GA piston flying down almost 50% since 2000

Just look at the drops of avgas consumption:

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/a403600001m.htm

Oh, my God. That is incredible. And awful.

I wonder if those sales figures from the 1980s included military
aircraft? There used to be lots of military hardware burning avgas
-- not any more...

If not? Holy moley...GA really is dead.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay,

Wow, from 1990 to 2000 the consumption dropped by only 20%. From
2000
to 2006 it dropped by 47% (nearly cut in half). Note the big drop in
2004 when lots of layoffs were occuring in high tech...

By comparison, Jet-A has been pretty stable, and the growth in Jet-A
doesn't appear to making up for the drop in 100LL, and in fact Jet-A
use has declined in the past 4 years when the drop in 100LL was
substantial. I'd say this is strong evidence that piston flying
hours
are way down...

Boy, those user fees are really going to help fund the airspace
system
with all that GA traffic out there! (not)

Dean

On Jun 5, 3:15 pm, wrote:
Just look at the drops of avgas consumption:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/a403600001m.htm
Oh, my God. That is incredible. And awful.
I wonder if those sales figures from the 1980s included military
aircraft? There used to be lots of military hardware burning avgas
-- not any more...
If not? Holy moley...GA really is dead.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay,

Wow, from 1990 to 2000 the consumption dropped by only 20%. From
2000
to 2006 it dropped by 47% (nearly cut in half). Note the big drop in
2004 when lots of layoffs were occuring in high tech...

By comparison, Jet-A has been pretty stable, and the growth in Jet-A
doesn't appear to making up for the drop in 100LL, and in fact Jet-A
use has declined in the past 4 years when the drop in 100LL was
substantial. I'd say this is strong evidence that piston flying
hours
are way down...

Boy, those user fees are really going to help fund the airspace
system
with all that GA traffic out there! (not)

Dean

I was just scheduling one of the club airplanes that I fly, and I was
surprised to see how few reservations there were in the system. The
Archer I am flying this Saturday was wide open for the entire weekend,
and I am the only person flying it since last Tuesday! It used to be
that there were at least 4 flights a weekend scheduled for each of the
Archers. I checked the schedules for all the planes, and the activity
level is WAY down on all the planes from what it typically has been as
recently as a year ago...

I guess the higher rates from higher fuel prices are having a big
effect.

I just did a spreadsheet with a prediction routine based on linear
regression. If the numbers hold true, we will be out of the GA business
around 2015, plus or minus one year.

Jim



--
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world.
Those who count in binary and those who don't
wrote in message
ups.com...
On Jun 5, 3:15 pm, wrote:
Just look at the drops of avgas consumption:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/a403600001m.htm
Oh, my God. That is incredible. And awful.
I wonder if those sales figures from the 1980s included military
aircraft? There used to be lots of military hardware burning avgas
-- not any more...
If not? Holy moley...GA really is dead.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

It's not likely it's a linear relationship, Jim. probably some e^(-kt)
would provide a closer model.


Yours would predict negative GA, in 2020, wouldn't it?

Some nits need picking!


On Jun 6, 6:07 pm, "RST Engineering" wrote:
I just did a spreadsheet with a prediction routine based on linear
regression. If the numbers hold true, we will be out of the GA business
around 2015, plus or minus one year.

Jim

--
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world.
Those who count in binary and those who wrote in message

ups.com...



On Jun 5, 3:15 pm, wrote:
Just look at the drops of avgas consumption:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/a403600001m.htm
Oh, my God. That is incredible. And awful.
I wonder if those sales figures from the 1980s included military
aircraft? There used to be lots of military hardware burning avgas
-- not any more...
If not? Holy moley...GA really is dead.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Which symbol in your equation represents (+ -) changing political winds?


Montblack


("Tony" wrote)
It's not likely it's a linear relationship, Jim. probably some e^(-kt)
would provide a closer model.

Yours would predict negative GA, in 2020, wouldn't it?

Some nits need picking!

Tell ya what. Three spread sheets and three graphs of the spreadsheets will
be posted to www.rstengineering.com/photos in fifteen minutes. Take a look
at the straightness of the line since 1990.

Jim

--
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world.
Those who count in binary and those who don't
"Tony" wrote in message
ups.com...
It's not likely it's a linear relationship, Jim. probably some e^(-kt)
would provide a closer model.


Yours would predict negative GA, in 2020, wouldn't it?

Some nits need picking!


On Jun 6, 6:07 pm, "RST Engineering" wrote:
I just did a spreadsheet with a prediction routine based on linear
regression. If the numbers hold true, we will be out of the GA business
around 2015, plus or minus one year.

Jim

--
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world.
Those who count in binary and those who wrote in
message

ups.com...



On Jun 5, 3:15 pm, wrote:
Just look at the drops of avgas consumption:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/a403600001m.htm
Oh, my God. That is incredible. And awful.
I wonder if those sales figures from the 1980s included military
aircraft? There used to be lots of military hardware burning avgas
-- not any more...
If not? Holy moley...GA really is dead.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Negative GA in 2020. QED

On Jun 6, 6:45 pm, "RST Engineering" wrote:
Tell ya what. Three spread sheets and three graphs of the spreadsheets will
be posted towww.rstengineering.com/photosin fifteen minutes. Take a look
at the straightness of the line since 1990.

Jim

--
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world.
Those who count in binary and those who don't"Tony" wrote in message

ups.com...



It's not likely it's a linear relationship, Jim. probably some e^(-kt)
would provide a closer model.

Yours would predict negative GA, in 2020, wouldn't it?

Some nits need picking!

On Jun 6, 6:07 pm, "RST Engineering" wrote:
I just did a spreadsheet with a prediction routine based on linear
regression. If the numbers hold true, we will be out of the GA business
around 2015, plus or minus one year.

Jim

--
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world.
Those who count in binary and those who wrote in
message

roups.com...

On Jun 5, 3:15 pm, wrote:
Just look at the drops of avgas consumption:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/a403600001m.htm
Oh, my God. That is incredible. And awful.
I wonder if those sales figures from the 1980s included military
aircraft? There used to be lots of military hardware burning avgas
-- not any more...
If not? Holy moley...GA really is dead.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On Jun 6, 3:45 pm, "RST Engineering" wrote:
Tell ya what. Three spread sheets and three graphs of the spreadsheets will
be posted towww.rstengineering.com/photosin fifteen minutes. Take a look
at the straightness of the line since 1990.

Jim

Jim,

I agree that it looks pretty linear, which is scary. Actually, the R^2
for the linear fit was 0.80, but it was 0.88 for a log fit, so the
exponential is actually a better match. But, functional form aside,
the real nit to pick is trying to predict the future of GA with just
one variable.

Nevertheless, no matter how you interpret the graph, it does certainly
paint a dire picture for GA.

-- dave j

RST Engineering wrote:
Tell ya what. Three spread sheets and three graphs of the
spreadsheets will be posted to www.rstengineering.com/photos in
fifteen minutes. Take a look at the straightness of the line since
1990.
Jim

If you did the same with the data from 83 to 87 it would have been at zero
in 91 or 92 and that was a much straighter line. No doubt GA is in trouble.
What are we going to do about it?

I looked at the Gasuse.xls charts and generally agree with it except
that I would not use year-to-date 2007 numbers since it is not a full
year (does not include summer flying months).

That may not affect the overall trend.

Plus It should bottom out above zero. I fly about 250 hours a year
and am not likely to drop to zero. The same applies to many RV pilots
as far as not going to zero.

That is a helpful chart. Thanks

Ron Lee