A friend recently wrote to me:
>When I observe the audience members of recent AOPA sponsored flight safety seminars, I see old, balding/grey-haired white men with just a smattering of lovely ladies. Where are the young pilots to replace us old geezers?

Here’s what I replied:
When I attended a safety talk last year I had similar thoughts. It’s sort of depressing. I was one of the youngest pilots in the audience of about 400 ppl. – And I’m 41!

My personal answer to that question is: they ain’t coming. The current pilot population won’t be replaced. No AOPA pep talk can change that. Not even LSAs have changed the equation.
My only hope for a large influx of new pilots is from complete “cockpit automation” when people look at GA again as (expensive but usable) self-transportation. In my vision the airplane is completely operated remotely with pilots on request that login to your plane from remote sites – just as drone pilots do. This would be to handle the tricky decision making situations. The common mode of operation would be 100% automated flight in the ATC system. You file a flight plan request, show up at your airplane, sit down, hit the start button and wait until you arrive. That vision is technically probably 10 years out, and might never happen because the government is involved and NextGen doesn’t look so hot at this point. But if a modern company like Google catches on, it might happen much faster. In technology you never know.

Bare that, the piston GA as we know it will die. We’ll come down from a 600k pilot’s population to something like 1/10th of it. That’s just how prohibitively expensive flying has become. And the general public’s opinion about GA isn’t exactly helping either. Nor does our safety record. (There are two answers to improving the safety record IMO: 1) recurring training like required for type ratings in chapter 135 operations -> I use the Mu-2 requirements imposed by the FAA a couple of years ago to improve the safety record as a compelling argument. And do BFRs annually with a FAA assigned instructor (not the one you already flew the last time), but make the test so that you can’t fail – it’s a learning opportunity. Train your weaknesses. If you’re insecure about 20kts cross wind landings, then that’s a good opportunity to work on it.
And secondly: Automation – as much as feasible, starting immediately: An autopilot should be mandatory in every IFR aircraft, all non-local flights with more than the pilot on board should require a flight plan or flight following at the minimum)

But there you have it. Younger people aren’t interested to GA. And the few that are, most of them can’t afford it.

Sad but true in the way I see the world.