photofly wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 8:28 amBreaking news ... a shit tonne of people don't actually want to learn to fly in a 1970's era C150.
As opposed to a 1970's era 172? Breaking news - New students by and large haven't a clue what the difference is between any of the training planes. 150, 172, Katana, Cherokee, etc.
You can run a cheap flight school with the cheapest smallest airplane you can find. And you can cheap-out putting them on the flight line. If you do that, there's a reasonable expectation you're cheaping out on your instructors, your maintenance, and your customer service too. And we end up with the headline story in this post. "Not paying more than you need" means exactly "paying the minimum possible". Which is, cheaping out.
You seem to keep wanting to focus on "cheaping out" when all I suggested is that there are cheaper options. Using a 150 instead of a 172 isn't cheaping out. It's still a solid training airplane built by the same company and maintained by the same AME's. You'll still have the same instructors, same customer service, same maintenance. In fact, you'd have more money to spend on all of those if you didn't spend so much on a fleet of 172's at the outset.
But even a 1970's era C172, one small step up from a 150, is into six figures. If you want something modern and comfortable (and many people do) there's a lot of capital expenditure involved.
Yes, exactly my point. And I maintain that people who want to learn to fly can do it in a Honda Civic instead of a Honda Accord. A 172 is no more modern than a 150, and only marginally more comfortable.
Let me reflect the question back to you. A lot of (successful) flight schools use C172s, DA20's, DA40's, and a variety of aircraft other than the (cheapest C150)? Why do you think that is?
I could surmise a few reasons. First and foremost, that 150's aren't made anymore and 172's are. More affluent schools find they have a lot of revenue and want to turn it into brand new aircraft, and 172's are all they can get. The fleet they had (152's and 172's, likely) get sold to smaller schools (or sold off to private owners). DA20's make no sense really, except as an example of "something different".