Talk:General aviation

Definition

"General aviation (GA) encompasses all civil aviation other than scheduled airline flights and government aviation." -- I'm going from memory here, but isn't all government non-military aviation also GA? For example, police, fire fighting, search and resuce, and so on. I think the word "government" should be changed to "military". (No objections noted, change made.)

Issues

I've got a few issues here. 1)I work for a charter airline, which makes us comercial aviation, but my company has a MEDEVAC contract ans so we operate medical flights and the pilots must hold a commercial licence because they are being paid. i would therefore classify med flights as commercial aviation. I thinks that if the pilots are being paid for their services it makes it commercial aviation and many of the examples of GA in this article should not be here. 2) Except for the few aircraft we have that operate at high altitude, very few of our flights operate IFR. Trevor MacInnis 00:29, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

OK, I see that my above comments are adressed in the GA section of Aviation, I guess its just this page that has to be reworked to reflect that info.Trevor MacInnis 00:34, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

-

I think you have it wrong. Whether something is GA or commercial aviation has nothing to do with whether the pilots are paid or not. Flight instructors are paid, and that's definitely GA. Basically, GA is part 91.

Yes, I just checked. The FAA defines GA as 14CFR91.

Pilot certificate

Earning a pilot certificate is NOT easy. If you mean "easy" in terms of availability of flight training, and cost in the US as compared to Europe or other nations for example, then I agree with you. Anyone who thinks flying is as easy as driving a car for example will not be flying very long. Please don't promulgate the myth that flight training, passing the many rigorous exams, and keeping one's license and ratings current is "easy".

In the U.S., general aviation is not limited to Part 91 (Private, non-commercial/revenue operations). Part 135 on-demand charder and corporate ("industrial aid") flying is also general aviation. Revenue operations, other than flight instruction and sightseeing flights operating within 25 nm of the departure airports and returning to the same airport, require an FAA air carrier certificate and the pilot and aircraft must meet many other requirements not required of Part 91 operations. By the way, non-military government flying is considered "Public" operations. Public aircraft (owned by the US government) are exempt from many of its own (FAA) regulations. Nice isn't it?

It's also "prohibitively" expensive in Europe as a result of the high taxes attached to almost everything there, in keeping with the social engineering mindset of most of Europe (keep the average person from flying, driving a fast car, etc. by taxing him/her out of the market).

History

I'd love to see some discussion of the history of general aviation in the US. As I understand, in the 70's it was quite a popular hobby, and up to 20,000 small planes were sold a year... then the 80's became a dark age, lots of lawsuits and awards, and all the manufacturers of small aircraft pretty much dropped out... then into the 90's legislation was passed to limit the manufacturer's liability and it has come back a tiny bit, but still only ~2,500 small planes sold a year in the US. I came to this article looking for more info on this (this is all I know -- not enough to contribute it!!) -josh

Geographic bias

There is a strong geographic bias in the article towards the U.S. Whilst I don't think there's a problem with the content as it stands, it could do with being placed in a better international context. I've marked it with a tag accordingly Andrewferrier 20:25, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite

I've rewritten the page to remove excessively narrowly-focussed or US-specific information, and provide a simple introduction to GA in general. I don't think detailed discussions of the cost/benefit of private light aircraft ownership really belong here, nor do the specifics of FAA part 91 regs . David 23:16, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Definition of "General Aviation" outside North America?

A good example of the common definition of GA in North America appears here:[1] "General Aviation, which includes all flying except for military and scheduled airline operations, makes up more than 1 percent of the U.S. GDP." However, during a discussion on Talk:Civil aviation, User:Treesmill has pointed out a UK example[2] that defines GA as "All Civil Aviation operations other than scheduled air services and non-scheduled air transport operations for remuneration or hire", which might be much narrower, depending on how "air transport operation" is defined — basically, GA there might be only private aviation.

Granted, Canada and the US together account for well over half of the world's GA operations, but we should still make sure that the article takes into account what general aviation means to people outside North America. Can anyone else give local definitions or citations from Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, Latin America, Australia/New Zealand, etc? David 12:25, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Earlier in this discussion somebody noted that earning and maintaining a PPL is not an easy task. In reality, I believe that the ease of which someone can accomplish this can only be determined on a case by case basis and therefore should not be incorporated into any factual article about general aviation. Personally, I did find it reletively easy to acquire my PPL.

