GA in this country is looking down the barrel of a demographic disaster - the population of pilots is growing ever older, and fewer and fewer young people are coming in at grass routes level. The training scene, and the club scene, revolves around C of A machinery which, courtesy of EASA and the CAA (who seem convinced that these aircraft need the same regulatory environment as commercial aircraft), are expensive, old, and for the most part pretty tatty.
Ab initio training on LAA aircraft is possible, but until recently involved buying into an aircraft, which most young people can't afford.
Thanks to years of gold-plating by the CAA and EASA there are now 9 written exams necessary for just a mere PPL - for many young people who have had a belly full of school and want a change, why would you pay good money to sit in the fly-blown classroom of a flying club for more of the same?
In addition, the route into the commercial world is now expensive and uncertain - why spend £120,000 on a frozen ATPL and little guarantee of a job, when the same money could buy you the training to be a commercial lawyer?
I've offered to take innumerable young people flying, but for the most part it just looks like too much trouble to them - now that you can plug in your Xbox or Playstation and be instantly pretty good at Grand Theft Auto III, why would you bother? The final nail in the coffin is that the average flying club's clubroom tends to look like a drop-in centre for pensioners, and most young people wouldn't be seen dead there.
Something has to change, and we need to wake up and smell the coffee about this, as the supply of pilots into the British commercial aircraft industry is going to become like the supply of coal - there plenty of it here, but we now have to source it all from overseas.
Last edited by wsmempson; 7th Oct 2016 at 12:58.
Reason: illiteracy