Designing, developing, flying and maintaining an aircraft are part of piloting. Every country piloting is divided into two parts: Air force and Civil. Civil industry also has bifurcation: Commercial and Scheduled flights and Commercial/Non-Commercial non-scheduled flights. The first one is commonly referred as airline industry. The later category is very interesting and is known as basic piloting. Many private flights are operating in North American region can be classified as General Aviation or (GA). It has many flights like business jets, chartered planes, hang gliding, parachute jumping and many more.
General Aviation uses two types of planes. Commercial jets are luxury item and used to give comfort to businessmen or government delegation while flying. Recreational flights are less expensive and have more variety. People who are enthusiastic about private flying and doing something fun use the later planes. They also try to customize it. A pilot has to pass same license exam to drive any of that planes but in actual flying there could be significant functional differences.
Flight training is also done through basic piloting only. This field is as risky as airline industry and therefore government has established agencies which ensure safety during flying. There are specialized schools which teach enthusiastic people about flying. A basic knowledge of avionics helps in better flying of plane.
To have a common safety standard throughout the world United Nations has formed international regulatory body for basic aeronautics, International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). It plays a crucial role in piloting industry because out of 100 flights 77 flights are of basic piloting. There could be a country own regulatory body as well.
The regulation of air shows is also done by country piloting agencies because they use myriad number of aircrafts of different types. It also helps private pilots to have risk management assessment of their plane and flying because the number of accidents occur in general piloting are greater than in commercial piloting.
Recreational part of General Aviation is very cool. It makes people do something new and feel energetic about it. 166 million people use any form of General Aviation so safety should be a pivotal factor while doing a recreational activity.
The airports used by commercial jets are same as that of airlines because it is suitable for a business trip and makes it economical. Recreational flights can have dedicated airports because adventure sports can take place in different terrains around the world. Thus, basic piloting is an important money minting source for an economy and it is expected to be the same in future.
General Aviation aircraft are plentiful on the market right now such as a cub crafters Super Cub and there are many sources for finding these GA aircraft such as aero trader services.