Tracking losses is even more challenging. The good news is the number of accidents has been declining. Unclear is how many crashed airplanes that are declared “destroyed” by insurance companies are eventually rebuilt and put back into service. Or the number of airplanes landed gear-up that are repairable but are instead scrapped because they are more valuable as parts.
But, hey, this is not a crisis. Yes, we’d all love to see thousands of new, low-cost airplanes surging into the fleet. That’s not going to happen. Sure, the Part 23 rewrite may spur some new designs, but that’s years away and the prices will still be high enough that sales will be small. The good news is we still have lots of life left in the existing fleet of some 165,000 piston airplanes, many of them way underutilized. As we reported in “The $1,000 Cherokee” (September 2016 AOPA Pilot), you can spend not much money to get a flyable airplane that, over time, as budgets permit, can be upgraded to be far more modern and reliable than what you might expect of a 45-year-old traveler. And the number of options for upgrades is growing.
Aircraft manufacturers quickly jumped on board when the Garmin G1000 integrated cockpit suite was announced in 2003. However, unless you were buying new, your glass-panel options were limited. Kudos to Aspen Avionics, which recognized early that pilots of legacy airplanes would want to upgrade their panels. Aspen stepped in with a modular approach to retrofits with its Evolution 1000 primary flight display and multifunction display. Avidyne had been offering MFDs, but it soon offered a full cockpit suite and later retrofit options. Garmin too eventually looked to the retrofit market.
And although the panel is where legacy airplanes most visibly benefit from upgrades, enhancements are available throughout. LEDs, modern propeller designs, more efficient exhaust systems, vortex generators, airframe fairings, gross weight increases, extended-range fuel tanks, airbag seatbelts, electronic ignition, and thicker windows are just a few of the options available to modernize older airplanes, often giving them speed, comfort, and performance on par with new airframes.
After much encouragement by AOPA and others, the FAA has begun to recognize the benefits of making it more practical to upgrade the existing fleet. We first saw that a few years ago with angle of attack indicators, many of which can now be installed with a logbook sign-off. Dynon and Garmin within the past year have brought to market new digital attitude indicators at affordable prices that once were reserved only for pilots of Experimental airplanes. Trio and TruTrak are hard at work on a new generation of lower-cost digital autopilots that bring a host of new features to certified airplanes not feasible in legacy analog systems. The FAA has worked with the companies to simplify the process for getting parts manufacturer approval (PMA), an important—but usually costly—step in being able to install equipment into certified airplanes.
Prefer more of a store-bought approach to aircraft upgrades? That’s available, too, through companies such as Aviat, Yingling Aviation, and Sporty’s, which have comprehensive programs in place to remanufacture Cessna 150/152s and Cessna 172s. Blackwell Aviation is just beginning a similar process for Beechcraft A36 Bonanzas, the end product dubbed the Ultimate A36.
We should all be grateful to those who buy new airplanes, as they are an important part of keeping the fleet vibrant and driving innovation. But the dearth of new sales in no way reflects what is happening across the general aviation fleet.
Email thomas.haines@aopa.org
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