Jester,
Having been an IFR fixed wing and rotorcraft pilot and aircraft owner for 30+ years I must respectfully disagree with you.

while commercial aviation has grown in some areas General Aviation (small aircraft, personal aviation, etc) has shrunk precipitously since 1980 mostly due to the costly requirements and judgements of the FAA. Having owned 3 full sized airplanes and a helicopter over the years I’ve never been without my own aircraft in 35 years until last year when cost of ownership finally became so high and so unpredictable due to the continuous heaping of costly new regulations and the specter of often ludicrous and completely unpredictable Airworthiness Directives that can instantly ground your aircraft and force you to spend tens of thousands of dollars on special inspections and replacement of perfectly good engine and airframe parts even to sell it let alone get it back in the air. A recent example has been on a common type of engine cylinder that the FAA declared unsafe when one small commercial operator who was abusing their engines through improper use had severalmfailures on one aircraft. As a result of a decision by one FAA inspector 30,000 aircraft that used this particular cylinder type were grounded and required to replace them regardless of condition at a cost of $12,000 to $15,000.

Just one one of hundreds of examples. Recreational aircraft flying is dying with documented data showing only a trickle of new private pilots compared to 30-40 yreas ago, the average age of private pilots in the high fifties and continuing to go higher, the average number of hours flown dramatically reduced, and the number of daily general aviation operations down by as much as 80% at many non-airline airports in recent years,

Where companies like Piper and Cessna once built thousands of small aircraft per year they now build only several hundred and a simple basic airplane like the Cessna 172 now costs around $500,000 to buy new due to morass of FAA regulations requiring onerous certification processes and documentation as well as liabilities insurance of course.

The ngine in that 172 is nearly identical in every respect to the engine it was introduced its back in the 1950s due to the costs of redesign and getting that new design approved by the FAA.

While the FAA has done a good job of making US based airline travel the safest in the world, it has nearly killed recreational and personal flyimg unless you have considerable financial means. Right now it’s destroying RC model and drone flying having gone from one extreme to the other - completely hands off to completely and overly controlled. Likely they will reach some level of moderation over time but it’ll take 5 to ten years.

No, what they are doing right now is a huge over reaction and the impact of that is big and that’s been the FAA style of operation as long as I can remember. Used to fly my many rc helicopters and fixed wing in the many vacant fields around here but no longe all the good fields are in controllered airspace now. At the moment there is only one place I can fly my fixed wings within 10 miles of my hours - if I join a club ( but I hear they have a waiting list for new members) but nowhere I can legally fly my drones or 3D helicopters that I’ve found yet.

Best regards,
Ron (wingspinner)