The September issue of AOPA Pilot has a story about a guy who bought a four-seat Piper Cherokee for $1,000 and is now flying it, having spent a total of $3,500 on the airplane and required maintenance. This certainly seems to prove that Americans can afford to fly… they just don’t want to (or at least they don’t want to fly like a 1950s GA pilot).
AOPA also describes a flying marriage proposal gone somewhat wrong. (If the happy couple ends up with some children and the wife ever decides that she would prefer to have sex with other people, the pilot will likely be sorry to have settled in Maryland rather than in neighboring Delaware or Pennsylvania.)
Meanwhile the August issue of Professional Pilot shows that Embraer is now #1 among business jet manufacturers in product support, ahead of traditional leader Gulfstream for the 2nd year in a row. Embraer also beats all of the turboprop manufacturers. Journalists threw rocks at the Brazilians for how they prepared to host the Olympics but it seems as though they can make airplanes…
They make some wonderful planes. A shame your airline fling was in the Canadair. The Junglebusses are so much more capable and pilot-friendly.
Great story!
“Americans can afford to fly” – well, some Americans at least. There was an article out within the last week that discussed household wealth, the lower 33% of American households had negative net worth, the next 33% averaged $40K. Pretty sure it wouldn’t be a good budget decision for them to spend $135 per month on airplane insurance and tiedown.
What’s that Lycoming burn, about 7GPH?
Yes, they can afford to fly their own planes, but would you want them to? Look at the average car driver on the road (better yet, look at the average person waiting in line at the DMV!). The thought scares me. And I don’t have any confidence that I myself could learn to fly ( and not crash!)
btw – night time helicoptering in the mountains – a bad idea? It happened in a Robinson R66 in Austria. How do helicopter pilots fly at night anyway? I imagine it is harder than flying a plane in the night.
http://www.thelocal.at/20160914/cause-of-red-bull-pilots-deadly-crash-still-a-mystery
@GermanL: night time helicoptering in the mountains is a good idea only if you want to win a Darwin award.
“… as they took off he could only see the beam of the take-off and landing lights and then it was nothing but darkness, with Arch navigating using only his headlights. Out of nowhere, a wall of rock suddenly appeared.”
@billg thanks for confirming my suspicions. Seemed like a crazy idea to me.
also, regarding the marriage proposal article – dude, getting married and becoming an airline pilot… if philg’s posts on pilot salaries and divorce statistics are any warning, that guy is entering a world of pain! 23 years old – oh to be young and stupid again… send that boy a link to philg’s blog!
Sigh. I like most of your blog, but squeezing in a comment about the US child support system in every other blog post got a bit old years ago. Even though I agree with you on the subject, I’ve had enough of hearing about it. It’s your blog, say what you want, maybe someday I’ll check back in to see if you’ve managed to let it go.
If US outsources all its product support to Brazil, where does Brazil outsource its product support to?