I know Gerald talks about how it used to be, and in a lot of respects, he's right to call out bad trends. I, for one, would be happy to give up GPS and SS fuel to go back to a robust GA industry, but that's not happening.

The real problem is there is no recovery, because the society that could spend time on recreational, personal, or light commercial GA simply no longer exists. Even if prices were rolled back to some kind CPI adjusted 1965 or 1970 value, there is zero interest and the far reduced risk tolerance in modern society wound't permit it.

Best,
Rich

Can you state the years when you would define the GA industry as "robust"? How far back do you have to go for that and what is the criteria you are applying?

GA seems pretty robust to me in recent years.

Recent study says GA supports 1.33 million jobs and generates $339 billion in total economic output.

There are more hangars than ever before and the hangar waiting lists are long in many places. If GA is dead, where are all those planes coming from?

Mike C.

Mike is right.

GA is booming, I get that because it's booming, many are being priced out... same with houses in desirable areas.

But, to say GA is dying just doesn't jive with the realties of every shop being booked, every hangar being full, every manufacturer sold out.

I think there is more interest than ever in GA, why else would a 1980 C182 fetch $200k?

I'm sure that Textron would love for this to be true.

The story goes there is a huge office building in Wichita; "what's that building for? Oh, that's the building where all the Textron lawyers have their offices"

I don't know if that is true or not, but they certainly spend millions every year defending lawsuits. If you look at the total number of aircraft they produce and divide that huge number across them, you'll figure out pretty quick that there's a reason a 172 cost that much.

Depends on where you live, really.

My field in Denver has never been busier with “little” airplanes. Getting into maintenance is becoming a multi-week planning process.

My field in Northern Iowa, a lot of the pilots own 2 or 3 planes and many are in partnerships to spread the costs. The airport built a row of hangars which were immediately occupied by people wanting to keep their little airplanes protected.

One of the questions I struggle to answer nowadays is why are there so few airplanes being built, given that most of us agree that general aviation is quite healthy and the demand is there?

My observations:

• Manufacturers have to compete against their own products built fifty years ago. I bet they did not plan on that.
• Cessna seems to have learned their lesson: I bet that's why they stopped building the Mustang. They figured "there are enough out there to populate the used market,"
• And they figured building more Mustangs would take sales away from various CJ models.
• Most 2025 models are not different enough from the 1975 version of the same model to justify the 5x price difference between new and used. The ones that are (Cirri) are being built in quantity and purchased by "normal" GA owner/pilots. The ones that aren't (Cessnas) are being bought by flight schools or in tiny quantities.
• The inflation since 1976 -- when I started reading GA magazines at the age of 14 -- is only ~5x. It does not by itself justify the ~10x increase in price of GA airplanes. But the popularity of Cirri suggest people are willing to pay more for what they perceive as innovative, modern, safe airplanes. (Note that I fly a 63-year-old Twin Bonanza so that's not a perception I'm willing to pay for.)
• The appeal of cramming the family into a 39" wide C172 to go visit grandma is much less than Cessna's advertising promised when I was a kid. Hot, bumpy, slow, barfy, and weather dependent mean your wife will do it exactly once. GA's promise of easy, fun, requires that you move up the food chain a bit. Again, that's how I chose my Twin Bonanza.

Can you state the years when you would define the GA industry as "robust"? How far back do you have to go for that and what is the criteria you are applying?

GA seems pretty robust to me in recent years.

Recent study says GA supports 1.33 million jobs and generates $339 billion in total economic output.

There are more hangars than ever before and the hangar waiting lists are long in many places. If GA is dead, where are all those planes coming from?

Mike C.

BJC is an interesting example because my perception is that the vast majority of the traffic there is from the flight schools, and most of the rest is turbine equipment. When I drive out to the hangars where us little guys hang out I see relatively little activity most of the time. Some, but not a lot. Given that ADS-B out is required it would be interesting to do a study of flying N numbers against the list of hangar tenants, but only the airport would be able to do that.

Adjusted for inflation modern avionics are cheaper than what was available at any point in the past.

A Mark 12 Nav/Com was ~$1000 in 1964. Current Garmin GNC215 $5595. Almost half what an inflation adjusted price would be, and far more reliable.

Same with autopilots.

Adjusted for inflation modern avionics are cheaper than what was available at any point in the past.

A Mark 12 Nav/Com was ~$1000 in 1964. Current Garmin GNC215 $5595. Almost half what an inflation adjusted price would be, and far more reliable.

Same with autopilots.

If you look back I posted car prices 1970 compared to 2024.

It's about 4 times as much for the cars now compared to 1970. Granted they came up less with better production methods and more capability now than before but so did Avionics.

Just using Home average prices for inflation estimates is not really valid.

Compare motor vehicles to motor Vehicles I think is a better estimate.

So the Mark 12 to Garmin 215 with installation from 1964 is probably not too far off.

But in 1964 we had ADFs . Now we have GPS to install.

Transponders were new. ELTs were a little ways off yet.

For the Hangars at rural airports.

If you notice there are far fewer airplanes tied out around the country. They moved inside as the hangars became available due to shrinking airplane population and new hangars being constructed.

Will they remain full is the question? It is hard to tell in some cases because the airplanes in many rural T hangars fly so rarely you never see the doors open. Is it full of airplane ready to fly or a dusty Aeronca many years out of annual with piles of boxes of old aviation magazines, an old car under one wing rusting from below on the bare gravel floor and some old furniture.

I was just in "THAT" hangar today and retrieved a 182 for its first flight in many years.

The Aeronca was in there too with the wings off. They were recovered after the Spar AD and never installed.

While I can't specify the upper end of what would be considered "robust", I can certainly identify what it isn't. And let's leave the turbine stuff out, because honestly, most on BT are here to talk about our pistons, not turbines.

Effectively one piston manufacuter that has more than a trickle of aircraft certainly isn't.

Engine manufacturers and other facilities that can't provide parts or service with less than a 6 month lead time certainly isn't.

Shops & providers that are purchased and consolidated down to one source that has overhaul/repair authority, and the prices for said services subsequently double or sometimes triple doesn't sound that robust.

Sure, shops are packed...because others are closed and there is no where else to go. That's reduction of supply, not increase in demand.

Sure, hangars are in short supply, because outlying fields have been consumed by development and in-town fields closed. Where else are people going to go? What fields remain are super interested in bulldozing the private hangars for huge corporate hangars, and the smaller airline fields like MKE just want everyone plain gone, so again, you've made my point.

Sure airplanes are expensive, because the existing supply has been wrecked, scrapped, exported, or rendered unairworthy because of the above.

It's great the turbine market is humming, and that makes up the lion's share of the nice revenue numbers posted, But let's not kid each other the piston market is in sharp decline, and the ability of those participating are continually pressured from all sides. Most of the folks on BT, I would guess, don't really care about turbines other than they're nice and shiny.

I'm not really sure why the attempt to astroturf anything else.

AOPA is overdue for an update on this topic.

https://download.aopa.org/hr/Report_on_ ... Trends.pdf

For those of you needing an executive summary: