How long until the pre-GARA fleet of aircraft are gone?

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jmr50

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JRosenberg
I was thinking the other day about how old the GA fleet is getting. The majority of the ~200k GA aircraft in operation were built pre-GARA (peaking in 1978). Next year, those '78 birds will turn 45, which doesn't seem impossible (lots of 50s and 60s planes living their best lives still) but the amount of maintenance, corrosion inspections, etc are only going to creep up and render continued airworthiness economically untenable. This already seem to be a challenge for the light twin fleet, where many of those airframes can fly but are one AD away from being worthless.

So, how much longer does that fleet have left? 2030? 2040? We're not even hitting 3000 new planes a year, so this feels like it'll eventually lead to a contraction of the available fleet unless something changes (a lot more production, which would require a lot more demand, and at current prices a lot more money going into GA).

Thoughts? Am I missing something obvious? Aside from Cirrus, I haven't heard a whisper about anybody ramping up SEP manufacturing. The big party seems to be in biz jets...
 
Part of the reason you're not seeing a lot of the 4-seat cruiser class development is because the pre-gara platforms are still alive and well. Thinking of my own airport here and we've got some old oddities: Navion, Swift, Waco AGC-8, two Cubs, Taylorcraft, Citabria, and a Seabee. We also have a Wheeler Express and Searey homebuilts. Other than that we have a bunch of mid-era spam cans: two 182s, two 180s, two Warrior/Archer, Aztec, four Bonanzas, a Baron, MU-2, Robin, Commanche. About the only thing we have that's post gara is a Tecnam.

Despite your prognostication, most of these are not having Maintenance issues.
 
So are you saying that nobody gave a rat's ass about aircraft built prior to 1978? o_O
 
OP, PM me if you're interested in an expanded answer to your question. Don't wish to relitigate my position on the topic on here. Cheers.
 
When the fleet of classic cars in Cubs is gone.

C’mom @hindsight2020, I need some new vocabulary words :biggrin:
<is “vocabulary words” redundant? Superfluous?>
 
I'm not saying nobody cares about the pre-1994 aircraft. I'm just imagining at some point they'll start to age out. For example, there were years when 10k piston planes were delivered, now we're lucky when we see 1k. It seems like it would lead to contraction. And yes, people love their 60s and 70s aircraft, but they only get more expensive to maintain over time and at some point there's gotta be an economic wall of how much they're worth, right? All those Piper wing spars won't pay to inspect themselves, for example.
 
As with anything else it’s going to come down to the maintenance the aircraft received.I’ve had several aircraft and only one of them was built in 2007. The others where pre 1974 all are still flying. Think positive.
 
The fact is that there's a glut of these "obsolete" aircraft which depresses the market for the new stuff.
 
jmr50 said:
I was thinking the other day about how old the GA fleet is getting. The majority of the ~200k GA aircraft in operation were built pre-GARA (peaking in 1978). Next year, those '78 birds will turn 45, which doesn't seem impossible (lots of 50s and 60s planes living their best lives still) but the amount of maintenance, corrosion inspections, etc are only going to creep up and render continued airworthiness economically untenable. This already seem to be a challenge for the light twin fleet, where many of those airframes can fly but are one AD away from being worthless.

So, how much longer does that fleet have left? 2030? 2040? We're not even hitting 3000 new planes a year, so this feels like it'll eventually lead to a contraction of the available fleet unless something changes (a lot more production, which would require a lot more demand, and at current prices a lot more money going into GA).

Thoughts? Am I missing something obvious? Aside from Cirrus, I haven't heard a whisper about anybody ramping up SEP manufacturing. The big party seems to be in biz jets...
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I think you are missing something obvious. Older the airplanes, while requiring maintenance, do not necessarily require more maintenance than newer airplanes. All newer airplanes eventually become older airplanes and therefore the maintenance requirements are more or less the same over time. The big difference is it cost dramatically less money to buy a well-maintained older aircraft and keep that aircraft in good condition then it does to buy a new aircraft of the same type. That assumes that you can buy a new aircraft with the same type and performance of an aircraft available used. That is not always the case. There are a lot of good old airplane designs that are no longer manufactured or are no longer manufactured in the same configurations that they were in the past. So if you want the greatest amount of selection in the type of aircraft you might purchase and own you're going to have to include older airplanes in that mix in order to get the variety of airplanes that you would like. I don't think the old fleet is in danger of going extinct anytime soon
 
William Pete Hodges said:
So if you want the greatest amount of selection in the type of aircraft you might purchase and own you're going to have to include older airplanes in that mix in order to get the variety of airplanes that you would like. I don't think the old fleet is in danger of going extinct anytime soon
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Interesting point.

