Question about aviation in China

[Casey Wilson]

I tried various keywords on Google but couldn't come up with the answer
to my question.
Does a general aviation industry exist in mainland China? I'm planning
a vacation trip there in 2005 and, if it is possible, would like to arrange
for two or three hours of dual instruction in a spam-can.

Regards,
Casey Wilson
Freelance Writer and Photographer

[John Gaquin]

"Casey Wilson" > wrote in message news:vTbkc.2477

> I tried various keywords on Google but couldn't come up with the
answer
> to my question.

I am at a loss to understand why. I tried various keywords on Google
(specifically 'china', 'private airplane', and 'general aviation') and came
up with over 26,000 hits. Three minutes worth of browsing indicates that
there is in fact a very rudimentary general aviation industry in China,
there seem to be a very few operators who can fill your needs if you're in
the same city as they are, and (it seems) you are willing to pay the freight
in advance. I particularly like http://www.camptour.com/aviation/

[Casey Wilson]

"John Gaquin" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Casey Wilson" > wrote in message news:vTbkc.2477
>
> > I tried various keywords on Google but couldn't come up with the
> answer
> > to my question.
>
> I am at a loss to understand why. I tried various keywords on Google
> (specifically 'china', 'private airplane', and 'general aviation') and
came
> up with over 26,000 hits. Three minutes worth of browsing indicates that
> there is in fact a very rudimentary general aviation industry in China,
> there seem to be a very few operators who can fill your needs if you're in
> the same city as they are, and (it seems) you are willing to pay the
freight
> in advance. I particularly like http://www.camptour.com/aviation/

This is getting off topic, but strange. I entered China+"general
aviation" into Google and got zero hits. When I changed the order to
"general aviation"+China, Google came back with 26,300 hits. I never knew
Google was sensitive to order of appearance.
John, thanks for the help.

[Peter Duniho]

"Casey Wilson" > wrote in message
.. .
> This is getting off topic, but strange. I entered China+"general
> aviation" into Google and got zero hits. When I changed the order to
> "general aviation"+China, Google came back with 26,300 hits. I never knew
> Google was sensitive to order of appearance.

It's not. It's sensitive to your use of the "+" character, which has no
meaning to Google for a search.

While "+" character is meaningless for the search, for whatever reason
(probably a bug) gets appended to the word "china" for the search when you
put the word "china" before the phrase "general aviation". When you enter
it in the other order, the "+" character is stripped from your search,
allowing actual hits (the text "china+" doesn't match anything, not
surprisingly).

If you enter the search text, run the search, and then click the "Advanced
Search" link, you can gain some insight into how Google is parsing your
search text. Doing so reveals the above.

Bottom line: you will get a lot more utility out of Google if you stop
putting "+" characters into your search text. My guess is that you've had
lots of trouble using Google as a result of this user error, if it's
something you've expected to work for any significant amount of time.

Pete

[G.R. Patterson III]

Casey Wilson wrote:
>
> This is getting off topic, but strange. I entered China+"general
> aviation" into Google and got zero hits. When I changed the order to
> "general aviation"+China, Google came back with 26,300 hits. I never knew
> Google was sensitive to order of appearance.

If you entered exactly what you just described, that's an interesting result. The
first query will find all items which have the term "general aviation" in them. The
word "China" is optional. The second query will find everything with "China" in it.
The term "general aviation" is optional. If indeed you have no spaces in the first
query, that might explain why it returned no results. In that case, it will only
return links to articles which have the string 'China+"general aviation"' in them,
and I'd bet there aren't too many of those.


George Patterson
If you don't tell lies, you never have to remember what you said.

[Casey Wilson]

"Peter Duniho" > wrote in message
...
> "Casey Wilson" > wrote in message
> .. .
> > This is getting off topic, but strange. I entered China+"general
> > aviation" into Google and got zero hits. When I changed the order to
> > "general aviation"+China, Google came back with 26,300 hits. I never
knew
> > Google was sensitive to order of appearance.
>
> It's not. It's sensitive to your use of the "+" character, which has no
> meaning to Google for a search.
>
<< some of Pete's text is deleted here >>

Hmmm, the + and - signs have always been shorthand conventions in
Google and other search engines. See:
http://www.google.com/help/basics.html
where it states; "If a common word is essential to getting the results you
want, you can include it by putting a "+" sign in front of it. (Be sure to
include a space before the "+" sign.)"
The article does imply that common words are: who, what, how, etc. but
the parser will use the operator on any word. I will however concede to
improper use by failing to insert the requisite
space. Inserting the space does seem to fix the problem, but not quite. The
keywords china + "general aviation" bring up a slightly different set than
"general aviation" + china. I'll figure that out.
I do thank you for making me refresh my use of the logical operators.
Either the engine designers have made some changes in the parsing rules, or
I've picked up many bad habits. I prefer to believe the former mostly, with
a tiny bit of the latter.

