Jeff Oslick
Final Approach
Ok, you tell me what's wrong with this article.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/01/family.plane.ap/index.html
Jeff
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/01/family.plane.ap/index.html
Jeff
You mean in addition to the kid sitting on the leading edge of the wingJeff Oslick said:Ok, you tell me what's wrong with this article.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/01/family.plane.ap/index.html
Jeff
Jeff Oslick said:Ok, you tell me what's wrong with this article.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/01/family.plane.ap/index.html
Jeff
corjulo said:Oh my god, this line made me gag. She is going to kill someone.
"You can literally read a book up there," said Neibauer, who sold Huntsman her first four-seater plane for $326,000 three years ago.
And read is exactly what she does. "Last year, we got through Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn," Huntsman said.
Jeff Oslick said:Ok, you tell me what's wrong with this article.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/01/family.plane.ap/index.html
Jeff
Joe Williams said:Aside from the pilot confusing her cockpit with the library, the other thing I found wrong with the article is the repeated references to how expensive everything is. Most folks just don't have a half million bucks to drop on a plane. If someone with an interest picked up the paper to read how affordable general aviation is, they probably lost interest when they kept reading how expensive it is. That article struck me as portraying GA as very much a rich person's domain, a perspective that must be defeated if we are to survive.
Henning said:You may want to rethink that one taking a politicians perspective. Rich people =Campaign$$$ ergo, politicians dislike annoying rich people (and let me tell you, rich people are nickle and dime chislers) sum, when rich people are perceived to be involved in something, politicians don't mess with it too negatively.
Richard said:Henning, how can you say such a thing in light of all that has been happening all the while the perception is and always has been that it is a rich man's sport. Put another way, history has and continues to prove your statement to be patently false.
Henning said:...Now if we want to talk a performance twin, better be able to sustain a $100,000 budget. Don't believe me? Ask Robert Gerace.
RobertGerace said:That actually *is* the budget to fly a 310R 300 hours per year. I think people thought I was kidding in Ben's "Lucky you" thread...sigh......
RobertGerace said:But, I am an example of how you don't have to be rich to do it. I'm just an ordinary guy with no 401k or retirement fund...like many people now trying to 'get rich' in real estate.
I also run a company that had almost that much of a budget for me traveling anyway...
RobertGerace said:and I did a 3 year sales job on the board and actually got them to sign off on it. Like most things, it's not always what you know or have...but who you talk into stuff on your behalf.
Richard said:Henning, a lot of politicians have done a lot of things which are not favorable to GA. Everything from enacting discriminatory curfews to exhorbiant landing fees to closing rwys to even tearing them out under cover of darkness. Politicians Vs the rich guy. And which pol was it that stood firm against the TFR madness?
Geez, the list grows long about how the pols don't seem to desire to curry favor with the rich guy.
Henning said:Yeah, lot of bucks, that's more than "common people" earn in a year with a median income of $28,xxx.
Joe Williams said:Your claim that aviation is something only the rich can (or should) participate in is simply not accurate. We found a way to fly on a combined income of $20K a year, and we get to fly bunches more now despite still not being anywhere rich. It certainly doesn't take $100K a year to own a Cherokee. There ARE those who wish to limit aviation to the rich, snobs who feel that pilots are too special a group to allow the unwashed masses in. Those people are why GA is dying and airports are closing. Not lawyers, not insurance, but elitist snobs who think they are too good to associate with the common folk. The common folk are deciding they don't want to listen to the rich boys and girls fly overhead, and are voting too close airports and build shopping malls.
Henning said:So this is subsidized by the business. That's perfectly fine with me. Heck, I make my living playing with other peoples toys. I talk people into doing stuff I want all the time. The one good thing I found out about rich people, you can talk em into nearly anything if they can gain enough from the venture, and the gain doesn't have to be monetary, I sell people on $350,000 weeklong vacations.
