Proof of GA "Dieing"?
Everyone talks about GA being in dire straits. There are routine predictions of its death at the hands of over regulation and running costs. The obvious question then is what evidence is there?
By evidence, I mean hard numbers on operating costs that can be benchmarked against other countries, especially America.
I wonder if this evidence exists already? Does a certain unmentionable organisation have any hard data?
The numbers I am thinking about include:
Fuel cost, Insurance, engine overhaul, engine or propeller replacement, maintenance charges per manhour (OK personhour), representative spare parts costs (eg new windscreen, flap, aieron, wingtip etc.) I'm sure some of you can think of more meaningful measures.
Then there are insurance, airport, registration and hangerage charges and airways and landing charges and depreciation.
From the data we should be able to determine a notional fixed cost of ownership and hourly rates based on a variety of notional annual usages for common types in pvt and commercial settings.
If we actually have (or can construct) this information, then perhaps we can answer a few questions and have an informed debate instead of just flapping our gums as usual around here.
Obvious questions to answer are:
Are costs excessive compared to international benchmarks?
Are we being gouged by anyone, if so who? How do we stop it?
Is regulation excessive and does it constitute a barrier to entry, forcing our costs up?
Sorry if this is old news, but without such data we are wasting our time complaining about anything and in addition, we cannot possibly know what we should be doing by way of strategy to fix the situation, if in fact it needs to be fixed.
I wonder if CASA would like to fund such a study? I also wonder if maybe I should try and collect the numbers myself?