[Peter Duniho]

"Casey Wilson" > wrote in message
...
> Hmmm, the + and - signs have always been shorthand conventions in
> Google and other search engines. See:
> http://www.google.com/help/basics.html

I have seen it. You are misreading it.

There is no reason to use the "+" sign in conjunction with a word other than
what they consider "common" (generally pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions,
etc.). But more importantly, you were not using the "+" sign in the manner
that Google expects it. You used it as a conjunction between your search
terms, as a synonym for the "AND" operator. But in Google searches, the
"AND" operator is implied, and there's no such thing as an "OR" operator.
When using the "+" to make clear that you require a word that would
otherwise be ignored in the search, it must PREFACE the word of interest.

In any case, neither of the terms you were using -- "china" and "general
aviation" -- would have been excluded from your search. Google will tell
you when it's ignoring a word, so the right thing to do is always not bother
with the "+" operator, and only use it if it tells you it's ignoring a word
in your search text that you feel ought to be included.

I suppose you felt it necessary to take me to task for saying the "+"
character has no meaning to Google for a search. If you think it has
meaning, you're welcome to that opinion. I have been using Google since
nearly the day it was born, and I have yet to run into a search where the
"+" character added anything to the search. The words Google ignores are
useless words and including them never makes the search more useful. I
stand by my claim that the "+" character has no meaning to Google. It
respects it, but it doesn't do anything useful with it. It certainly has no
idea what YOU meant when YOU used it.

I suppose there are people around who can accept advice and assistance when
offered without starting an argument with the person who offered the advice
and assistance. But it remains clear that they don't use the Usenet.

Pete

[Peter Duniho]

"G.R. Patterson III" > wrote in message
...
> If you entered exactly what you just described, that's an interesting
result. The
> first query will find all items which have the term "general aviation" in
them. The
> word "China" is optional.

Google doesn't have the concept of "optional" words for the search text.

> The second query will find everything with "China" in it.
> The term "general aviation" is optional.

Ditto.

> If indeed you have no spaces in the first
> query, that might explain why it returned no results. In that case, it
will only
> return links to articles which have the string 'China+"general aviation"'
in them,
> and I'd bet there aren't too many of those.

Actually, it returns all of the pages with both the term "china+" and the
phrase "general aviation" in them. There are only about 2400 pages with
"china+" in them, and none contain the phrase "general aviation".

Pete

[Todd Pattist]

"Peter Duniho" > wrote:

>I suppose you felt it necessary to take me to task for saying the "+"
>character has no meaning to Google for a search. If you think it has
>meaning, you're welcome to that opinion.

Google is using the "+" extensively in their new calculator
function. Try entering "1+2" or "1+2=" into Google.
Personally I wouldn't call that a "search" either, but it is
parsed from the search line and has meaning to Google.

I like the answer that Google calculates when you ask it for
the "answer to life the universe and everything=" :-)

Todd Pattist
(Remove DONTSPAMME from address to email reply.)
___
Make a commitment to learn something from every flight.
Share what you learn.

[C J Campbell]

"Casey Wilson" > wrote in message
...
> I tried various keywords on Google but couldn't come up with the
answer
> to my question.
> Does a general aviation industry exist in mainland China? I'm
planning
> a vacation trip there in 2005 and, if it is possible, would like to
arrange
> for two or three hours of dual instruction in a spam-can.

GA is in its infancy in China. Until very recently, China sent all would-be
pilots out of country for initial training up through instrument rating,
multi-engine, and commercial before bringing them back to work for the
national airline. The United States got a lot of them. Right now China is
beginning to develop a GA market to generate their own pilots and to provide
better support for tourism, skydiving, and the 2008 Olympics.

Last I heard, there were still less than 400 GA aircraft in China. If there
any airplanes for rental in China, it would be at Beijing Sport Aviation
School or at Anyang Sport Aviation School in Beijing. A company called PTE
is the Cessna agent in China and handles Cessna sales and service. Anyang
and PTE are the operators of A&P Light Aircraft Service.

[C J Campbell]

"Todd Pattist" > wrote in message
...
>
> I like the answer that Google calculates when you ask it for
> the "answer to life the universe and everything=" :-)
>

Yes, but does it know the question?

