MAKS English

Its purpose is transportation. For some people it is a promotion, for others – a joy and rest.
Well-known expression «these small planes» has nothing to do with reality, which is, actually, a US $5billion-worth industry with general aviation contributing to the economies of towns and cities.
Corporations, small businessmen and private entrepreneurs get an advantage in the competition of getting access to the aerial transportations. Other entities, realtor companies for instance, discover new opportunities and prospects to operate with the real estate in the air.
It is pretty difficult to explain the main thing about general aviation since it is stationed all over the territory of the United States and operates in different domains. Hereunder there are some factors, which can help us to answer the question: What is general aviation? General aviation is:
- 181000 aircraft of general aviation is 96% of all US aircraft
- 25.4 million of logged hours annually and 38.8 million of take-offs and landings that is 75% of all flights in the United States
- General aviation possesses 18200 airfields (runways) including 13175 airports and 4600 helipads and serves 19000 juridical bodies
- After the World War II when people got the first-ever experience in dealing with the general aviation the velocity and effectiveness of transportations increased 10 times while the safety did increase as well.

The general aviation also takes care of the nature.
Who is in charge of monitoring wildlife? Who monitors migration of birds? Who patrols parks and gas pipelines detecting leakages? These are properly equipped governmental and public general aviation aircraft gathering necessary information for environmental protection activists, nature examiners, gamekeepers and etc.
Definitely, the general aviation has always been the prime source of fighting fires in forests. Helicopters and specially-equipped «water bombers» save millions of acres of forests annually, take care of houses and national parks as well as protect nation’s forests.
All night long the general aviation contributes to the money transactions by delivering voided checks through the Federal Reserve System. The general aviation plays an important role in banking system by reducing the operating assets before a check gets into the clearing system.
Next day the general aviation delivers important and urgent packages to private individuals, offices and plants.
Since it is very flexible and rapid, the general aviation delivers express cargoes to plants and mails to towns in lots of regions where big airliners can not get to.
General aviation creates conditions for safe driving.
TV and radio specialists, while on board, warn millions of drivers identifying road accidents and traffic jam and then reporting them to the police and traffic controllers.
When you go on vacation you will, perhaps, draw attention to the fact how the maps and charts, taken from the air, are renewed. Governmental city bureaus, engineers and designers do use such services while designing roads and improving infrastructure and facilities.
The general aviation saves lives every day.
Every day the general aviation transports donated blood, important human organs and transports cancer-affected patients to the medical facilities.
Aerial ambulance saves lives by evacuating injured people from a site of accident as well as carries out urgent transportation of patients when it is of outmost importance. Lots of pilots donate their time to perform humanitarian missions. The clubs of private pilots provide such services to those needing them free of charge. The helicopter medical evacuation service is a branch of the general aviation and increases the number of souls saved by evacuating an injured person from the accident site during the first critical hour.
The general aviation serves both private sector and business. There are lots of people flying for private purposes. These people discovered that the general aviation was a safe, effective and rapid way of getting to any destination for service or private affairs. Other advantages of the general aviation are flexibility and productivity of flights that are much higher and better compared to other modes of transport including Airlines and cars.
Even if you have never been aboard of the general aviation aircraft, the general aviation remains open for you and serves you round-the-clock.
The general aviation helps to monitor law and order. These are not only in movies where aircraft made a real revolution in guaranteeing law and order. The police employ light rotary-winged and fixed-wing aircraft for patrolling roads, tracing suspects, supporting ground-based law-enforcement agencies, patrolling state border lines, protecting VIPs and finding missing kids.
For instance, LA Air Protective Service officers responded to 32995 incidents during a single year – 3.8 incidents per hour. As a result there were 3500 arrests, 1354 suspects were detained, 747 stolen cars were found, and 205 fires were detected in the course of a single year. It was general aviation that enabled governmental agencies to be effective to this extent.
The general aviation is very helpful in agricultural sector.
Pilots, engaged in the agricultural sector, work on 3mln acres of earth annually, therefore increasing agriculture output in the country. 90% of rice is seeded by air planes in the United States and 65% of fields are worked on. The US farmers apply general aviation to keep track of cattle and pasture fields. So, the general aviation and agricultural sector keep undergoing their partnership relations.
The general aviation is the core of the US aviation sector. If major national, regular airlines are the arteria of the transport system, then the general aviation is veins and capillary vessels. Domestic airlines and air taxi bring people to towns and back at certain tariffs. Both, business and private flights as well as cargo shipments are carried out round-the-clock and wherever a customer wants irrespectively of the timetable of an Airline. 75% of Airlines work with US major airports. The airlines do about 50% of flights through 21 hub airports while the general aviation serves all 13000 US airports and 10000 helipads as well as seaplane bases by ensuring modern and flexible aerial shipments.