88 SA Flyer Magazine
Last month we reviewed
the problems GA faces
all over the world.
The common voice of
GA leadership is that
unnecessary and excessive
regulation is choking the
life out of the private
aircraft owner and pilot
– from the smallest
microlight to the largest
corporate jets.
B
UT, perhaps it is also
time to hold up a mirror,
to check the maps, check
our own heading, look at
our screens and gure out
if we are on track to our
destination – or even know
what our destination is any more.
UP, UP AND AWAY
The passion that drove aviation in
its early years more than a century ago
was not a drive for prots. Although there
was always the need to sell aircraft and
related services to fund development, the
primary motivation was an innate personal
desire to achieve that dream of ight, to
do something that seemed so effortless to
the birds, bats and insects with whom we
share this planet. After millennia of staring
and wondering how we could emulate these
creatures’ natural abilities, breakthroughs
were made and human ight became
commonplace.
In the intervening few years since the
Wright Brothers took to the air, there have
been an astonishing number of aircraft
designs and congurations. Some with
many wings and many engines, thousands
with just one wing and one engine, yet
arranged in ways that boggle the mind.
Most of them worked. Many are no longer
around.
Today, at a time when there are
approximately 10,000 aircraft in the sky
at any given time, carrying around 1.3
million passengers, aircraft designs have
become boringly similar. To the common
man, the large commercial jets are almost
indistinguishable, most having two engines
hanging from their swept wings – some may
even notice that a few still have four.
Historically, aviation got a boost after
the two world wars, when thousands of
AOPA BRIEFING
Chris Martinus ‒ Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association – South Africa
HAS GENERAL
AVIATION LOST
ITS WAY?
Old school GA pilots who want to fly their Cubs and
Tiger Moths on the weekend are a dying breed.
89 SA Flyer Magazine
skilled pilots were released back into
society. Many of them started new airlines,
manufactured aircraft and started pilot
training businesses. However, we are
seeing a convergence, a merging of
industries. There are less than a handful of
big jet manufacturers today.
General aviation aircraft similarly
settled into fairly conventional
congurations, most of them running similar
engines and general equipment. A burst of
activity in the experimental uncerticated
aircraft sector, mostly in an attempt to
escape onerous regulation, has largely
stalled and become almost as heavily
regulated.
Flying as a means of personal transport
has, however, largely taken a back seat
to purely recreational activities of ‘ying
around the patch’ on weekends. To travel
further has become largely unaffordable.
AVIATION’S OLD MEN
There are, and always were, a hardy
few, undeterred by regulation, bureaucratic
impediments and wildly escalating costs,
who continue to form the remaining core
of GA. They can be found at old-fashioned
dinner parties, making empty speeches
regaling their adventures in times gone
by and handing each other meaningless
awards. Conspicuous by their absence are
the members of the so-called millennial
generation. Those few youngsters we see
are often the sons and daughters of the old
aviators – and their involvement is almost
certainly due to parental pressure and the
natural desire to follow in the old folks’
footsteps. Of course, if daddy owns an
aircraft, there is also far greater opportunity
and incentive to learn to y.
Our hardcore grey and bald eagles are
well aware that new entries into GA are
drying up fast. Initiatives, such as EAA’s
well-supported Young Eagles programme,
have unfortunately done little over the past
25 years to reverse the rapidly receding
tide of new entries into aviation. AOPA’s
fabulous trove of highly-accessible safety,
training and general information has also
AOPA BRIEFING
SA Flyer 2013|02
SA Flyer 2018|01
Nico van Staden 083 321 0916
nico@aerostratus.co.za
Mary Ann 083 778 9293
All aircraft prices are subject to change or withdrawal from the market without notice. All prices exclude VAT
1967 Beechcraft Baron B-56TC
1972 Cessna C-210L
Cessna C-140 Classic
MONSTER BARON – 380 HP a side!!!
TTSN – 2790 SMOH L&R – 790
New paint and loaded with equipment!!
Aircraft still US registered, no damage history
All logs since new. Collectors Baron only 93 built.