[leslie]

C J Campbell ) wrote:
:
:
: Last I heard, there were still less than 400 GA aircraft in China. If
: there any airplanes for rental in China, it would be at Beijing Sport
: Aviation School or at Anyang Sport Aviation School in Beijing. A company
: called PTE is the Cessna agent in China and handles Cessna sales and
: service. Anyang and PTE are the operators of A&P Light Aircraft Service.
:
:
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200208/21/eng20020821_101815.shtml
Huge Market for General Aviation in China

"...In 2001 more than 300,000, or 70 percent, of the world's total of
460,000 planes were used in general aviation, statistics show..."

--Jerry Leslie
Note: is invalid for email

[C J Campbell]

"leslie" > wrote in message
...
> C J Campbell ) wrote:
> :
> :
> : Last I heard, there were still less than 400 GA aircraft in China. If
> : there any airplanes for rental in China, it would be at Beijing Sport
> : Aviation School or at Anyang Sport Aviation School in Beijing. A company
> : called PTE is the Cessna agent in China and handles Cessna sales and
> : service. Anyang and PTE are the operators of A&P Light Aircraft Service.
> :
> :
> http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200208/21/eng20020821_101815.shtml
> Huge Market for General Aviation in China
>
> "...In 2001 more than 300,000, or 70 percent, of the world's total of
> 460,000 planes were used in general aviation, statistics show..."
>

Yeah, with only 400 of those planes being in all of China to serve, what, 2
billion people? I would say that the market there is somewhat untapped....

[Teacherjh]

>>
Yeah, with only 400 of those planes being in all of China to serve, what, 2
billion people?
<<

Airplanes don't serve people, they serve dollars. How many dollars do those 2
million people have to spend on airplanes?

Jose

--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

[Paul]

"Casey Wilson" > wrote in message
...
> I tried various keywords on Google but couldn't come up with the
answer
> to my question.
> Does a general aviation industry exist in mainland China? I'm
planning
> a vacation trip there in 2005 and, if it is possible, would like to
arrange
> for two or three hours of dual instruction in a spam-can.
>
> Regards,
> Casey Wilson
> Freelance Writer and Photographer

Interesting article from AOPA website:

http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2004/04-2-023x.html

[S Green]

"Casey Wilson" > wrote in message
...
> I tried various keywords on Google but couldn't come up with the
answer
> to my question.
> Does a general aviation industry exist in mainland China? I'm
planning
> a vacation trip there in 2005 and, if it is possible, would like to
arrange
> for two or three hours of dual instruction in a spam-can.
>
> Regards,
> Casey Wilson
> Freelance Writer and Photographer

There is NO significant GA industry yet and AFAIK no private pilots. Hence
your chance of a ride in a spam can is unlikely. The only exception I am
aware off is Hong Kong

[Paul Sengupta]

"C J Campbell" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Casey Wilson" > wrote in message
> ...
> > Does a general aviation industry exist in mainland China? I'm
> planning
> > a vacation trip there in 2005 and, if it is possible, would like to
> arrange
> > for two or three hours of dual instruction in a spam-can.
>
> GA is in its infancy in China. Until very recently, China sent all
would-be
> pilots out of country for initial training up through instrument rating,
> multi-engine, and commercial before bringing them back to work for the
> national airline. The United States got a lot of them. Right now China is
> beginning to develop a GA market to generate their own pilots and to
provide
> better support for tourism, skydiving, and the 2008 Olympics.
>
> Last I heard, there were still less than 400 GA aircraft in China. If
there
> any airplanes for rental in China, it would be at Beijing Sport Aviation
> School or at Anyang Sport Aviation School in Beijing. A company called PTE
> is the Cessna agent in China and handles Cessna sales and service. Anyang
> and PTE are the operators of A&P Light Aircraft Service.

There's also a big school near Shanghai. Most "GA" planes in China
are used as commerical transports or for training. It's not strictly true
about China outsourcing all its pilots as a lot came from the military
and these have been trained in-house, starting generally in the CJ-6.
You'll find a lot of these, but probably not for hire, they probably all
belong to schools.

The school near Shanghai has just bought some 172s.
http://www.seaet.com/english/gsjj-e.htm

They're manufacturing some new GA planes in China, though these
seem to be aimed at the commercial end, like twins for air taxi work,
cropdusters, and so on.

The microlight (ultralight) industry out there seems to be the way most
people who want to fly for sport get involved, but it's also not so huge.
I know of a microlight place near Nanning, but being too heavy and too
large for one of those, I didn't persue it. They had a flying club there too
but apparently it lost all its planes, didn't get any new ones and just
became an excuse for people to socialise.

Another news story to look at...
http://fpeng.peopledaily.com.cn/200004/08/eng20000408_38531.html

Paul