These people are rich, but they’re not the wealthy. These are your doctor types, not your billionaires. Doctors are paid well for sure, but they should be paid well.
A lot of people hear or read “plane” and assume like a million dollars. You can quite literally buy a single prop piston engine small plane for less than $100k USD. Yearly cost to maintain can be as little as a few thousand if flights hours are low.
Also, many of those planes are timeshared. Most of the people I know in those places share a plane with several other people or have small kit planes they built.
You can get a Cessna 172 or even some nice Mooneys for around $50k. Unlike cars, even really old ones are kept in good running order because parts time out and have to be regularly maintained. Even if you want to buy a newer plane, a lot of people in GA use fractional ownership. That $200k newish Cirrus SR22 is fairly likely owned by 4 people splitting the bill. GA isn’t cheap by any measure, but it also isn’t exclusively for the wealthy. Upper middle class can get into it without too much issue. The people we should be raising everyone to, not tearing down.
Your source talks about the consumption once it is off the ground. My understanding is that taking off requires more energy than maintaining height and speed like it works for literally every other vehicle.
What does flying 300 miles look like in terms of fuel consumption
Of course, takeoff and climb are typically at full power but to reach cruising altitudes for a single engine airplane doesn’t take very long. It’s a similar concept to a car on a highway onramp, except that airplanes actually get more efficient at higher altitudes.
It factors into overall consumption but it doesn’t really blow the whole equation for efficiency. Pilots in training do takeoffs and landings on repeat for hours at a stretch between refueling.
Like, you’re almost certainly not using that plane to commute. You may use it instead of buying a commercial plane ticket when you go on vacation somewhere, but that’s not saving you any money, it’s likely costing you significantly more in storage fees, etc.
People who own planes aren’t billionaire-rich necessarily, but they’re still people who can afford hobbies that cost $100k.
Of course they’re not using it to commute daily. You even pointed out in your first sentence: It’s a hobby.
Someone else in this thread also mentions that many small aircraft have multiple “owners” who share it. Just like timeshare vacation property. Everyone who is part in it, shares the cost of maintenance. This makes it even cheaper. This counters your statement of:
that’s not saving you any money, it’s likely costing you significantly more in storage fees, etc.
People who live in a community where you can store your airplane in a garage and then commute from your garage to the runway aren’t going to partially own a plane. What would be the point in having that kind of a property but not being able to use it because you only got to see your plane one week per month?
Not every private pilot has a $100k hobby, but anybody who buys a house with a taxiway going up to it almost certainly owns their own plane, and their hobby is not cheap.
People who live in a community where you can store your airplane in a garage and then commute from your garage to the runway aren’t going to partially own a plane.
That’s where you’d be wrong. Many are shared. Just because one of the owners lives beside the runway doesn’t mean it’s solely theirs. I’m not the only one to say this. lemmy.world/comment/3346098
What would be the point in having that kind of a property but not being able to use it because you only got to see your plane one week per month?
Save money first and foremost. It’s a win-win situation for all parties involved. And one week per month is a lot of time. You don’t know what the arrangement is for those involved. The time share could be wildly different depending on each pilots desires.
The aircraft hold their value, and actually appreciate. The actual cost is about $10k a year. Lots of people spend far more than that on other hobbies.
Over half of all pilots in the US (200k) hold a commercial pilot certificate and use flying as their sole source of income or as a way to supplement their income. Commercial pilots makes $50k a year until they can become airline pilots which have salaries starting at $100k.
Idk, I would not go with “I am a doctor so I deserve money with which I can live a live that seems so unhinged to the median income earner that I not only can allow to have a big car with which probably only one human at a time is driving, no, I also have a plane whith which probably only me is flaying at once and I have access to my own airfield”. They would still be on my menu right after the billionaires
That depends on the doctor. Not all are paid the same. Plastic surgeons get paid huge dollars for a lot of frivolous work. I’m with you there. But a brain surgeon or a heart surgeon… They deserve the big bucks. I don’t care at all that they can afford a German car and a small general aviation plane. I care more about the working class not being able to afford a decent new car and the billionaire that has to decide which super car to drive that day.