Majority of Air Traffic

It is asserted that the majority of air traffic is General Aviation. It would really be a good idea to back that up with a reference, as it seems pretty counter-intuitive to me as a non-pilot. --Booch 17:50, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

This one's U.S.-specific and a few years out of date, but in 2001 general aviation accounted for 79.82% of all non-military U.S. flights[3] David 00:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Ditto. It is counter-intuitive, but it's also quite accurate. Commecial aviation (United, Delta, etc.) doesn't put near the passenger miles through the sky that general aviation does. - Mugs 19:01, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about passenger miles, but definitely number of flights and probably flight hours. David 22:46, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Stub

Added stub tag. This article surely needs expanding...it doesn't begin to do justice to the diversity and importance of general aviation worldwide. Additional images showing the range of aircraft (say, from a Flybaby to a Gulfstream) would be useful. The Safety section is generally unsourced and of questionable accuracy. There are excellent data on GA safety available from AOPA ASN and the NTSB...more authoritative information would be a great plus. Cmichael 07:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite and additions

Just did a pretty extensive rewrite and some additions, particularly involving the utility and safety of GA. Relied heavily on info from AOPA sources, which are generally considered to be authoritative. I don't think I coded the citations correctly, and would welcome some help on this. I'd still like to expand the list of examples of GA activities to include a brief description of each one. I also admit to being a GA booster, and would welcome well-cited criticisms of GA to balance out the article. Cmichael 07:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the rewrite. I removed a lot of the advocacy stuff (despite the fact that I'm also a private pilot and a big GA fan), both because it doesn't belong in Wikipedia and because it was all U.S.-centric. I also added some more accurate stats — according to most of the aviation publications, GA (involving light aircraft) is about 7 times more dangerous per hour than driving in a car, roughly equivalent to driving a motorcycle; however, I didn't find an authoritative government source for the motorcycle comparison, so I simply cited the numbers comparing GA and airlines from the NTSB. David 13:05, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

David: Thanks for adding the International flavor to the regulatory information...I was wanting to get there, but didn't have the information close at hand. If I went overboard on advocacy, I apologize. But, on reflection, I think I was responding to the histrionic slant that I perceived, and continue to perceive, in the two safety paragraphs of the article. As ChadScott correctly points out, all of the comparative safety numbers are slippery. Nobody really knows how many hours general aviation flies, how many per-passenger miles are either flown or driven. All we have are estimates, then statistics and comparisons built on those estimates. At best, they are all WAG’s.

I respectfully disagree that the AOPA numbers (which I had posted) are inaccurate or even less accurate than the NTSB numbers. For example, I quoted AOPA as saying that there were 321 fatal accidents in 24.4 million hours of flight operations. You quote the NTSB as reporting 1.31 fatal accidents per 100,000 hours. Both organizations are reporting the same thing...the AOPA numbers cite the raw data, while the NTSB converts the data into the standard "per 100,000 hours" metric. (Here is the math: 24,400,000 / 100,000 = 244. 244 * 1.31 = 320. That's pretty close to AOPA's 321. The difference is probably due to rounding.)

The real difference between the AOPA's numbers and the NTSB's is that, cognitively, 321 accidents in 24.4 million hours "seems" pretty safe, while 1.31 per 100,000 "seems" pretty dangerous. Cmichael 07:09, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

You didn't find a source for the motorcycle comparison because it's inaccurate. GA opponents have been trying to compare airplanes to cars for years and it just doesn't work: airplanes aren't cars. The conversion from "flight hours" to "hours driven" or "flight miles" to "miles driven" is like trying to convert apples to oranges. You can massage the numbers to demonstrate either one is safer than the other. That said, I do like how you have presented the raw numbers and drawn obvious conclusions comparing scheduled to unscheduled (general) operations (apples to apples). -- ChadScott 18:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

safety comparison

To put the safety statistics into meaningful context, there should be additional statistics for travel by railroad, bus, auto, and maybe walking/hiking. Even some comparison to being struck by lightning, or fatalities from bowling and swimming would be useful. Some might be hard to put into a 1:X per activity hour form, but surely a range could be approximated. —EncMstr 00:39, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree, but the statistics are surprisingly hard to find and even harder to compare. For example, do you compare the chance of dying per mile, the chance of dying per hour, or the chance of dying per calendar year (given the average number of hours a pilot flies and a driver drives)? Do you count fatal accidents or fatalities? If you count fatalities, you'll need numbers on the average number of passengers in a GA flight, and I don't think those are available anywhere. David 04:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Yep, there definitely are challenges. Several dimensions should be presented: per hour seems more useful than per mile for my way of thinking, though someone planning a cross country trip would think of it the other way around.

