General Aviation

General aviation includes any flight that is not armed and does not fly on a regular schedule, ranging from a leisure flight in a hang glider to a non-scheduled cargo flight in a Boeing 747. The greater part of flights on any day will fall into this category.Because of the huge range of activities, it is difficult to cover general aviation with a simple description — general aviation may contain business flights, private aviation, flight training, ballooning, parachuting, gliding, hang gliding, aerial photography, foot-launched powered hang gliders, air ambulance, crop dusting, charter flights, traffic coverage, police air patrols, forest fire flighting, and many other types of flying.

Each country regulate aviation in a different way, but typically, general aviation falls under several different types of system depending on whether it is private or commercial and on the type of equipment involved.Many small aircraft manufacturers, as well as Cessna, Piper, Diamond, Mooney, Cirrus Design, Raytheon, and others serve the general aviation market, with a focus on private aviation and flight training.