If there were 25 million active GA pilots...

On 16-Oct-2003, "Dan Luke" c172rgATbellsouthDOTnet wrote:

...in the USA instead of 400,000 or so:

There would be GA airports *everywhere*. They would be like beehives on
the day before Thanksgiving.

I think what you mean is that there would be few places without convenient
access to/from a GA airport


You could rent a T hangar for less than the cost of a 1 br apartment.

More likely GA airplanes would be designed with features like folding wings
to make storage more efficient


The accident rate would be about the same but the fatal accident rate
would be lower due to modern, more crashworthy designs.

The real key to even getting to that level of GA use would be to make it
practical for GA airplanes and pilots to safely operate IFR in pretty much
the same mix of weather that the airlines fly in. The biggest challenges:
practical and low cost ice protection and weather visualization (the latter
rapidly becoming a reality) and greatly simplified IFR procedures (so that
25 million pilots could operate "in the system."


You'd give the engine in your airplane about as much thought as you do the
one in your car. The idea of sending oil samples off for analysis at each
change would seem absurd.

But aircraft engines would continue to cost a lot more than auto engines --
just not ten times as much.



Your new "family" airplane would be air conditioned.

Maybe. Still a big weight penalty and not needed nearly as universally as
AC in cars

It would have a headup synthetic vision/HITS display, emergency autoland
capability, real time data
link weather and a CD/DVD player.

It would certainly have a lot of "high tech" avionics, but the demands of
traffic control in an environment with 25 million pilots would dominate
their functionality.


You'd have a second, "fun" airplane.

Maybe, but even with mass production techniques airplanes would still cost
lots more than cars -- just not 10 times as much.


40-year old airplanes would all be junkers or lovingly restored classics.

Probably right.


Vacuum pumps would be deep in landfills.

Everything that COULD be electronic WOULD be electronic. You would
certainly have redundant electrical systems


Air traffic control would automated for most functions.

It would have to be to manage the 50-fold increase in traffic. Oh, and by
the way, there would undoubtedly need to be enforced positive control in
virtually all airspace with the possible exception of parts of Alaska

Regulation enforcement officers would be flying around, watching and
listening, but federal enforcement actions would be more uniform and fair
due to more lawyers and politicians getting busted and raising hell.

The reason for more uniform (and aggressive) enforcement of regulations
would be that with 25 million users the system would collapse without it


Frogs could dance and the Cubs would win the World Series.

Naw, its not as unlikely as the Cubs winning the Series.

-------
-Elliott Drucker