A pilot friend was displaying his virtue on Facebook by denouncing Donald Trump with a reference to a BBC article saying that “Trump presidency rated among 10 global risks.” I responded with
Given your passion for private aviation, I am surprised that you aren’t looking forward to King Donald I. He won’t be shutting down New England by vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard. He himself has been a user of small airports and FBOs. He ran an airline so he knows what it is like to deal with the FAA.
Pilot Readers: What do you think? Will it be good for us aviation nerds to have a user of the U.S. aviation system as president?
[Separately, my friend won’t have to worry too much about economic risk from whoever occupies the White House. He took the advice from the Introduction to Real World Divorce:
“When young people ask me about the law as a career,” said one litigator, “I tell them that in this country whom they choose to have sex with and where they have sex will have a bigger effect on their income than whether they attend college and what they choose as a career.”
(i.e., he married the daughter of a guy who got rich decades ago; he lives as “the dependent spouse” in no-fault Massachusetts so he can also count on lucrative property division and alimony in the event of a divorce occasioned, e.g., by his having an affair with a younger woman).]
I think about this all the time. First of all he does have very good taste in aircraft. Also his dead brother was airline pilot and chose that over being a rich real estate developer. He has a citation x and a 757. He purchased each plane at a large discount and gets far greater utility out of his 757 than a more expensive gulfstream product. However he has sued airports over noise issues. This to me is a very bad thing. Many of our airports are being surrounded by development and Donald Trump may be a typical ant airport NIMBY neighbor. Also to note there used to be a TRUMP SID which has now been taken away by king Obama.
Pretty unrealistic to think that if elected he would 1. Continue to use his personal aircraft which lack the space, communications equipment and security elements that the planes normally used as AF1 have and 2. That the Secret Service would forgo its security systems and requirements, which are the reason that airspace is closed down when the president travels, is on vacation, etc.