Have you heard the bit of conventional wisdom that the drive to the airport is statistically the most dangerous part of the journey? About 1992 AOPA published statistics indicating that was wrong, at least for GA. In the end, it's up to the reader to decide which statistic is relevant. —EncMstr 17:10, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a good source for fatal automobile accidents per mile and per hour in the U.S. or some other country? One problem with hourly figures for GA is that they're sometimes based on estimates from avgas sales, which are tricky (both because of differences in fuel burn, and because some GA planes burn Jet-A, mogas, or diesel instead of avgas). David 21:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I've been chewing over this for a couple of weeks now, and I honestly think the best thing to do is take most of the safety section out of this article, make some general reference to the fact that safety varies from one segment of general aviation to another because of the range of activities included under the category "general aviation," reference the aviation safety article, and have done with it. The current wording of the section has a histrionic flavor to it, in my opinion. The comparisons are purely speculative, for all the reasons already cited here by others. The citation of the statement about the dangers of bush flying in Alaska is weak, if one tracks it down to its origin. In point of fact, most of general aviation safety is controlled in the cockpit, by the risk management decisions that each individual pilot makes. Finally, if you look up airlines, rail transport, cycling, walking or other forms of transportation, you'll find a lot of information about how that mode of transportation works, its history, infrastructure, and what not, and very little about its safety. Let's leave most of the safety debate in the air safety article, where it belongs. My two cents. Cmichael 06:58, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Aerial Burial

Put "aerial burial" back in list, as virtually all aerial burials, or ash scatterings, are performed by general aviation aircraft under Part 91 (US reg). Cmichael 06:18, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

List cleanup

The length of the list of GA examples has become excessive, so I've tagged it with a cleanup template. Can we cut it down to 5–8 solid examples? If someone wants to create an article "List of general operations", we could move the full list there and link to it. David 21:49, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Works for me. Maybe then we could concentrate on developing the article, rather than developing the list <wink>. Cmichael 05:53, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Done — I've created a new article List of general aviation activities and moved most of the list there. David 21:58, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

One Six Right

I've removed the section about the film One Six Right — I know that the film is well-loved in the U.S. general aviation community, but a lengthy description (or even a quick mention) is out of place in an article dealing with general aviation world-wide. David 21:49, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Removing AOPA link

I just removed a link to AOPA in the External Links section. We already have a link to iaopa.org, which links on to AOPA (for the U.S.) along with more than 60 other national GA organizations from around the world -- if we start linking to country-specific ones like AOPA, we'll end up with a very long section. David (talk) 12:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Airport Security

When an airport severs both commercial and general aviation, do passengers on general aviation flights have to go through the same security checkpoints as everyone else? Are there different rules about what can/cannot be brought on board the aircraft? Can a general aviation pilot carry a gun? A knife? I'm both currious about the answers to these questions and think that they might deserve mention in the article. Thanks. ce1984 (talk) 10:04, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this really fits the article, because there's no single answer — it depends on the country and the airport. Often, GA is far from the passenger terminal, and the space around the passenger terminal is restricted, but again, it depends on the airport. David (talk) 17:05, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

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Table

I have some doubts about including the table of "current aircraft". First off it is not all the current GA aircraft, just some of the ready-to-fly production types and even then misses many ready-to-fly UL and LSA types in production. It ignores kit built aircraft, non-certified types and aircraft built via other means, like plans, partial kits, etc. I have re-labelled it to try to explain that. If it was complete it would be a very, very long table. Does this serve any purpose in a general introduction article? - Ahunt (talk) 13:09, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Hello, I put this table here because I needed it otherwise, so I thought it would add some value to Wikipedia as I stumbled upon a good ref (flying's buyers guide). Of course it's limited to certified, in production types. An ultralight list would belong in ultralight aviation (but would be indecently long), a LSA list in Light-sport aircraft (already there), and a list of kits and plans in homebuilt aircraft. This certified GA table is more useful here than in certified aircraft. The point is to show some starter points to further explore through comparables : from the mentioned Cessna 172 you can explore Cessna's timeline and competitors, etc. Otherwise the only starter point is the random DA20 pictured. --Marc Lacoste (talk) 07:02, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

