Challenges and Opportunities: A Strategic General Aviation Exploratory Analysis for 2030

General aviation (GA)’s role in the United States transportation complements many functions of the scheduled commercial airlines, and has its own mature community. Recent progress in several technologies areas and potential new market opportunities has generated interest in the future of general aviation. This study describes the trends and issues that will impact general aviation in the 2030 time frame. These GA trends and challenges are defined through a series of subject matter expert workshops and a literature review. To characterize the main challenges for general aviation, the authors have identified the following categories - Certification, Airspace Management, Infrastructure/Airports, New Energy, Autonomy/Automation, Airframe/Maintenance, Advanced Design & Manufacturing, Connected Aviation, and Survivability/Safety. The use of metrics describing both future technology maturity and the technology adoption or acceptance helps identify unique GA issues that may warrant additional investigation in order to address the challenges in 2030. General aviation technology development and growth in the international arena will also be included as a comparison. By providing an assessment of issues relevant to GA in 2030, the study hopes to highlight where strategic investigations may be needed in the near future to help the general aviation community be better prepared to address these future issues. © 2018 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.