A peep into a possible future
Hi Squeege,
Your original question has inspired me to write what I think might happen to private flying in the foreseeable future. (I use the term private flying in order to exclude the corporate twins and 'aerial work' A/C and PPL/IRs flying £100,000 complex singles on business from what I am about to write).
In the mid-naughties I returned to flying after a break of many years. On looking round I found that the average flying club of any size seemed to own perhaps six or seven American-made SEP spamcans, half C152s built in the 80s the remainder Cherokee variants built in the 80s or 90s, all with complete blind flying panel. Then there would be a Seneca for twin training, a tail dragger, usually a Cub, and an aerobatic type such as a Bulldog or Decathlon and a complex single (i.e. perhaps an Arrow).
I remembered thinking to myself, why do even the most bog-standard SEPs here have full panel when most of the flying they do is by PPL/NPPL students and PPL/NPPL qualified pilots who only fly VFR? I also noted that the tail-dragger, aerobatic type, Arrow and Seneca seemed to fly relatively few hours compared to the basic SEPs. All these things cost money yet the club seemed to need to be 'all things to all men'.
I eventually came to the conclusion that the ordinary PPL/NPPL training was effectively subsidising the twin, aerobatic, complex single and taildragger flying. I wondered how long this could go on.
In terms of training then, it was possible to start off by gaining a PPL and then, if you wished, move on to a CPL, IR, FI, or even a modular ATPL.
A few years later we had the 'Credit Crunch' leading to the continuing financial crisis. This certainly knocked me out of the flying game and I'm sure many others as well. The government currently crows about 'Britain's recovery', but there is only the very barest recovery. Austerity is going to last for many years yet and will knock many more people out of flying over time.
The club where I did my flying in the mid naughties later changed hands and is now very much smaller than it was. All it has now are about 4 SEP spam-cans and a vintage tail-dragger. The spam-cans are all dependent upon imported American SEP spares and the tail-dragger will always be expensive to maintain.
I believe that a time is approaching when flying clubs will have to specialise and in particular set themselves up to cater for a pilot who has much less money than at present to spend on flying. The hourly rate will need to be brought down to under £100 per hour microlight and just over £100 for PPL/NPPL SEP. This might mean simpler aircraft operated off an unlicensed field.
In future, it may be that a person will obtain their PPL/NPPL or microlight equivalent at one club and then, if they wish and can afford it, travel much further from home to a club specialising only in either twin, or aeros, or complex touring, etc if that is what they want.
So the club doing basic PPL/NPPL flying may well also include three-axis micro-light flying also. So that a person might well commence on the ultra-light version of, say, the Jabiru or the Escapade and then later decide, either to remain on micros permanently or, if they wish to do more advanced flying, or carry more weight, convert onto the Group A Jabiru or Escapade. Only the tiny few wishing to go professional or fly for business will move to a specialised club to do more advanced work.
Well that's how I see it.
BP.