GA has shrunk by about 50% in 20 years in the UK; it is not technology related but financial. The number of licences issued each year give a clue. It is now so expensive to become an instructor that there is virtually no chance of recovering the costs, whilst the experience gained in teaching an ever decreasing number of GA pilots no longer paves the way to airline flying or even becoming a commercial instructor.
With increased costs, bureauracracy, reducing numbers of airfields and many experienced aviators giving up, because they have had enough; GA is heading up the creek without a paddle. Electric aeroplanes can do nothing to save it.
I agree.
As has been mentioned already, one of the issues affecting the UK are disappearing small airports. This, and the way that EASA / CAA regulation is going, will split light aviation in two.
From my contact over the years with both CAA and EASA, they seem to think that “recreational aviation” is made up of a bunch of people who fly old Piper Cubs, Permit to Fly aircraft and the odd Beagle Pup and fly purely for pleasure making $100 burger runs every Saturday.There are people who fit that description and there are a bunch of them at my local airfield who meet every Saturday to fly off in a variety of permit types and hunt down a decent burger (and most of them are flying on LAPLs or NPPLs due to the number of burgers they have eaten over the years).
But you can’t put, as we know, everyone that flies into that category. I used to fly a twin MEP for business and pleasure. Age, reduced income, the complexity of ever changing regulations and the need for tests/checkrides what felt like every other month saw my ratings decline to an SEP, an IR(R) and a spamcan.
(For our American cousins, all they need is a BFR to keep their license current. By comparison I needed several regular tests (at huge cost) ).
Frankly, I see the segment I fly in disappearing in the UK. If minor/regional airports disappear or become inaccessible due to high landing/handling/parking fees, then fun flying will be limited to “recreational flying” from grass strips and farm strips.
Of course, as they don't have ILS or lights, then the need for an IR or IR(R) will go (although the EIR will fit much better into this environment than an IMC/IR(R)) and the cost of renewing same will increase.
What was the private aviation sector, the private pilots flying themselves around for business and pleasure in Malibus, Meridians, Cessna 310s, Mooneys, Piper Senecas and the like, will disappear. With them, the PA28s and Cessna 172s will go (because if the others go, who will be left to maintain the old spamcans?). The only pilots flying EASA SEP, MEP and SET aircraft will be the aspiring airline pilots either learning at a commercial school or flying for a very rich non-pilot owner.
As the old PPLs fade away, new private flyers without commercial aspirations will have limited access to flying schools. What they will learn to fly in, I don’t know because the AT-3, PS-28, etc., have boasted being a replacement for the PA-28 and Cessna 152 but, we all know, they are not up to the task. Maybe we will be all electric and just fly around an extended circuit.
As the Cessna 310s diminish in number, so, I fear, will my segment of aviation disappear from the UK for ever.