Must be one of the best B-56’s in the world
TT 3320 SMOH 770
Great value for money!!
R 1 250 000
TT 3550 SMOH 85 Hours
Must be one of the best C-140’s
R 435 000
SPECIALIZING IN TURNKEY AIRCRAFT SHIPPING
WORLDWIDE!!! 10 AIRCRAFT SHIPPED IN THE PAST YEAR!!
WE HAVE IMPORT- EXPORT PERMITS & TAX
CLEARANCES TO SHIP YOUR AIRCRAFT IMMEDIATELY!
Merry Christmas
Airbus A320 and Boeing 737. Aircraft
designs have become boringly similar.
For GA to survive, we need low-cost highly
automated light aircraft, such as this
PassengerDrone, that appeal to millennials.
90 SA Flyer Magazine
done little to ignite the spark and motivate
the younger and even not-so-young
generations to embrace the joys of ight.
AVIATION’S MILLENNIALS
It has become popular for the oldsters
to malign millennials as lazy, entitled and
unable to use their hands to make anything.
But their own parents said the same things
about them.
The reality is that millennials were
born into a technologically advanced
world with smartphones in their hands.
Highly automated vehicles that take care
of braking, stability and traction control
tasks are the norm. The airliners they y
on mostly y themselves. They have no
difculty with the idea of driverless cars
or pilotless aircraft. They have come to
trust technology to take care of their needs
and their safety. The crusty oldsters view
of “never in my lifetime” towards future
generations of highly automated and even
autonomous aircraft is seen as an inability
to accept reality.
And when they see light aircraft ying
at the local aireld, they appear as rickety
and archaic as a horse and buggy did to
their parents. And in a risk-averse world,
there are no airbags, no crumple zones
and nothing that assists them in controlling
these rattly beasts that seem intent on
darting into obstacles and killing them. They
have no electronic ‘safe spaces’ they can
run to when things go awry.
The huge learning curve to attain the
skills and prociency to pilot one of these
machines appears insurmountable. The
dire warnings about danger and safety from
unfriendly ying schools and bureaucrats
who must be appeased, make it unattractive
to either pursue a career in aviation, or to
engage in nail-bitingly terrifying weekend
ights. It takes away whatever initial appeal
they may have felt.
And more than anything else, there is
the cost. In an era when owning your own
home seems like an impossible dream,
the cost of learning to y, and owning and
maintaining an aircraft cannot even be
contemplated.
WHAT WE ALL NEED
What GA needs is a complete review of
the way we do things. We need to rewrite
the rules regarding certication, training
and managing air trafc.
For GA to survive, we need low-cost
highly automated light aircraft that require
far less training and place much less
responsibility and decision-making on the
pilot.
There will be challenges in doing this
while keeping the skies open for the old
guys who still want to have a share of the
skies for their Cubs and Tiger Moths.
AOPA BRIEFING
j
B
r
u
c
e
P
e
r
k
i
n
s
B
r
u
c
e
P
e
r
k
i
n
s
BIRD AVIATION IS YOUR TRAINING SCHOOL OF
CHOICE IN THE SOUTHERN GAUTENG REGION.
BIRD AVIATION IS YOUR TRAINING SCHOOL OF
CHOICE IN THE SOUTHERN GAUTENG REGION.
WE OFFER THE FOLLOWING SERVICES & MORE:
· Private Pilot licence
· Night Rating
· Instrument Rating
· Multi Engine Rating
· Complex aircraft training
· Aircraft test flights
· Commercial pilot licence
· ATPL Prep
· Simulator Training
· Instructor rating
· Restricted and General Radio licence
· PPL Test center
· Owner Training
· Aerobatic training
· English language testing
Our Fleet: Piper Cherokee’s; Cessna 172
Beechcraft travelair (multi); Piper Arrow
Sling 2; FNPT II simulator; Piper Colt
SA Flyer 2018|01
Tel: 016 5561007
www.birdaviation.co.za
info@birdaviation.co.za
@birdaviationsa
Bird Aviation
offers aerobatic
into Flights &
courses on our
Alpha 160
Wishing all our clients a
happy New Year!
