The decade from 2010 to 2019 for General Aviation was one of tremendous technological progress, from computer watches to autonomous flight control. Manufacturers also launched some amazing new planes, including a jet from Cirrus, the incredible globetrotting Gulfstream G650, a remarkable diesel twin, the DA-62, from Diamond, among others. At the same time we in GA continued to fight against onerous regulation, often but not always successfully, while working to keep the activity we love open, accessible and fun, challenges that won’t end with a new decade but that will certainly be met by a population of passionate aviators focusing on what really matters, the joy and freedom of flight.
ADS-B
December 31, 2019, is the last day that ADS-B isnât mandated for much of the United States National Airspace System. Starting in the New Year, every plane will have to have it, or they will be denied access to most controlled airspace. The gear, which the FAA started promoting last century, has had a 10-year lead up to mandatory equipage. By our estimates, around 50% of light GA planes are compliant. What happens next should be interesting.
GA Accidents Decline
The 2010s saw a decline in the GA accident rate to record low levels, both in terms of fatal and overall accidents, hovering around one fatal accident per 100,000 hours of flying time for the last few years. As always, thereâs some controversy over what to credit that improvement for, but many experts say that better avionics, scenario-based training and improved safety outreach have all helped.
Backcountry Flying
One thing that few saw coming was a renaissance in backcountry flying over the past decade, as interest in taildraggers (mostly) with big tires and hardly any radios gains traction. A gathering you almost assuredly hadnât heard of before about two years ago, the High Sierra Fly-In, and the supporting group of pilots, the STOL Rats and the Flying Cowboys, have created an event that captures the allure of flying in the outback, brewing it down to its essential ingredients, friendship, fun and family, in a way that has struck a chord with the flying public. And weâve all benefitted from the work of the Recreational Aviation Foundation, which has worked diligently to keep backcountry strips open, maintained and accessible.
Basic Med
A big push to simplify pilot certification for private flyers dates back decades, but this past decade it finally got done. Basic Med, as itâs called, isnât the Driverâs License Medical that Sport Pilots enjoy and that many hoped for, but the more complicated but still more liberal new medical certification rule allows more pilots to fly longer with less FAA involvementâall big wins.
Short-Timer CFIs
With the need by the airlines to hire any pilot with 1,500 hours and a pulse, the pressure on flight schools to retain CFIs to teach their record number of students has become arguably the chief challenge of their business. Many schools, if not most, have developed programs to incentivize their CFIs to stay, instead of getting poached by rival schools with a better offer, but still, we live in an age when a student pilotâs instructor today was her or himself the student as little as 18 months prior. The good news is, by all accounts, these new CFIs are doing great work, at least until they head off to the airlines and their students swaps seats.
EAA Resurgence
To put it kindly, the 2010s for EAA was an uproarious decade, for both bad and good. The transition from the leadership of the Pobereznys was anything but smooth. Paul Poberezny founded and led the organization for decades, and son Tom ran it ably for many years thereafter. New leadership struggled to find its way, and it wasn’t until former Cessna leader Jack Pelton took the reins in 2012 that things began turning around. Since that time Pelton has steadied the ship and made the annual airshow, for which the EAA is rightly famous, the best it has ever been. In addition, through Pelton’s leadership EAA has advanced important safety, youth, and pilot retention programs that have worked and energized the membership.
Garmin Automation
Over the past decade and change, Garmin has transformed the face of aircraft flight control with the introduction of a number of groundbreaking products, all of them for light GA aircraft (in addition to larger, Part 25 planes, too). These include ESP envelope protection and Autoland, which can, without human intervention, configure a small plane to land and come to a complete stop at an airport it selects.
The Icon A5
If the 2000s had Eclipse, then the 2010s had Icon, a company whose marketing and message were a slick as the composite finish on its two-seat LSA amphibian, sometimes a little too slick. The company took orders reportedly for more than 2,000 A5s. But a slow, expensive journey to market and a couple of high-profile fatal crashes, including of Baseball Hall Of Fame pitcher Roy Halladay, put the company in rough shape in more ways than one. In 2016, a controversy erupted over the companyâs owner contracts, which had numerous onerous and questionably enforceable clauses, which Icon subsequently toned down substantially. One big difference between the two high-profile high-wire acts of consecutive decades: Icon is still in business and making airplanes.
Low Lead Albatross
While the rest of the world has done away with its lead addiction as a fuel additive decades ago, General Aviation still clings to its 100 Low Lead fuel, and for good reason. Itâs the only thing that will work across a wide variety of engine types. The FAA over the course of the last decade has sponsored initiatives to help develop new forms of unleaded aviation fuel, but despite everyoneâs best efforts, we havenât yet come up with a drop-in replacement fuel thatâs up to snuff with the Feds.
Van’s Aircraft
Under the leadership of Richard âVanâ Vans Grunsven, the guy who founded the company in the 1970s, Vanâs Aircraft continues to do in the kit world what it has done better than anyone for a long timeâbuilt high-quality, high-value and increasingly easier-to-build kits for a lineup of fast, fun flying homebuilts. At last count, Vanâs customers had completed and flown 10,619 RVs, with many more to come.
Shrinking Fleet And Pilot Population
Itâs no secret that our much smaller and still shrinking pilot population is due largely to the demographics. The last of the baby boomers are now toward the end of their flying careersâhold your fire, I said ânear!ââand the rate of replacement for those pilots is nowhere near good enough to keep our numbers steady, never mind increasing. Despite impressive programs by member organizations such as AOPA and EAA to promote the creation of new pilots and to retain existing ones, the boat continues to take on water.
