A 2022 plane is a marginal jump over a 1979 plane. The laws of physics haven't changed. Moore's law and the silicon revolution lose to Bernoulli.

That's the single biggest reason GA production volumes are down from 40 years ago - we have enough planes.

I have personally owned airplanes continuously since my first in 1972. I either bought or sold one or more airplanes in '72, '75, '76, '77, '78, '79, '80, '81, '82, '83, '88, '90, '92, '93, '95, '98, '99, 2000, '01, '02, '03, '05, '06, '08, '11, '13, '14, '17, '19, '22.

The point is that I have bought or sold an airplane before or after or during every major economic event experienced by this country in the last fifty years. I've seen highs, but never a high like what we have experienced over the last 24 months. I have seen lows, but never a low precipitated by the forces we now see active relating to the GA market. Ask anyone who was associated with the aircraft business during the '08 debacle and they will tell you that for awhile you couldn't give an airplane away. That "crash" was precipitated by forces almost outside the GA market, the stock market. The forces acting on GA today are, so far, entirely within the GA market, fuel and parts prices and shortages.

I may not know exactly what is going to happen to the GA airplane market, but I do know this. If you think these forces are not going to have an effect, you are dancing around the May Pole singing "Good times are here again", oblivious to the strongest market forces I have seen in fifty years.

The force "du jure" is interest rates. The force for tomorrow may be stock prices. I certainly hope not, but half of our stock portfolio is sitting on the sidelines.

One thing that any sensible person should remember (as if there are many on an aviation blog) is that, in spite of the BS shoveled out about the utility of the GA fleet, it is a pure toy for 90% of all owners and expendable as hell if there is anymore shakeup in this arena.

I DO NOT WANT this market to crash. A correction is almost inevitable.

Jg

I remember very well the pricing before '08. I was at the time obsessed with 2 aircraft: the Lake LA4-200 Buccaneers and the Aerostar. I was living in UK at the time and was inquiring about financing both with UK aviation specialists (thank god I didn't). The Aerostar 700's were going for $350K in 2006-2008. The LA4's were pushing $180K. Cut to 2013 when I bought my 601P, I paid $89K for it with runouts. OK, not a 700 model, but still - you see the absolute cataclysmic abyss of a price drop? 700's were about $150K from 2013-2018. That's 200K drop in value over a period of just 5 years.

Would it be any different this next time?