I can understand the concept of providing links to some example GA aircraft, but even as a list of current production, certified light aircraft it is incomplete. For instance, the Vulcanair V1.0 is missing. The other factor is that it gives the impression that GA only includes certified aircraft, when GA includes ULs, homebuilts, LSAs, warbirds, gliders, balloons and many other categories of aircraft. I just think a table of one small corner of GA aircraft will leave readers with the impression that is all that there is to GA. Then there is the question of who will maintain this table, adding and removing types as they go in and out of production. Basically even for production certified types it will always be out of date, unless someone is right on top of it. I would rather have a short list of a few representative types. - Ahunt (talk) 12:30, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

So maybe we should move it to General aviation certified aircraft. It may be US-centered but as it is the largest GA market, it should be the most representative one. The Vulcanair V1.0 had its FAA certification last December, maybe an importer is searched for. We should not maintain it as a borderline WP:OR table with specs from multiple sources, Flying's buyers guide is updated yearly. Making a list of representative types would be difficult to establish a standard (numbers produced, maybe?)--Marc Lacoste (talk) 12:53, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

I would be fin with moving it to something like List of current production certified light aircraft or similar. I think it might be a battle to keep people from adding aircraft, though, especially through the year as aircraft go in and out of production. - Ahunt (talk) 12:59, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

or maybe in the already existing Light aircraft, more adapted than here, which I did not saw earlier?--Marc Lacoste (talk) 13:14, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

I'd rather see it as a stand-alone list, as Light aircraft is the same issue as general aviation, it includes everything 12,500 lbs and below, not just certified aircraft. - Ahunt (talk) 13:21, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

OK then!--Marc Lacoste (talk) 13:26, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Scope of this article

Firstly, I hope everyone can accept my attempt to ensure the images of one type of GA do not dominate the article by adding to the gallery. Rather than start an edit war, would anybody who disagrees, please discuss on the talk page. Secondly I am confused about the definitions of GA and Private flight. The article on private flight states "In most countries, private flights are always general aviation flights, but the opposite is not true: many general aviation flights (such as banner towing, charter, crop dusting, and others) are commercial in that the pilot is hired and paid." This is at variance with this GA article which excludes aerial work. JMcC (talk)

The main problem is that in different countries there are different definitions or at least understandings of what is included. In most places it is "all civil aviation excluding airlines", so does include aerial work, like crop dusting and banner-towing.

As per WP:GALLERY "Wikipedia is not an image repository. A gallery is not a tool to shoehorn images into an article..." so we shouldn't be using a gallery to cram in lots of images as you have tried to do. Instead we should only use as many representative images that fit into the article alongside the text and then linking to Commons. Also, as per MOS:IMGSIZE we normally don't force image sizes as it messes up user preferences and is difficult for users on mobile devices, too. - Ahunt (talk) 14:48, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I would be curious to know about countries which don't adhere to the ICAO definition (GA excludes aerial work), as most countries adhere to the ICAO.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 15:58, 12 June 2020 (UTC)please correct my poor grammar if it's necessary!

Also, I agree the article should not be an image repository, but Commons can host one!--Marc Lacoste (talk)

User:Marc Lacoste: Thanks for fixing the lede image, as it was way too big. The gallery has to go too, though. We just need to figure out which images should be retained as "representative" without overwhelming the text. In the past my approach has been that a string of images on the right side, as long as the text is (using a browser width of about 1000px), is fine, but anymore is crowding, as per "a gallery is not a tool to shoehorn images into an article...."

