Garmin avionics aren’t going down in price. Labor/time to install won’t get cheaper or shorter, new paint and interior won’t get cheaper, motors will never go down from continental.
These old airframes are already cheap and fully depreciated after 30-40 years old. My baron sold in a day, on a handshake with 2100 hr IO-550’s.
Top of the line stuff refurbed will hold their dollar value pretty good I think.

The 421 we’re doing is taking a year, start to finish, and when we’re done, I don’t think we’ll be too terribly under water even if the market softens. At least that what I tell myself.

There are two opposing factors at work

1) demand for airplanes with two engines. The advent of parachutes and SETP has permanently distracted a demand segment that birthed the fleet we have today. Apart from trainers, there’s not a huge niche for piston twins

2) demand for airplanes that fly. As the stock of viable legacy aircraft shrinks - people take what they can get and airworthy, well-equipped planes find buyers.

So yeah, your nice twin will sell. But probably 99% of the piston twins that will ever exist have already flown.

When a third of the existing pilots age out or lose their medicals in five years there will be a lot of planes for sale.

Prices will come down.

You may be correct but I am amazed at the number of pilots that keep their plane after age/medical limits flying. And I know several widows that kept planes for years also. So these planes may not materialize that quickly or be passed down in the family…

Best,

Tom

Charles, "probably 99% of the piston twins that will ever exist have already flown". Talk about shining the light on the 700# gorilla sitting in the corner!

So, why can't one figure how this is going to affect demand and price for the used market?

Nobody wants them so price declines further?
There is a shortage and demand pushes prices up?

There are nice twins for sale that were on the market when I started looking a year ago.

For the few that have sold, was the price cut to find a buyer?

And then Gerald keeps making the same VERY VALID point. The age of the owners of the GA fleets is scary. Since I'm one of the geriatric generation, it won't mean much to me.

Jg

Fortunately for GA we have new pilots coming along nicely. We actually have a half dozen new pilots that are clients. All in their 30’s - 40’s and all have bought corporate aircraft, but also started their flight training when the desire to fly private hit.

I have another client who owns a small flight school, says they are overwhelmed and can’t find training airplanes to buy.

The only thing that will substantially reduce the demand for aircraft, is a serious economic downturn. When that happens prices will go down, the nice airplanes will find a new home with someone who is recession proof and the others will go to a corner of a hangar or the salvage yard.

The aircraft market is self leveling. Always.

Double post

JGG and Gerald,

I see where you are both coming from because I’ve been around aviation for 30 years. The old path isn’t well travelled any longer. The typical local flight school at the small airport may be slow or even gone. The majority of folks flying older aircraft are well, older.

However, the big flight schools are booming, all of the training centers are scheduled out for months… and they have more capacity than they have ever had. I just had a client decide to go with the Phenom 300E instead of the PC-24 because he can’t get training slots for the Pilatus. Flight Safety use to call me to beg for business, now we call them and beg for any training opportunity.

I don’t know a lot about Cirrus, but I know they are pumping out a lot of airplanes and somehow selling them all… yes they’re not the $100k 172 or Cherokee that says first airplane to you or I… but those new Cirrus aircraft are typically sold to brand new pilots.

General Aviation isn’t dying, it’s blossoming. It isn’t going down with our generation, it’s evolving.

It carries a certain sadness. I can’t help feeling that someone’s first flight should be in a $30k Piper Cub, not a $1M Cirrus.

I made sure my son’s first flight was in a Cub.

People changed. Free rides for poor kids at airports use to be a thing, now liability and fears of a myriad of sorts have eliminated that. It’s sad. I’m just thankful we lived and enjoyed this industry when we did, you guys have a few years on me, you experienced the better part of it. I’m jealous.

I believe Piper is still selling Senecas and the Seminoles.

Best,
Rich

Another data point/trend around another asset class that just came out.
Used car prices have started to decrease now as per the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index. https://www.axios.com/used-car-prices-starting-decline-a1ed9176-ce71-4ce4-9cf1-4d7d9fb92300.html

Fortunately for GA we have new pilots coming along nicely. We actually have a half dozen new pilots that are clients. All in their 30’s - 40’s and all have bought corporate aircraft, but also started their flight training when the desire to fly private hit.

I have another client who owns a small flight school, says they are overwhelmed and can’t find training airplanes to buy.

The only thing that will substantially reduce the demand for aircraft, is a serious economic downturn. When that happens prices will go down, the nice airplanes will find a new home with someone who is recession proof and the others will go to a corner of a hangar or the salvage yard.

The aircraft market is self leveling. Always.

Fortunately for GA we have new pilots coming along nicely. We actually have a half dozen new pilots that are clients. All in their 30’s - 40’s and all have bought corporate aircraft, but also started their flight training when the desire to fly private hit.

I have another client who owns a small flight school, says they are overwhelmed and can’t find training airplanes to buy.

The only thing that will substantially reduce the demand for aircraft, is a serious economic downturn. When that happens prices will go down, the nice airplanes will find a new home with someone who is recession proof and the others will go to a corner of a hangar or the salvage yard.

The aircraft market is self leveling. Always.[/quote]

Chip, you keeping dancing around the problem. Your new 30 to 40 year old pilots are a small number compared to the number of pilots over 65.
Your new pilots are not buying all the old piston GA planes, they are buying Turbine planes.

Cirrus pilots are a small group and are not expanding fast enough to cover the future loss of old GA PILOTS.

DEFINE BOOMING FLIGHT SCHOOLS? We have fewer schools and the remaining ones are busy, but the total overhaul net output of pilots is less than the past.

There are fewer aircraft repair shops, Avionic’s shops, paint shops etc, so those remaining shops will be busy.

THE LEGACY PISTON GA MARKET WILL DECLINE IN THE FUTURE. your market will continue but at a GREATER COST because there will be fewer planes supporting the overall GA infrastructure.[/quote]


LOL I hardly believe all the new pilots coming along are just buying jets

The decline is real but it's mostly done.

The WW2 guys are long past their flying days and the even the baby boom is winding down its serious purchase/upgrade days. If there was gonna be armageddon, we'd have seen it already.

The last 4 years have seen >20,000 private pilot certificates awarded. The comm (~12K) and cfi (~7k) numbers suggest that we're turning out something like 10,000 non-career pilots per year. That would suggest a long-term pilot population in the 250,000 range. A fraction of what it once was ... yes. But big enough to keep some planes going. 172's and 182's can be kept airworthy essentially forever. A36 ... same thing. At some point the pilot population is going to overwhelm the airframe population and price will go up. Nope. People will take old airframes and redo them like old houses. A ratty old 182 isn't gonna be worth a lot but someone will be willing to put $100K or $200k in it to make it nice.

Food for thought. I was on Fox news before holiday season and predicted this. Inventories are increasing across the board and this is result of what we call in supply chain as "bull-whip" effect.

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/the-supply-chain-bullwhip-is-doing-the-feds-job-on-inflation?j=132481&sfmc_sub=335475&l=256_HTML&u=2682305&mid=514011755&jb=10001&utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=FW_Daily_4_11_22&utm_term=Walmart+takes+driver+pay+to+the+executive+level&utm_id=132481&sfmc_id=335475

Mark, Chip was talking about” his” new clients in their 30’s and 40’s and I believe Chip only sells Turbines.

Charles, until we see a significant decline in the average mean age of GA pilots from 60 plus the new pilots are not helping enough.

COVID and cheap money helped the GA market , but the legacy piston market still has a future problem.

GA will still exist, but it will be smaller and more expensive.