General aviation cost effectiveness

Abstract

Introduction T paper is an update of AlAA Papers 85-4029 presented in October 1985, at the AIAA/AHS/ASEE Aircraft Design Systems and Operations Meeting held in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and 86-2607 presented at the AIAA Aviation Technology Conference Meeting held in September 1986, in Anaheim, California. These papers started with the generally accepted assumption that the general aviation industry's economic health followed the economy, at least since World War II. During the early 1980's, the economy turned down, and general aviation sales also turned down. However, now the economy has recovered and general aviation sales have not. The 1985 paper examined this in a limited way and assessed the cost effectiveness of the general aviation aircraft. A significant drop in general aviation cost effectiveness was identified and some causes examined. Since the economy has been in a state of recovery for at least three years [as shown by both an increase in gross national product (GNP) and the leveling of inflation], if the general aviation industry truly followed the economy, at least some level of sales recovery would have happened by now. Since sales continue to slide, it appears that some factor(s) has taken over. To see if this is the case, several factors have been investigated. Figure 1 is a plot of total unit sales since 1946. Figure 2 is the same plot with some trend lines added. From about 1947 through 1965, a trend line reflecting a growth rate of 10%/yr has been fitted. This growth rate again shows up in the 1970-1979 time period. Considering the 30-yr span of 19491979, a 6% growth rate is more representative. Extending the time frame through 1985 reduces the overall growth trend to 3%. Even a return to the 3% line would obviously be beneficial in the near future. Figure 3 is the unit sales chart again with the GNP overlaid. The GNP is shown in both Then Year curves and corrected for inflation by dividing by the consumer price index (CPI). Neither GNP curve matches the general aviation (GA) unit curve very well as the Then Year curve shows an 8% growth with no dips. The corrected curve shows a 4% growth rate with only minor dips. It is probably incorrect to compare GNP in dollars to aircraft unit sales, so Fig. 4 shows total sales in dollars for general aviation. Again, the Then Year curve and inflation-corrected $ curve are plotted. Figure 5 shows the same plot with trend lines, and the Then Year plot from