Chaos theory tells us that small changes can have huge, unpredictable effects. Thus a butterfly beating its wings in Asia might affect the weather in the U.S. I may have inadvertently made a small change that could have a huge effect when I visited China with a business group in early November.
This picture of me in the AOPA hat was taken atop the Great Wall, not far from Beijing. Later that evening, the hat was lost in a Chinese restaurant. I can only imagine that somewhere in China, a waiter is walking around dreaming of becoming a pilot! Who knows what I may have started.
Currently, there’s very little general aviation in China. While I was there, …
…I didn’t see a single small plane or helicopter during the entire trip. I did see two small business jets on the ramp at the Beijing airport. Imagine, a city of 13 million people with fewer business jets on the ramp than another city I visited last week–Jackson, WY, population 7,000. But that’s about to change very rapidly.
In 2010, China is planning to open its low altitude airspace to air traffic. Cessna has announced that they’ve sold more than a hundred small planes to one or more flight schools in China in the past year. Finally, Liberty has just announced that they’ll be opening a factory in China and have orders for 600 aircraft to be built at a rate of 100 per year.
History has shown that when China acts, they do so in big ways. During the Ming dynasty in the early 1400’s, the emperor built a navy of over 300 ships that traveled the world and ruled the waves. We are undoubtedly at a similar tipping point for general aviation, which is about to take off in China in a big way.
Max, I see you wrote this a few years ago. Since then, there has been quite some progress at least on paper. AOPA China has been setup although there are not much activities going on as you may imagine in a country with fewer than 900 non-airline aircraft and <1000 private pilot. Investing in general aviation by private companies and foreign enterprise is now allowed and encouraged. It remains long way to go. We invite you to join China Aviator GA forum http://www.chinaaviator.com/ for discussion and further information.
Jane Zhang, Co-founder of Silk Wings Aviation
To follow up my post back in June 2010. I met with AOPA China in July. They have started to be more active… In the meantime, GA is looking up. One example: there are 4 airshows this year, comparing with 2 in 2009, 1 in 2008, and 0.5 in 2007. Stay toned…