Cirrus Jet
The development of the Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet actually didnât get started this past decade, though it wasnât until the 2010s that the program got the financial support it needed to reach certification and make first deliveries in 2016. Since then it has delivered more than 150 of the jets, which sell for around $3 million today. In 2018, the SF50 was awarded the Collier Trophy for the greatest achievement in aviation for the prior year.
Diesels Deferred
One potential solution to our 100LL issue is the diesel engine. While there have been some noteworthy success stories, including engines from Continental and Austro, which power Diamond diesel-powered aircraft, diesels, due to high retail costs, few viable STC programs and few incentives to switch, remain a niche product and not a big solution.
Drones Everywhere
It was a story that affected GA but was far bigger than our cozy segment, and the subject of drones didnât disappoint, providing more controversy and hope than users, regulators, legislators or journalists knew what to do with. By the end of the decade it was clear that drones would, before long, dominate the skies. Next decade will tell just how that new vision plays out.
User Fees Defeated, Again And Again
With Congress keeping busy with innumerable distractions these days, itâs probably not too surprising that aviation user fees havenât been getting promoted of late. The retirement from Congress of longtime pilot foe and airline bud Bill Shuster no doubt helped douse those flames. But there were a few close calls during the 2010s, when users fees looked something like an unavoidable fate until the work of AOPA, EAA, GAMA, NBAA and others pulled the fat out of the fire at the 11th hour.
Cheap New Avionics
During the last couple of years of the decade, Garmin, Dynon and others worked with a new-attitude FAA to certify, in Part 23 airplanes, gear that was developed for the homebuilt marketplace. The result has been a plethora of relatively inexpensive, incredibly capable digital avionics for owners of even lower-value singles and twins. It has been a game changer.
Flying Costs Keep Rising
The worst kept secret of the last decade is that flying is expensive and getting more so. In part the expense is due to the price of avgas, which has largely resisted the dips in auto fuel prices weâve seen come and go over the past 10 years as oil production worldwide has reached record levels. But everything else, from hangars to annual inspections, is going up in price, too. This includes the cost of new planes, the prices of which put them out of reach of the vast majority of American consumers. All of this adds up to additional pressure on the US GA pilot population and its fleet composed mostly of older model planes.
Foreign Investors In GA
Over the past decade the United States, along with the rest of the world, has seen an unprecedented level of investment and ownership in US headquartered aviation businesses. Foreign investors from China, Russia, India, Brunei and elsewhere have bought into a number of iconic aviation companies, including Cirrus Design, Continental Aerospace, Mooney Aircraft and Piper Aircraft. In many of those cases, including all of the above mentioned companies, itâs likely that that investment saved the company, along with the jobs its activities support and the parts availability for current owners.
Women Aviators
As the need for more and more airline pilots grew throughout the decade, opportunities for women aviators, both as commercial pilots and as CFIs, opened like never before. And groups dedicated to supporting those women grew and prospered, as well. The largest, Women in Aviation International in 2018 alone awarded nearly a million dollars in scholarships to help pave the pathway to the cockpit for even more women. While the decade saw the passing of such historic figures as aerobatics champion Betty Skelton and Jerrie Mock, the first woman to fly around the world solo, we also saw women like Tammie Jo Shults, the hero of Southwest 1308, emerge on the scene to show the world that not only can women fly; they can lead while doing it and while serving as an inspiration to others.
AOPA Gets Its Mojo Back
Most organizations, even successful ones, that face the departure of longtime leader struggle in the years to follow to stay true to the mission and brand that got them to where they were in the first place. When longtime leader Phil Boyer retired in 2008, AOPA had its work cut out for it to keep it relevant and useful to its members in a changing GA landscape. After a few challenging years with smart leadership that seemed not to connect well with the membership, AOPA hired Mark Baker as its leader. He was the perfect choice. A person whoâs a remarkably successful business leader and passionate GA pilot, Baker has both put AOPA on sound footing with programs and finances but heâs connected with its members in a very fundamental way, that is, as a pilot whoâs got our backs.
Very Light And Single-Engine Jets
For years leading up to this decade, the hype over very light and single-engine fanjets was loud and persistent. There were some partial success stories. Cessna built a bunch of Mustangs, and Eclipse Aircraft, while a financial disaster, built a great little jet. But the winner of the very light jet contest that no one wanted to be identified as competing in is Cirrus Aircraft, which midway through the decade got it SF-50 Vision Jet certificated and shortly thereafter started delivering them to customers. The plane, which won the 2017 Collier Trophy, does around 320 knots true in its latest, G2, iteration. Itâs roomy, fun and easy to fly. Itâs extremely economical (for a jet) and, at around $3 million, a steal compared to most single-engine turboprops. Cirrus has already delivered 150 of the jets and shows no sign of slowing down.
The Rise Of The iPad And Smartphone
Remember the time before tablet computers and smartphones? Yeah, we donât either. Well, at least not very clearly. In life, these devices have change the way we doâeverything from navigate the roadways to how we communicate with the relatives. In aviation, it has taken on an even greater role, but one big difference is this: In aviation, these handheld devices have made our flying easier, more convenient and unquestionably safer. Leading the way are a handful of incredible apps, including ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot and FlyQ, that put a ton of capability in the palm of your hand. Gone are the days when you needed to carry paper charts, find your way from airport to airport via needle gauges or learn only from word of mouth where the cheapest gas was. These devices rock, but remember, itâs only been in the last decade that theyâve taken the fore.
