CEO THOUGHTS

Encouraging new blood

By Steve Slater

One of the LAA’s biggest challenges, and indeed that of the whole GA community, is the worrying demographic being displayed in that we’re all getting steadily older.

Obviously, at a personal level we can’t do a lot about that, but the simple facts are demonstrated by our member surveys. When we ran the survey in 2011, the average age of respondents was 57.1 years. In 2016, the average was 59.6 years and when we ran the survey last summer, it was 64.1 years. This demographic is supported by a review of the ages quoted on membership applications.

What is equally interesting is that in 2011, 24% of LAA members were 66 years old and over. In 2016 it was 36% and in 2020, 50%. At this rate we could significantly reduce the average age of our membership by advertising in Saga magazine!

Similar trends are being noted in other segments of our community. The British Gliding Association has a fantastic youth programme with many first solos from around the age of 14. However, once they get past about 18 years old, they find that other priorities in life take over. There is a significant ‘age dip’ in their data, with the numbers only recovering in the 50+ age group. In fact, plotted on a graph, their older demographic ‘bow wave’ is even more pronounced than ours.

You might expect those fit and healthy open-air flex-wing microlight pilots to be a younger demographic than us. Not so. Although the BMAA has a more direct link to trainee pilot recruitment via their oversight of microlight flying schools, in the longer run their demographic is pretty much identical to ours. Whisper it, they may even be a wee bit older!

What are the causes?

There are many reasons for this ageing demographic. One is that the ‘bow wave’ of ex-military ‘Cold War warriors’ who learned to fly at Her (or His) Majesty’s expense are all reaching retirement age, and the number of pilots currently trained by the armed forces has shrunk to a trickle. Meanwhile, the need for selffunding airline training now means that commercial pilots don’t have cash to spare for recreational flying till much later in their careers. And of course, the pressure on everybody’s family commitments means that few budding private pilots have the funds to think about their PPL until they are into their 40s.

There is also the fact that most LAA members join us because they own a share in, own outright or aspire to owning an aircraft of their own. Typically, a new LAA member is in their 40s or 50s at the time they join us. The good news is that we usually retain them as members for 15 years or more.

Actually, even with the challenges of Covid, our recruitment has remained remarkably strong and our overall membership at a little over 7,700 has recovered almost to 2019 levels. So, in the short-term, there isn’t an immediate crisis looming. One of the LAA’s priorities in recent years has been to engage more widely in the pilot community. That allows us to share our passion with yet more pilots.

Some of the positives

The big question though, is who will be their long-term successors? One of the great things about the resumption of flying events, air shows and fly-ins, is that we are increasingly being able to share our enthusiasm with some younger potential aviators for whom our events offer an all too rare opportunity to actually get up close to an aeroplane. In a world where security fences and anti-terrorism precautions are rife, so many airfields are simply not welcoming or accessible to enthusiastic youngsters. The LAA has the potential to reverse that, letting younger people get closer to the aircraft and, we hope, enable them to realise that flying or working in aviation is attainable after all.

At the recent LAA Flying for Fun airshow at the Shuttleworth Collection, itself a great way to get the LAA message to a wider group of enthusiasts, I was delighted to see a number of younger visitors busily ticking off items in our LAA Airfield Adventure book. At subsequent post-lockdown airshows we’ve also relaunched the Young Peoples’ Aviation Art drawing zone, hosted in conjunction with the Guild of Aviation Artists, another way of planting the seeds of enthusiasm.

The Shuttleworth events and other air shows also give us the chance to work with other like-minded organisations such as The Joystick Club, with their pedal planes and simulators, the LAA-supported Youth and Educational Support group, YES, the British Gliding Association and the Air Scouts. It’s great to see the fun that the ‘instagram generation’ can have, cheerfully launching stomp rockets, building model aircraft and flying flight simulators, as well as enjoying the flying.

For those embarking on a flying career, there are a number of scholarships and bursaries available to help young pilots fulfil their dream. Organisations including the Honourable Company of Air Pilots, the Air League and the British Women Pilots Association, as well as the LAA, all offer vital support to allow youngsters to complete their training. One recent graduate of an LAA Armstrong-Isaacs Bursary, 18-year-old Ellie Carter, is now the chair of YES.

Meanwhile congratulations too, to LAA Engineer Joe Hadley, who has just completed his Flying Instructors training, thanks to an Air Pilots bursary. ■

Summer Soaring

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