Henning said:snip
Airports aren't closing because of elitism, it's about money. They close because of real estate values, same reason boat yards do. They are worth far more $$$ as condos, subdivisions and industrial parks than as airports.
bbchien said:Henning, there are the well off and the superweatlhy. They are different. The superweathy hire you to protect and move their toys. But in business, if you could sign up 5 million in business that your competitors couldnt get to physically and it cost you $100K that year, that's not a business subsidy. That's the other way around. That's smart business. For some, that's really really smart operation.
Now Dennis Kozlowski's parties, that's completely another matter....
Henning said:Of course it is, like I said, "Business Aviation at its best". That's what it's all about. My point was though that Roberts personal aviation "fix" happens to be tied in with that, so it doesn't come out of his discretionary pocket money that may otherwise... remodel the bathroom for example. The business pays for it, and it benefits the business. He gets to have fun flying and everybody is happy. That's how I consider it as being "subsidized". Most subsidies have a benefit to those that issue it.
Joe Williams said:Then why on Earth is Albert Whitted still open?
corjulo said:You're both right.
Aviation does have a significance middle-class (50k-120K) following, but at a significance sacrifice. And the sacrifice is getting worse and worse all the time. AOPA says the average household income of its membership was 119K in 2003. That's about where I thought it would be. I don't think general aviation could survive were it entirely depended on the whims of the very rich. Middle-class and upper middle-class pilots, I suspect, are the economic lifeline of general aviation, $95 at a time. But the future looks bleak.
My concern is it will become so expensive to fly that pilots will fly less and less, BUT THEY WILL STILL FLY. And that makes for very unsafe pilots.
Most of the light sport aircraft are coming in around 80K, which is in the same ballpark as what a new base 7ECA Citabria costs. LSA or not LSA, the economics of aircraft production demand a certain cost to make it worthwhile. The new rule makes it easier for pilots, but it isn't going to change the economics of airplanes much except insofar as it creates volume discounts -- but even then there probably won't be enough volume to make those discounts huge.Joe Williams said:A very valid concern. Here's hoping Sport Pilot lives up to the hype, and we get some cheap sport planes in production, and people actually buy them, that we can afford to fly more.
Joe Williams said:A very valid concern. Here's hoping Sport Pilot lives up to the hype, and we get some cheap sport planes in production, and people actually buy them, that we can afford to fly more.
Henning said:It's a nice hope. It would have to bring about a significant increase in numbers to bring the price down though. Your basic non ultralite type LSA machines are still going to have to pricepoint at $75k-$100k, you can buy a typical basic GA plane for that, I can even find you a 310 for $40k . Where I do see the advantage with the LSA machines is lower cost of operation, but I'll bet they'll still have direct operations costs of $50 hr especially the certificated ones. Experimental LSA, that is where it could go wide open, as well as the ultralight styles like the Eipper Quicksilver MXII (my personal favorite when equipped with Amphibs.) Which couldn't be properly utilized because of the one person rule.
Joe Williams said:I'm more hopeful FBOs will buy them and rent them out than I am hoping for mass buying by individuals. It will be legal to rent LSAs, right? You can buy GA planes for the same money, but they are used 30 year old planes. Given a equal choice between FBOs I like, one renting old planes, one renting new planes, the new planes will get most of my business. Even if they are two seaters. I'm tired of flying beaters. I know folks are are interested in lessons, until they find out how old some of the planes are. No matter how well maintained (and we both know lots aren't), they are still older than a lot of the people wanting to learn to fly.
Plus, to me the LSAs just don't seem robust enough to endure the hardships of rental life, from the Rotax/Jabirus to the thickness of the door plastic.Henning said:Thing about that is, the majority of planes at FBOs for rental are bought by individuals and put on line with FBOs on a leaseback agreement. Now, if the manufacturers want to put the planes out there on leaseback agreements, we may see a good amount of them come online, but that takes a large capital investment.