Question about aviation in China

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

"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/

"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.

"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

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.

"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 a 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.

"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

"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

"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.

"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.