Do you think there is a subset of the fleet that could be more at risk? Aircraft without manufacturer support or a strong type club? Or, aircraft who's history / design makes them more expensive to insure, operate, or maintain?
 
jmr50 said:
Do you think there is a subset of the fleet that could be more at risk? Aircraft without manufacturer support or a strong type club? Or, aircraft who's history / design makes them more expensive to insure, operate, or maintain?
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Yes, yes, and.... yes.

frfly172 said:
The others where pre 1974 all are still flying. Think positive.
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Hope's not a plan.
 
It is expensive, but a lot of owners upgrade their older airplanes to just about as good as new. I think we lose more in accidents than aging out.
 
There were some good points made here that made me look at this in a different way.

Part of the reason the aircraft manufacturers are in trouble and not selling as many new planes as they used to is that they violated a somewhat accepted rule of business: "Planned obsolescence".

They made good quality airplanes that could be repaired indefinitely. How many people are going to buy new when it is so much cheaper to repair an old machine?

Think about washing machines, refrigerators, computers etc. They are designed to last a relatively short time, and the cost of repairing them is usually just as much (or more) than buying new. So they keep selling new washing machines, refrigerators and computers (and water heaters and ovens and toasters and, and, and . . . ). But not airplanes because the ones they made in the '50s and '60s and'70s are still flying.
 
JOhnH said:
Think about washing machines, refrigerators, computers etc. They are designed to last a relatively short time, and the cost of repairing them is usually just as much (or more) than buying new. So they keep selling new washing machines, refrigerators and computers (and water heaters and ovens and toasters and, and, and . . . ). But not airplanes because the ones they made in the '50s and '60s and'70s are still flying.
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Automated production makes replacement cheaper than repair, and so much of that stuff is full of non-repairable electronics. New control boards aren't cheap, and the labor to put them in is worse. It's very difficult to carry the automation into aircraft building; the complexity of construction necessary to keep it light, yet strong in the right places, makes that impossible with current construction. If someone comes up with an aircraft design that can be 3D-printed but be really strong and light, that might change things somewhat. Even then, the liability the manufacturer has to assume means a big hit in insurance costs; last I heard, a third of the cost of a new Cessna single went into insurance premiums to indemnify Cessna for the 18 years.
 
JOhnH said:
There were some good points made here that made me look at this in a different way.

Part of the reason the aircraft manufacturers are in trouble and not selling as many new planes as they used to is that they violated a somewhat accepted rule of business: "Planned obsolescence".

They made good quality airplanes that could be repaired indefinitely. How many people are going to buy new when it is so much cheaper to repair an old machine?

Think about washing machines, refrigerators, computers etc. They are designed to last a relatively short time, and the cost of repairing them is usually just as much (or more) than buying new. So they keep selling new washing machines, refrigerators and computers (and water heaters and ovens and toasters and, and, and . . . ). But not airplanes because the ones they made in the '50s and '60s and'70s are still flying.
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I don't think so. If the cost of a new aircraft were comparable to what a 1965 Mooney cost, nobody would be flying a 1965 Mooney except for the truly vintage geek. There's not much left that's original in a 1965 Mooney other than the structure and the crank and crank case. The rest of it has been swapped out over the years because the manufacturers didn't make the stuff to last forever.
 
Salty said:
I don't think so. If the cost of a new aircraft were comparable to what a 1965 Mooney cost, nobody would be flying a 1965 Mooney except for the truly vintage geek. There's not much left that's original in a 1965 Mooney other than the structure and the crank and crank case. The rest of it has been swapped out over the years because the manufacturers didn't make the stuff to last forever.
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That's because they were designed to be repaired; not replaced when they break.
 
JOhnH said:
Think
about washing machines, refrigerators, computers etc. They are designed to last a relatively short time, and the cost of repairing them is usually just as much (or more) than buying new. So they keep selling new washing machines, refrigerators and computers (and water heaters and ovens and toasters and, and, and . . . ). But not airplanes because the ones they made in the '50s and '60s and'70s are still flying.
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And that's because the cost of buying a new airplane is much more than repairing an old one. We would all be fixing and upgrading old washing machines if the price of a new one was 5 to 10 times the cost of an old, well maintained and perfectly functional one.
 
My 75 year old Cessna will go another 75 years at least. Stored inside, well cared for. Unless I or someone else breaks her. She’ll last forever.
 
manac said:
My 75 year old Cessna will go another 75 years at least. Stored inside, well cared for. Unless I or someone else breaks her. She’ll last forever.
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Exactly. The biggest risks to the antique fleet are the same environmental and regulatory ones that effect brand new Cirruses (Cirri?). The aluminum is willing, but the spirit is weak.

A lot of these planes see <100hrs/ year and have a good 1-200 years left in them before they are really worn out. I wouldn't be surprised to see 1950's airframes retrofitted with electric propulsion in my lifetime.
 
I'll bite. You'll see Beach 18s, Cessna 210 and 170, Cessna 182RG and 172RG, older non-johnson bar Mooney, early Arrow, V tail Bonanza, and thr Musketeers lineage all eventually phase out. Some of it due to lack of power-packs, some insurance liability (hello 210,) and some to the spar issue. The muskateers will go from either the dpar or the way they built the wings.

