General Aviation

From the perspective of a selected country or region, explore the role of GA Consider the impact of aviation to that country's economy, technological development, employment, and/or air transport needs. Your essay must be succinct, so you may want to thoroughly address only one or two aspects of GA (personal, business, and/or corporate), refipective to the selected region/country- Many consider GA as recreational flying conducted by private pilots in personally owned aircraft. According to ICAO statistics, recreational GA accounts for about 25% of global GA operations. The other 75% of the approximately 40 million annual GA flight hours are associated with aerial work, business flying, or instructional flying (ICAO n.d). ICAO defines GA as all civil aviation operations other than scheduled air services and non-scheduled air transport operations for remuneration or hire. For statistical purposes, ICAO classifies GA as instructional flying, business flying, pleasure flying, aerial work, and other flying. However, ICAO Annexes 6 and 17 define a GA operation as an aircraft operation other than a commercial air transport operation or aerial work (AW) operation. AW includes operations in which an aircraft is used for specialized services such as agriculture, construction, photography, surveying, observation and patrol, search and rescue, aerial advertisement, etc. (ICAO, n.d., p. B-2) The FAA defines GA as all civil flights other than scheduled and nonscheduled air transport operations for remuneration or hire, and which include recreational flying, business aviation, and corporate aviation. U.S. GA operations fall under 49 CFR Part 91 and also include balloon flights, gliders, powered parachutes, experimental aircraft operations, amateur built aircraft, agricultural spraying, and some government use aviation (e.g. National Fish and Wildlife survey flights). According to International Council of Aircraft Owner and Pilot Associations (IAOPA), GA/AW activities globally create hundreds of thousands of jobs and tens of billions of dollars for the countries these activities serve. Without this activity, essential transportation functions would be eliminated and the opportunities associated with them would be lost to the economies they potentially serve. Approximately 350,000 aircraft and 700,000 pilots are involved in these activities worldwide. On balance, roughly 60,000 aircraft and 400,000 pilots are employed in commercial air transportation (including cargo and charter) (n.d., paras. 4 & 5). According to the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) (n.d.), business aviation (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.is the use of any “General Aviation” aircraft for a business purpose. Contributing significantly to national, state and local economies, business aviation is often an economic lifeline for areas with limited options for business transportation. Business aviation also provides vital air transportation in times of public need, including fire, rescue and medical evacuation services, and represents an essential transportation link for communities without scheduled airline service (para. 1). So what is corporate aviation? A basic clarification of the difference between corporate and business aviation operations is that corporate aircraft are flown by professional pilots, whereas business aircraft are flown by non-professional pilots on company business. Additionally, corporate aircraft are usually multi-engined, jet- powered and flown by two-pilot crews using a sophisticated avionics suite and operating under instrument flight rules (IFR). On the other hand, according to the FAA definition, business aircraft operations that usually involve single- or multi-engined aircraft, are normally flown by one pilot and usually piston- or turboprop-powered with more traditional flight decks, and are more likely to be flying under visual flight rules (VFR). The distinctions are not consistently employed, nor are they recognized by all countries.