General Aviation Manufacturer’s Association 2018 Annual Report is available. If you love numbers and love flying, this is a fascinating document.
Table 1.1 shows total piston deliveries were 1,139, less than half the recent peak of 2,755 (2006). Turboprops are actually up compared to 2007 (465 to 601). Bizjets are off from 1,317 (2008) to 703, but higher prices mean that $22 billion in total revenue is down only to about $18 billion (1.2).
The percentage of piston-powered airplanes going to Asia has doubled since 2007 while bizjet deliveries are up even more (1.3).
Gulfstream is doing quite well, with 121 jets shipped compared to a peak of 156 in 2007. Even the G280, which cannot legally be landed in most Arab countries, is pretty successful (29 delivered). Cessna, on the other hand, is down to 188 from a peak of 466 (2008). So it sort of looks like the rich are getting richer until you look at Boeing and Airbus monster bizjet sales. There were a total of only 7 delivered in 2018 compared to 27 in 2010. (Table 1.4a)
Standout successful jets are the Cirrus SF50 (63 delivered), Bombardier Challenger 350 (60 delivered), the Embraer Phenom 300 (53 delivered), and the Pilatus PC-24 (brand new, but 18 delivered). Honda delivered 37 of its relatively new jet, compared to 43 the previous year.
Pilatus delivered 80 PC-12 turboprops, down from a peak of 100 in 2009. Piper achieved an all-time record of 56 for its six-year PA-46. Textron sold 94 King Airs (off a peak of 172 in 2008) and 92 Caravans (off a peak of 107 in 2012). The TBM is enjoying record near-record sales of 50 per year.
Down in the piston ghetto… Cirrus delivered 380 planes, of which the volume leader is the SR22T (maybe this is the best version, since the prop is governed to a maximum of 2500 RPM, which should be quieter than the 2700 RPM of the SR20 and SR22). This is down from 710 planes sold in the glorious year of 2007. Cessna and Piper delivered 193 and
173 , respectively. Italy’s TECNAM actually made more planes than Piper: 180. Austrian/Canadian/Chinese Diamond is down at 134, off a peak of 471 in 2007. ICON managed to deliver 44 planes. That’s a total of 59 delivered since inception.
Airbus delivered 323 helicopters. Bell was at 245, including an astonishing 116 of the new 505. Robinson was at 316, down from a peak of 893 in 2008. It looks as though the Guimbal Cabri (priced like a four-seater; sized like a two-seater) is failing. Sales are down to 25 from a peak of 50 in 2016. Robinson managed to out-sell this purpose-built two-seat trainer with 33 R22s. Note that these numbers include military helicopter sales.
Table 1.5 is depressing. The U.S. made at least 5,000 general aviation airplanes from 1956 through 1981. During the Jimmy Carter malaise year of 1978, the factories made 17,811 planes, 17,032 of which were piston-powered. In 2018 it was 1,746, of which 829 were piston-driven. The revenue numbers (Table 1.6) show a flatter picture, even for the piston world. Cirrus’s $1 million SR22 prices are apparently helping. We’re exporting about 42 percent of our airplanes, measured in dollars.
Tables 2.2 and 2.3 show that Americans flew 140,000 aircraft approximately 7.8 million hours for personal/recreational reasons. Flight instruction occupied 16,000 aircraft for 5 million hours.
Table 2.5 shows the increasingly static society that Tyler Cowen wrote about. Despite population growth from 1980 to 2017 of 226 to 326 million, total hours flown in general aviation fell from 41,000 to 25,000.
Table 2.6 shows how much sitting on the ground planes do. The average piston-powered airplane flies only 95 hours per year, down from 130 in 2000. The average bizjet flies only 286 hours. Helicopters fly an average of 239 (piston) and 351 (turbine) hours per year. Homebuilders tinker with their planes rather than fly them (only 46 hours per year).
Table 2.9 shows that getting environmentalists to Davos in their Gulfstreams uses a lot of dinosaur blood. Piston fuel consumption is down from 333 million gallons in 2000 to 210 million in 2017. Jet fuel, on the other hand, has gone from 972 million gallons up to 1535 million.
The average age of a single-engine piston airplane is 46 years and 44 for a piston multi. Average jets are 16 years old. (2.11)
General aviation is making less use of Air Traffic Control. Operations at towered airports fell from 38.4 million in 1992 to 27.7 million in 2017.
The U.S. pilot numbers have fallen from 702,659 (5.77 percent women) in 1990 to 633,318 (7.34 percent women; 42,127 of whom may live outside of the U.S.) in 2018. U.S. population, meanwhile, grew from 250 million to 330 million. Holding a pilot certificate is becoming more unusual. (6.1)
The average age of all pilots is not rising as fast as one might expect from hanging around a GA airport. It was 41.9 in 1994 and is 44.9 today (essentially steady since 2012).
The busiest GA airports: KDVT (Deer Valley, AZ), KAPA (Denver), KHWO (Florida), KTMB (Tamiami, Florida), KGFK (University of North Dakota), KVNY (Van Nuys, California). The obvious suspects such as Teterboro are not on the list (7.3).
Even as the U.S. adds population, we are losing public airports, down slightly from 5,288 (2004) to 5,119 (2016).
That Bell 505 marketing campaign using Phillip seems to be working!
You don’t talk about the cost of aircraft and of flying. I don’t have the stats but my impression is that private flying has become very expensive, especially vis a vis the cost of airline tickets, relative to say 1978. So it makes more sense to just buy a ticket (or drive) rather than fly your own plane.
What do these stats mean? The GA market has saturated? The economy is going down hill / middle class disappearing? Young people are jaded and no longer enthused by aviation?
Curious: My ’98 Honda Civic was doing well if it got over 30 MPG. Two decades later, my ’17 Civic routinely gets better than 40 MPG, even though it’s a larger car with more features.
Have piston airplanes experienced similar efficiency gains?