Hey guys,
Keep going on about how wonderful 50-year-old aircraft are, it helps me stay in business with my modern, factory-built, permit aircraft (which, legally, I could also hire out!)
It amazes me that my GA rivals really don't seem to make an effect to get rid of cliche-ed stuffing-sticking-out-of-the-seats aircraft.
In any other business, as an individual operator you would invest or die.
It seems GA - as a whole - is slowly dying because there is a collective lack of investment. They can't even be bothered to "repair the seats". How much does it really cost to have a nice interior, a panel without holes and a paint job from this millenium (now that we are c15 years into it)?
ps As though you haven't guessed, we fly light aircraft that can just be squeezed into the microlight category. In the microlight world, those schools flying the traditional three-axis microlights - AXs and Thrusters - have, almost without exception, long gone. Invest or die.