Very true, I always say there isn't an aircraft "market" but a bunch of sub-markets.

I think you'd need at least four categories, legacy piston, late model piston, legacy turbine and late model turbine.

I have some family members that stopped flying commercial a few years ago and will not go back to commercial unless they are broke. The time saved and the travel experience sealed the deal.

Regardless of your politics , you knew before you purchased your ticket you must wear a mask on the airline . The other problems are just the icing on the cake of airline travel.

We have the popcorn emoji for "I can't wait to see what comes next." What's the opposite of that emoji?

Air travel masking Just extended to may2 by the way.
Its the science.

I think GA in the piston market will shrink with VTOLs or the like, link to news below highlights landing areas for vtols to charge. Turbines will take much longer to replace.

https://www.thenorthwestern.com/story/money/2022/04/07/oshkoshs-wittman-airport-get-charging-stations-electric-aircraft-evtol/9484358002/

Those VTOL things have less than one hour of endurance. They go slow. No thanks.

The Model T had a range of ~30 miles, yet cars have become mighty popular these days. It's a huge growth area, there will be tons of failure, and no shortage of snake oil salesmen, but I wouldn't bet against the EVTOL market.

Those VTOL things have less than one hour of endurance. They go slow. No thanks.

Those VTOL things have less than one hour of endurance. They go slow. No thanks.

The VTOL is still in the fantasy stage. What happens after the first crash?

The VTOL is still in the fantasy stage. What happens after the first crash?

The comment prior was that eVTOL would affect piston fixed wing aircraft sales. I disagree, because they are completely different markets.

I love dreamers and visionaries. Like history repeating itself, the dream is usually not the reality, but the shadow that is cast out by it.

I don't see EVTOL's replacing snarled traffic. Two main reasons:

1. Look at how much airspace real estate airplanes take up today. We are all spread out measured in miles even if it's 1/2 mile; we measure in miles. Cars are spread out in feet. And to get the transportation density of cars in the air, is going to require a lot of new regulation and probably a lot computing power, not air traffic controllers doing the separation.

2. Today airports are under constant assault in congested metropolitans by NIMBY's. Can you imagine the push back of; having tens of operations an hour, of flying weed whackers into and out of vertiports . There would be a new type of emission they would go after - noise emission. There are already communities that take issue at powered brooms (aka leaf blowers). Can you imagine leaf blowers 100x bigger flying over people's houses.

I see real value in replacing current point to point routed helicopter charters. Think Manhattan to JFK that today, is handled by helicopters. I see the technology putting it within reach of the upper middle class as a transportation alternative. But at the mass scale like Star Wars, I don't see it in my lifetime.

I really hope in my lifetime, we get autonomous cars that can interact with each other to improve transportation efficiency. I look forward to the day I can go on a local road trip and focus on work or writing forum posts for an 1 hour without having to focus on driving.