Reports of the Death of General Aviation are Exaggerated

Multiple Airshow Flight Teams Performing at Once at Oshkosh

There is an assumption that general aviation (GA), which describes flying for non corporate, commercial, or military purposes, is on the decline. At least if you judge GA health by number of new aircraft produced, which by historical standards has been very low for a number of years now. Or by the number of active pilots, as  fewer young people are choosing aviation as a career, fewer coming out of military aviation, and older pilots keep getting older. The average age of the GA fleet is quite high - around 30 years, with fewer planes plying the skies every year.

A recent first time visit to EAA's AirVenture in Oshkosh challenged that assumption for me. AirVenture is the Experimental Aircraft Associations annual air show that attracts about 100,000 visitors a day in the last week of July. Ten thousand visiting aircraft can be found parked or camping on the field, and on the fields of neighboring Fond Du Lac and Appleton. Among those aircraft are every version of airworthy military, antique, corporate, and recreational planes on display and demonstrating their stuff in the air.

You have to see it to believe it. I joined a fellow flying club member and experienced attendee for my first visit to the event. We arrived to find the Oshkosh field closed. No parking spaces were available. They were full. Our option was to deviate to one of two nearby alternate airfields, Appleton or Fond Du Lac. In the approach to Fond Du Lac we felt like we were coming into the famous crowded airspace of Oshkosh. About fifty other aircraft were trying to land at the same time, with controllers firing instructions without taking a breath, trying to keep track of all of us.

In previous weeks, when we participated with Sawbones in the Duluth Air Show, or the Air Expo in Eden Prairie, we had the pleasure of seeing between 20 and 50 display aircraft. A relatively rare Douglas A-1 Sky Raider attack aircraft, a P-51 or three, a B-17, a B-25 or two, an eight ship flight of T-6's, a T-28, and a half dozen or so other uncommon WWI era aircraft, along with a smattering of modern display aircraft. In contrast, in Oshkosh there were exactly 371 warbirds alone. Several acres of restored WWII aircraft had their own section of the field. Many of them flew in the arial displays.

Cessna 195's

There were over 1,000 vintage airplanes, over 1100 homebuilt aircraft, 135 ultralights and flight-sport aircraft, 100 seaplanes, 30 rotor aircraft, and 40 aerobatic aircraft. Where any other show might feature a single vintage aircraft -
- say a classic Cessna 195 made just  before I was born, or a Stinson or two, or maybe a 1940's Howard DGA-15 - here there were dozens of each.

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Howard DGA-15's

Or take the unique Douglas Sky Raider I mentioned from the Duluth Air Show. There were a few.

There were also the rarest of aircraft. Below is a 1909 Curtiss Pusher. The story, according to the gentleman standing by the airplane and speaking to the crowd of onlookers, was that the original structure came out of pieces of wood found in an attic. A homeowner that was cleaning out an old Curtiss family homestead  found the parts wrapped in 1915 Boston Globe newspapers. The owners couldn't tell what they were, so they brought in folks from the Collings Foundation, an east coast "living history" museum. Hunching it might be an aircraft, given the background of the home, they called Century Aviation, a well known aircraft restoration company from Washington state. Pictures of the parts laid out on the ground were sent by email. After a lot of research and brainstorming, the crew at Century guessed it was very old Curtiss aircraft, date and model unknown. Collins then hired Century to try to put it together, creating parts as required to replicate whatever it was. After a time, Century determined it to be a pre-model D Curtiss pusher. They had to make radiators, controls, and configurations from very old pictures, guessing at dimensions and exact locations. What resulted is a very believable restoration of the actual aircraft, including the fully operational Curtiss engine, with all of it's valves and rockers clacking away externally to the body of the engine. They plan to fly it within a few months, expecting a top speed of 50 mph. I'm guessing that will be a "pucker" day.

Further proof that aviation might be alive and well can be found in the vendor booths crowding the hangars. Not just aircraft supplies, parts, tools, avionics, and gizmos are everywhere, but "adjacent" products and services abound. For example,  Eyelift, a substitute for botox jammed between the ShockStrap demonstration and the Bad Elf GPS receiver company. And everyone, from carnival hawkers to instrumentation engineers, was busy.

The grass roots of aviation were there, too. Like the huge tent covering all kinds of used and recovered (often from crashes) parts from old radio's to complete radial engines. It was full of scroungers and opportunists looking for that rare part, that odd novelty, or that great bargain.

Yup, judging by the record attendance, the quantity and quality of the airplanes, the people, and the level of enthusiasm, I think general aviation and, specifically recreational aviation, is alive and well.