Private flying was an affordable hobby for anyone with a half-decent job when I learned to fly in the 1960's.
Just for fun I priced out a new Lycoming O-320. A very basic pushrod air cooled 4 cylinder aircraft engine who's technology also dates to the 1960's. It's just shy of $74000.
The only thing I can think of, that's driven aviation totally out of the average guy's ability to play, is product liability insurance.
Any one else have a better answer?
Yeah.
The insurance thing was significant. I've personally been involved with some aviation liability matters. But Congress did its job, and generally fixed that particular problem:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Aviation_Revitalization_ActThe present difficulty is due to (a) FAR Part 23 requirements (see
https://www.aopa.org/advocacy/advocacy-briefs/understanding-part-23-rewrite), labor costs (every plane is essentially hand-built), and lack of demand (
https://airfactsjournal.com/2017/09/general-aviation-trends-12-charts/).
It's a vicious circle. Lack of demand is spurred by this: Just getting your private pilot ticket will cost between $10k (what I paid, 2016-18, when 172s rented for $60/hr and fuel was $4.??/gallon), and whatever it is now. Not to mention the marital distress caused by the fact that keeping a plane hangered and airworthy will cost c. $10k/year - and that's if you don't fly it at all.
So we've got a bunch of old rich people who can afford to fly, and a general aviation fleet composed almost entirely of used planes 40+ years old. And now they have to comply with ADS-B, which will run a $25k upgrade.
Oy. It burns, it burns.
- oldman (As to the "old rich people": I proudly showed this video to my daughter - I have a small part in it, my old Saratoga has a big part - and she said "Dad, did you notice anything significant about what all those people looked like?"
https://player.vimeo.com/video/65224587)
