Ben Sclair is publisher of General Aviation News
I signed General Aviation News on as a media sponsor of the General Aviation Asia 2011 conference to take place in Shanghai, China, in April. The sponsorship consists of running a few news releases and some post-conference coverage on our website. However, when looking through the conference documentation, I noticed some interesting general aviation flight statistics. Between 1999 and 2009, GA flight hours in China jumped from 40,000 to 130,000. In contrast, between 1999 and 2005, estimated GA flight hours in the U.S. fell from 27 million to 22 million, according to FAA statistics.
Whether you are pro-China or not matters not. China’s aviation market is opening up and growing. Can you imagine what aviation in the U.S. would be like today if the Wright brothers started in 1903 with today’s technology and know how? Guess what? Orville and Wilbur are ready to take flight in China.
