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To view this page ensure that Adobe Flash Player version 9.0.124 or greater is installed. What is General Aviation? In a sense general aviation (GA) is a catch-all phrase that encompasses about 57% of all civil aviation activity within the United States, measured in terms of overall flight hours.5 Therefore, it is often easier to frame general aviation in terms of what it is not rather than what it is. In this context, GA refers to most aviation operations not conducted by scheduled passenger airlines, large air cargo operators, or the military. To add to the confusion, commercial charter operations are often grouped in with GA and non-revenue flights, such as maintenance test flights and repositioning flights conducted by passenger and cargo airlines, are usually operated under regulations often regarded as “general aviation” flight rules.6 Thus, virtually all flight activity outside the scope of scheduled passenger or cargo air carrier flights and military operations may be considered GA. This encompasses a wide variety of aircraft types and flight operations. Table 1 shows the distribution of aircraft and flight operations formally categorized as GA. General Aviation Flight Operations As indicated in Table 1, recreational flying in personal aircraft (personal flying) and flight instruction, the typical activities one might expect to see at a small to mid- 5 CRS calculations based on Federal Aviation Administration. FAA Aerospace Forecasts – Fiscal Years 2005-2016. March 2005. 6 The set of regulations specified in Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 91 – General Operating and Flight Rules, apply to all civil aircraft operating in the national airspace system. Like GA aircraft, non-revenue airline flights are subject to these rules, but are not subject to additional safety and security regulations specifically applicable to revenue air carrier operations. sized GA airport, comprises slightly more than half of all GA operations and accounts for about 75% of all aircraft in the total GA fleet. Business and corporate flying – which encompasses anything from small businesses flying cancelled checks or regional salesmen flying to customer sites in small single-engine aircraft, to companies ferrying crews to offshore oil rigs by helicopter, to operations of large corporate jets and professionally managed fractional-ownership fleets – makes up about one-quarter of all GA operations. On-demand charter services, referred to as air taxi services, and air tours are also considered GA operations and make up about 5% of all general aviation operations. In addition to these major categories, there are a wide variety of additional GA operations such as aerial advertising (banner towing and skywriting), aerial application (crop-dusting), aerial photography, mapping and data collection, traffic reporting, air ambulance and medical evacuation, and search and rescue, that account for the remaining 14% of all GA operations. 中国通航网 www.ga.cn 通航翻译 www.aviation.cn 本文链接地址：Securing General Aviation 通用航空安保(5) |
