Crystal ball - No Oil / carbon credits - nest egg broken!

[dllcooper]

5-10 years into future, severe weather events, enforced taxing on gasoline, globally. You and me spent nest egg on pilot training and back to my old job.

This scenario sooner or later will surely be the case. I visited a pilot recruitment conference on Saturday, numbers were really down. Does this issue bother any of you other potential or current student pilots?

I am seriously thinking of pilot training and have been for some time but this really bothers me. I do have a tendency to look on the bleak side of things but i think it is a real concern?

Anybody have any thoughts on this issue?

[S-crew'd]

I visited a pilot recruitment conference on Saturday, numbers were really down.

Sorry, but whatever about the rest of your post the above is simply not ture. I can only presume you are referring to the Flyer Exhibition at Heathrow? The venue was crowded. I attended the exhibition as a prospective customer and was actually surprised at how busy it was:confused:.

I'm sure you're forecast went down like a lead balloon with the exhibitors:}

[um bongo]

the reality will be somewhere between that proposed by the aircraft manufacturers, airlines and training establishments of massive growth as china, india etc join in the fun and more efficient aircraft and a more efficient airspace system lower costs still further in the west

but......

there is only so much oil down there (quite a lot more, but it wont last forever so the price can only rise), and it would only take another terrorist bit of unpleasantness to really bu99er things again.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the next quarter century or so. After that, i think all bets are off.

[Aerospace101]

I went to the Flyer exhibition in March 2003 and last week - I would say attendance was exactly the same for both. no change.

We are all aware of the '10 year cycle' and MY thoughts/predictions are that recruitment will be very high for the rest of this year and onto 2008/09 just like in the 1990's. Industry analysts are already thinking that 2013 could be the onset of the next recession [flight international].

So get trained now, dont delay cause otherwise you'll miss the flood gates open. I know that integrated couses are becoming oversubscribed in the last year alone- time to jump on the bandwagon!

[dllcooper]

Good thoughts - i didnt share these views with the exhibitors!

I am pleased some people are willing to digest future prospects. I was starting to think everybody was employing the blinkered approach. I am not sure that with those thoughts in mind that it offers a great career anymore? With only a possible 25years of oil left - prices already rising - severe weather events associated to global warming already evident!

Does anybody have knolwedge of alternative fuel sources for aircraft - we all know of the sinclair C5 approach to cars?

We all know how close to the bone these airlines run - a modest hike in fuel prices will quickly lead to increased ticket prices, decreased passenger numbers and pilot jobs following close behind.

[Aerospace101]

forget about Virgin Atlantic, im aiming for Virgin GALACTIC

space tourism my friend...

[littco]

The minimum amount of oil left is about 40 years, if we continue to use and increase the amount of oil we use year on year. However, we could be looking at 100 years if new wells are found and oil usage remains at current levels...Unlikely!

I would imagine in those 100 theoretic years an alternative source will have been found so it wont be an issue, but who knows!

[no sponsor]

The price of oil has risen to shocking levels, but this does mean that smaller oil fields that were uneconomic to mine at $20 a barrel now look very profitable. In addition, many of the oil fields, which used to become uneconomic after 50% oil was extracted, can now be mined for a longer period of time (something to do with pressure etc). So past figures of oil reserves are being increased due to the new economics of the oil industry.

We'll all be long dead before it runs out. The real thing to worry about is having tax put on JET A1. That would really bugger up the economics of flying!

[um bongo]

a tax on AVTUR would mess things up for sure. I guess the tricky thing is that it would have to be done unilaterally, to avoid sending a particular country's airlines to the wall. Not easy to agree on.

I hope that doesn’t happen, but it would be just deserts for some of the airlines here who, with their sympathetic friend the CAA, are trying to hammer General Aviation out of existence with the proposed new charging system. GA already pays tax on AVGAS which the airlines do not, thus the playing field is already nowhere near level. Why should i pay tax to go fly aeros in my Pitts for half an hour, but not when i jet off for my fortnight on the Costa del Diarrhoea?? Dunno....

Question. When GA planes use modern diesel engines (burning Jet A1), does the tax system still get them for fuel tax, or is it just coming out of the same hole in the ground as the airliner fuel and thus no tax is due? i bet I know the answer already…

[boogie-nicey]

Oil stastics are based on the wells that are currently operational it doesn't encompass any new finds. The prospect of oil in the Indian Ocean and more recently the Black Sea area is of significant merit as is the massive oil drenched areas of Northern Canada which potentially has 300 billion barrels of oil.

Add to this that 'mainstream' users of oil such as domestic users and industry can switch to a viable alternative that leaves aviation as a 'specilist' industry to continue using the remaining oil for far longer than the anticipated 40 years.

Coupled with a sort of hybrid technology of propulsion and we can facilitate the use of oil rather than depend on it primarily. Don't be too afraid of the future after all look how far we have already come in terms of a 'Century of Flight'. Would we really look like rickety by-plane technology come a 100 years from now and laugh in a nostalgic manner at the primitive 777 and A380 :)

[scroggs]

Oil reserves and their longevity is most certainly a problem. The recent increases in the price of oil have made extraction from difficult fields more economically viable, but are not yet at a level where extraction from oil shale is potentially viable. I say 'potentially' because it currently costs considerably more energy to extract oil from shale than is realised from the extraction - i.e. it's a waste of time, money and energy right now! I don't doubt, however, that technology will be developed to extract it, but it may well be too late to enable a continuation of aviation's current expansion, and the overall result is more likely to be a considerable reduction in commercial aviation in the long term.

For an unbiased, objective and hyperbole-free report on oil reserves, have a read of this (http://stinet.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=A440265&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf) report by the US Army Corps of Engineers. I don't find its conclusions particularly comforting. For an up to date listing of world oil reserves, look here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_fields).

As for the effect of the price of oil in the short term, aviation fuel costs have increased by between 100% and 500% in the last two years, depending on how effective a particular airline's hedging policy was. The passenger is now paying a large fuel subsidy on every flight from every carrier, though some simply reduce discounts or increase other charges to absorb the costs. There has been no noticeable effect on demand. So far.

boogie-nicely, your comment: Would we really look like rickety by-plane technology come a 100 years from now and laugh in a nostalgic manner at the primitive 777 and A380 is interesting. Actually, I think it's quite possible that the A380 and maybe the B777 will still be flying up to 100 years from now. The RAF have only just retired the Canberra after 50 years in service (half of the life of aviation!), and the USAF expect the B52 to reach 60 years in service. There are several airliners in their 40s, and a few like the DC3/C47 that are still in service between 60 and 70 years after they were made. For a new-build aircraft to reach 100 years is far from unimaginable!

Scroggs

[Mooney12]

This issue has always worried me. The expansion of China and India is really the nail in the coffin. Of course they have every right to expand, but they are upsetting the balance of things. 50 years of oil left is not a lot! (Im unsure of this figure..does anyone else have any info?). Reading the US Army report, I note the possibility of "oil wars". Excellent. Just what we all need, but we can all see it coming.

The environmental impact of aviation is also of major concern to me. Although Im a pilot, when I get told that on a typical long-haul flight more carbon dioxide is produced per passenger than their car produces in a year, I am shocked!

On a typical short-haul flight accross Europe about 100kg of Co2 is produced per person per leg. This is the equivalent of a new Brian O'Driscoll worth of Co2 per flight. Not surprisingly Ryanair is now Europes biggest pollutor.

In my personal opinion the new technology of pumping co2 back into the ground is a probable solution. That will lock the co2 back into the earths crust for millions of years and allows fossil fuels to be used in an enviromentally friendly manner.