About the Author ... Mike Busch is editor-in-chief of AVweb, a member of the technical staff at Cessna Pilots Association, and in a prior lifetime was a contributing editor for The Aviation Consumer and IFR Magazine. A 6,000-hour commercial pilot and CFI with airplane, instrument and multiengine ratings, Mike has been flying for 36 years and an aircraft owner for 33. For the past 14 of those years, he's owned and flown a Cessna T310R turbocharged twin, which he maintains himself. In his never-ending quest to become a true renaissance man of aviation, Mike's on the verge of earning his A&P mechanic certificate. Mike and his wife Jan reside on the central coast of California in a semi-rural area where he can't get DSL or cable TV.

For more than a decade now, general aviation has been stalked by the grim reaper. Unless you held your breath, you couldn't escape the pungent, unmistakable odor of near-death. If you looked up, you probably noticed the vultures circling overhead, awaiting the inevitable.

A vigorous and competitive industry at its peak in 1979, the bottom dropped out of general aviation by 1982. Cessna, the industry sales leader, ceased production of piston airplanes altogether. Piper fielded the magnificent Malibu and promptly went into bankruptcy. Mooney almost died, and was bought for a song by a French concern. Beech continued to turn out a trivial trickle of Bonanzas and Barons but at prices hardly anyone could afford.

What caused the crash?

I've owned a succession of piston aircraft during the past 30 years. Except for the Cessna 310 that I fly now, I purchased all my previous aircraft brand new from the factory.

Why new? That's easy. Purchasing a new airplane qualified for whopping investment tax credit that came right off the bottom line of my tax return. It also qualified for first-year "bonus" depreciation and double-declining balance accelerated depreciation. When you figured all the tax benefits, buying a new airplane cost no more than buying a clean, late-model used one.

Plus you got to tell the factory just what colors you wanted your bird painted, what options you wanted, and what radios you wanted. And then you got to go to the factory, take a grand tour, pick up your brand new airplane at the factory delivery center, and fly it home!

Welcome to the '80s

So when I decided to step up to my first twin in the mid-80s, I bought a used airplane for the first time in my life. And so, apparently, did everybody else. The rest, as they say, is history.

In my judgement, the general aviation boom years of the '70s were built on an aberration of the tax code which incentivized folks like me to buy new airplanes when they wouldn't have otherwise done so. The congresscritters didn't really intend this, I imagine. They probably invented the ITC and DDB and all those other whiz-bang tax gizmos to incentivize industrialists to invest in new plants and new equipment. But for tens of thousands of people like me, it was a unique opportunity to buy fancy new airplanes and have Uncle Sam pick up damn near half the tab. Only a damn fool would pass up a deal like that!

The U.S. economy went through a general contraction in the early '80s, as interest rates climbed to historically unthinkable levels. Most industries suffered. But general aviation was decimated...pulverized...because it had built to a crescendo based on a bubble of artificial tax incentives. When that bubble burst, everything came crashing down.

Rising from the ashes

When the FAA created the amateur-built portion of the experimental category and exempted it from most normal costly certification requirements, the rulemakers obviously never meant for those exemptions to apply to a 300-knot pressurized airplane, half pre-fabricated by a factory and the other half built by a professional hired-gun A&P. But just like the new airplane buyers of the '70s who found a creative way to use the tax code to our advantage, the kitplane industry of the '80s and early '90s found a creative way to exploit the FARs to their advantage.

Which really makes me wonder: how long will it be before the FAA closes that loophole? And what will happen to the kitplane industry when it does?

Where are we now?

These top executives are putting their money where their optimism is. Cessna is getting back into piston aircraft production in what appears to be a very serious way. Piper has just emerged from bankruptcy and is now owned in large part by firms with deep pockets like Teledyne. Teledyne is also investing big money to modernize Continental, a company which was virtually at death's door five years ago. Lycoming has announced a new family of engines to power the new Cessnas: fuel injected, autogas-friendly, and probably with variable-timing electronic ignition. Mooney's TLS is selling well. We're still waiting for Beech to make its move.

Nobody expects the industry to return to the heady levels of 1979. Those levels were artificial and unsustainable. But the prospects for a healthy and vigorous new piston aircraft industry in Wichita and Vero Beach and Kerrville seems genuinely likely.

Meantime, I'm hopeful that the Lancairs and Glasairs and Questairs will start pursuing FAA certification seriously, because I can't imagine that the FAA will allow the amateur-built loophole to remain wide open for much longer.