Many countries don't have a legal definition of GA. Canada doesn't and neither does the US. Because a definition isn't needed for regulatory reasons (i.e. they regulate private vs small commercial ops vs airlines) they don't have a definition. - Ahunt (talk) 17:57, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ahunt: If they don't have a specific definition, the ICAO definition applies if they are members then? For wikipedia purposes, I think we should avoid other definitions unless we have one.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 07:10, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

The way ICAO rules work is that countries have to adopt ICAO SARPs in national legislation (CARs, FARs) for them to have force in the individual country. Nations are supposed to file "differences" with ICAO if they do something different, but the definition of GA is not a "regulation", just a definition and if it isn't needed, then it isn't adopted or a difference need be filed. Essentially in those countries that haven't legally defined it, then it has no "legal meaning", although it may have some common use or understanding. When I worked at COPA from 2000-07 I put a push on to use Richard L. Collins' preferred term for our work there, "personal aviation", instead, as it more represented what we were engaged in (private, non-commercial aviation). In Canada and the US the term "general aviation" remains quite nebulous. I am sure most pilots or members of the public have no idea what it encompasses.

Considering the lack of formal definitions outside of ICAO, regardless of the variations in common use, I agree with you that we should just go with the ICAO definition and perhaps note any nations that do formally define it and are different, if we find any. - Ahunt (talk) 12:33, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

OK, the mechanism for EU legislation is similar, it has to be transposed in the local legislation to be enforced. I agree we should point out that some nations do not formally define it and could have different common understanding.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 13:55, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I think a general statement like that would be useful. - Ahunt (talk) 14:02, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Even ICAO recognises that aerial work is better classified as GA for statistical purposes. I suggest that we use the ICAO definition in Appendix A of this document Review of classification. I agree about the gallery. I was trying to placate a user who has restored the photo of the Cirrus in the main body of the article. Now there are more people interested, we can maintain a more rigorous policy. JMcC (talk) 17:06, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

While I think your recent changes are helpful, there is one area of confusion that was introduced. You have included "aerial application" as part if GA, but excluded "agriculture" as being part of aerial work. I realize that different refs support either claim, but it is inconsistent as currently written. - Ahunt (talk) 11:52, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Drones

Under the definitions given in this article, they would could as GA. Is this correct? Turkeyphan^t 12:35, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

GA is all non-airline and military aviation, so civil drones would be GA, yes. - Ahunt (talk) 14:42, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Slight correction: GA is all non-airline and non-commercial civil aviation. A distinction is made between commercial air transport and aerial work. cagliost (talk) 08:28, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Retracted merger proposal

I propose merging Private aviation into General aviation.

The article Private aviation makes the following unreferenced claim: "In most countries, private flights are always general aviation flights, but the opposite is not true: many general aviation flights (such as banner towing, charter, crop dusting, and others) are commercial in that the pilot is hired and paid." I don't think this is true. The article on general aviation defines these as Aerial Work. I don't see a clear distinction between this article "Private aviation" and GA. Since GA has a well-referenced definition, and "Private aviation" does not have a referenced definition, it would make sense to merge this article in to General aviation. cagliost (talk) 08:21, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Comment: I am not opposed to merging Private aviation into General Aviation, since the PS article is pretty deficient, but I think we need to be clear on what is what first. General Aviation is all civil aviation that is non-airline. It includes commercial aviation such as flight training and aerial work (such as forest fire fighting, banner towing, aerial surveying and so on) and also includes private aviation. Private aviation includes only non-commercial aviation activities, such as light aircraft pleasure flights and business aviation. - Ahunt (talk) 12:02, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

I see from the above discussion #Scope_of_this_article that ICAO has two definitions of GA (the second is here). I still think we should merge the articles, but make the explanation of the two definitions clearer. Civil aviation would also need to be updated as part of the merge. cagliost (talk) 13:49, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

That ref says General aviation is defined, for statistical purposes, as all civil aviation operations other than scheduled air services and non-scheduled air transport operations for remuneration or hire, which the same as I had stated. I don't see a second definition. Where do you find that? - Ahunt (talk) 14:02, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

I retract my merger proposal. I see value in keeping the commercial/private articles, since that is a separate axis from the general aviation/aerial work/commercial air transport dimension. cagliost (talk) 15:22, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Okay. I had a look though your changes to General aviation and, given the limits of the ICAO refs, it seems okay. - Ahunt (talk) 15:44, 10 October 2021 (UTC)