I have said it before in this place and I'll say it again.
The thing that has 'killed' GA (it isn't actually dead - far from it) is competition for the leisure $ from boating.
Someone said above that 'young people find it harder to afford flying than drugs' or some such.
Young people in aviation, while desperately needed, have never been the big money buying aircraft, they were merely on their way through to airlines...using GA to achieve a gaol and then 20 yrs later buying an aeroplane when their airline wages/circumstances/enthusiasm allowed.
Take a look around any protected body of water in Australia and see the $ bobbing at anchor...many owned by pilots. In the 60s and 70s a fair % of that money was parked at GA airports...then people found boating as new technology (GPS/Furling sails/low maintenance hulls etc) made it more easily achievable for the average person with sufficient disposable income.
For the average person boating is a hell of a lot more fun than flying...think about it...out on a boat on Moreton Bay/Sydney Harbour/ etc with great food/booze and chicks in bikinis or flogging around in a light aircraft doing what and going where? There is no infrastructure for GA to compare to the boating scene.
In those parts of Australia where boating is a far less attractive idea, Victoria as an example, GA is thriving.
It is the same in the UK where I fly a mates C180 often. The boating scene in and around the UK is only for the hardy soul indeed...and GA has an infrastructure as a result of the large numbers partaking...fly ins/airshows virtually every weekend in summer...in fact many fly ins every weekend...you can spend an entire weekend flying from one to another and having a great time...little grass airfields with full service restaurants that attract non flying locals as well as people flying in for a the ubiquitous $100 hamburger.
And that is ignoring Europe just 20 nm across the channel...closer than the Gold Coast is to Maroochydore and just as easy to fly to since the EU came into existence.
NZ is some where in between....a very boating orientated people indeed but because NZ is fairly far south boating there is for the true enthusiast and GA thrives along side for those less enamored of days spent cold and wet racing around the cans...I think Kiwis are generally more air minded than Ozzies too.
ASICS don't help...but they are not the cause either.
Last edited by Chimbu chuckles; 12th Feb 2008 at 02:44.