General aviation

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General Aviation or General Aviation ( GA ) is the name for civil aviation with the exception of scheduled and charter traffic . It includes certain commercial and all private flights that can be carried out in accordance with the rules for visual flights (VFR) as well as for instrument flights ( IFR), for example by light aircraft , business aircraft and private aircraft or by rescue helicopters . General aviation thus represents the individual transport component of air transport .

meaning

General Aviation Terminal at Cologne / Bonn Airport

General aviation is the largest segment of civil aviation in terms of the number of aircraft and the number of flight movements , but not in terms of the number of passengers and freight volume. It takes place in the controlled airspace (see airways and the terminal areas around the controlled airfields), but in contrast to scheduled flights it also takes up the uncontrolled airspace in between.

At airports there is usually a special handling area for general aviation, which is known as the General Aviation Terminal .

costs

The operation of aircraft is associated with different costs. In addition to the pure acquisition and operating costs, there are the running costs for a parking space as well as the required regular inspections . The cheapest way to fly is gliders that do not require fuel and that are technically relatively simple. More intensive use of airplanes distributes the fixed costs , resulting in an overall lower price per hour flown. Ways to implement offer air sports clubs or so-called syndicates, in which several pilots jointly maintain an airplane. The operation of microlight aircraft is cheaper than operating a traditional small aircraft . The reasons for this are, among other things, simplified approval and maintenance regulations, as well as a lower consumption resulting from the weight restriction.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Niels Klußmann, Arnim Malik: Lexicon of aviation . 2nd, updated and expanded edition. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg / New York 2007, ISBN 978-3-540-49095-1 , pp. 184–185 ( older edition in excerpts from Google Books ).
  2. ^ Wilhelm Pompl: Air traffic - An economic and political introduction . 5th, revised edition. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg / New York 2007, ISBN 978-3-540-32752-3 , pp. 29 .
  3. ↑ About us on the AOPA-Germany website , accessed on March 16, 2011.