Then there's the light twins... they'll rot on the tarmac causing the rest of us to cry.

I fly a '64 and it's going to have many happy years ahead of it.
 
somorris said:
It is expensive, but a lot of owners upgrade their older airplanes to just about as good as new. I think we lose more in accidents than aging out.
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Exactly. The most reliable/least maintenance challenged airplane I have ever owned/flown was 89 years old when I sold it a month ago.
 
wheaties said:
I'll bite. You'll see Beach 18s, Cessna 210 and 170, Cessna 182RG and 172RG, older non-johnson bar Mooney, early Arrow, V tail Bonanza, and thr Musketeers lineage all eventually phase out. Some of it due to lack of power-packs,
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Powerpacks are not a complicated device. There would be other versions that could be retrofitted under STCs, even some small industrial units. Yes, getting the exact part number will eventually be impossible as the demand for them shrinks as the fleet of airplanes that use them shrinks. The bigger problem with some like the R182 are parts like the gear pivots and actuators. Those are specific to the airframe and you won't find a substitute anywhere else. And yet, outfits like McFarlane make a lot of stuff for older aircraft, some of it fairly complex, and I could see them machining some of that stuff from bar stock instead of casting it. I installed an HA-6 carb on our R182 that had been made that way, machined instead of cast. That was 12 or 13 years ago, at least.

Machined:

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Original cast:

upload_2022-7-11_10-19-19.jpeg
 

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Fearless Tower said:
Exactly. The most reliable/least maintenance challenged airplane I have ever owned/flown was 89 years old when I sold it a month ago.
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The reliable instantiations survive... the problem birds of the same make/model eventually went to salvage. A type of survival of the fittest
 
I think that aircraft getting wrecked and not being rebuilt will cause a much steeper decline in the number of available aircraft than attrition due to poor maintenance or lack of serviceable parts ever will.

Perhaps we will someday reach a point where the old aircraft we are currently flying are no longer economically viable but I don’t think that will happen in my lifetime.
 
JOhnH said:
That's because they were designed to be repaired; not replaced when they break.
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Certainly no more so than period era cars. I'd wager far less so. How many 60's vehicles do you see driven 100 hours a year? 70's is probably even worse than 60s.

I don't think it's because they were built to last forever, it's that regulations and the cost of labor make it far more expensive to build a new one. Crap is cheap enough to be designed for obsoletion because of mass production, robotic labor, etc, which you don't get in GA fleet numbers.
 
Fly a '57 and a '46 most of the time.

It will never happen but if you could get a new or factory reman aircraft engine closer to the cost of or even double the cost of a car engine. You could build some really great experimental airplanes for well under $100K. That could replace a lot of Spam cans.
 
JOhnH said:
They are designed to last a relatively short time, and the cost of repairing them is usually just as much (or more) than buying new. So they keep selling new washing machines, refrigerators and computers (and water heaters and ovens and toasters and, and, and . . . ). But not airplanes because the ones they made in the '50s and '60s and'70s are still flying.
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Small nit to pick - they are not "Designed to last a short time" but rather designed to be cost effective - aka cheap. It's what the free market dictates since the vast, vast majority of people will not pay more for higher quality. That being said there's also confirmation bias in the "they didn't make stuff like they used to" argument. They made a lot, LOT of junk in the old days too, but it didn't survive to today.

Dan Thomas said:
Automated production makes replacement cheaper than repair, and so much of that stuff is full of non-repairable electronics. New control boards aren't cheap, and the labor to put them in is worse. It's very difficult to carry the automation into aircraft building; the complexity of construction necessary to keep it light, yet strong in the right places, makes that impossible with current construction.
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It is not impossible. It is just simply not cost effective.
 
wheaties said:
I'll bite. You'll see Beach 18s, Cessna 210 and 170, Cessna 182RG and 172RG, older non-johnson bar Mooney, early Arrow, V tail Bonanza, and thr Musketeers lineage all eventually phase out. Some of it due to lack of power-packs, some insurance liability (hello 210,) and some to the spar issue. The muskateers will go from either the dpar or the way they built the wings.

Then there's the light twins... they'll rot on the tarmac causing the rest of us to cry.

I fly a '64 and it's going to have many happy years ahead of it.
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Is my Beech 18 missing a ‘power pack’ that I’m unaware of?
 
Fearless Tower said:
Is my Beech 18 missing a ‘power pack’ that I’m unaware of?
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Nah, yours just requires X-Rays and an AD repair that I'd argue is worse than the problem it fixes. Btw, I love 18s. They're almost as nice as an Electra Jr. :p
 
wheaties said:
Nah, yours just requires X-Rays and an AD repair that I'd argue is worse than the problem it fixes. Btw, I love 18s. They're almost as nice as an Electra Jr. :p
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Electra is prettier but the cockpit of a Beech 18 is a helluva lot more comfortable!
 
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