My wife’s grandparents used to live in a sky park like that. Right before the birth of my second child I was laid off and my wife was doing her student teaching. Suddenly in a rough situation with no income. Her grandparents came to visit for Christmas and their way of commiserating with us was to say, “I know how it is; we just had to sell our second airplane…” No irony, not joking. They honestly felt that losing one of their airplanes was equitable to losing a job with 2 babies in the house. It’s ok though, I came out on top. I have a job now and they’re both dead.
I have a model of an F-14 I made as a kid, Microsoft flight sim and a 15 year old flight stick. Does that count? Full disclosure, the F-14 is missing a vertical stabilizer now.
I lived adjacent to a neighborhood like this. It was much quieter than middle aged neighbors with Harley’s. Little Cessnas and Pipers are not that loud.
I’ve lived under a flight path, ~9km/6miles from the airport - while I understand the difference between a 787 and a Cessna 172, I’ve got no earthly idea why anyone would choose to have a runway in their front yard.
I live basically across the street from an Air Force base so I get turboprops over the house at 1,000 feet starting at about 7:00 5-6 days a week. Doesn’t bother me or my wife, we just like planes.
It’s a training base so we’ve got both here. I’m just on the prop side. Cargo planes are super fun too, used to fly C-17s over my old house all the time before we moved here.
Jet Assisted Takeoff - The gif is Fat Albert which is part of the Blue Angels. There was a plan to use jet-assisted landing and takeoff to rescue hostages in Iran but it wasn’t used after a failed test of the landing jets.
C130s were designed to operate from relatively short unimproved runways. If the place has enough runway to operate corporate jets, it should have enough for a C130.
EDIT: This place only has enough runway (2998 x 50 ft ) for small Cessna size aircraft, so no jets or C130s.
You’re right. This is just evidence of a modern well-run supply chain.
Amazon does this better than anyone, and you’ll commonly find products available in different colors with each having a slightly different price. These prices change dynamically based on trends like historic and forecasted demand, current on hand quantities, and many other factors.
Edit to add: Some more advanced brick and mortar stores (see B&H Photo in NYC) use electronic price displays in the shelving to allow them to change prices more dynamically without incurring the labor costs of restickering and retagging product.
If the die costs $0.03 per km of cable they have to mark it up at the factory, which means the disty needs to mark it up, so the retailer has to mark it up.
Indeed, one of our regional airports has housing with taxi ways to the runway as well. Instead of garages for cars they have hangers for the planes and cars.
These exist all across the country! Here’s a fun fact, the street signs are all 2 feet tall in these neighborhoods so that even low-wing airplanes can make turns around corners that have signs without risk of completely destroying their plane.
Little known fact. Airplanes still use leaded fuel. I’ll bet that the blood levels for all of these families are elevated. Not a great place to raise a kid.
Yep, and the FAA is taking it’s sweet time to approve a new unleaded fuel for general aviation that shows a lot of promise called G100UL. It’s estimated it could take another 6-9 years. Otherwise it’s currently only approved for specific planes and not available at most airports and aerodromes.
It’s approved as of last fall, but the FAA spent well over a decade stonewalling it with unnecessary bureaucracy.
Now we’re left with the chicken-and-egg problem of the market, where nobody will offer unleaded because it’s more expensive, but it’s expensive because it’s not widely used. The feds should subsidize it down to $4/gal for 5 years to get it off the ground.
Clarification: Only piston aircraft require leaded fuel. Which is unfortunately a pretty big part of the general aviation market, but similarly sized turboprops do also exist (though are more expensive) and it doesn’t apply to modern commercial aviation at all.
No, G100UL is still going through the FAA approval process. But it’s been approved for many specific engines already, but the majority still aren’t allowed to use it. For a full FAA approval we could be waiting another 6-9 years.
The Next big problem is availability, which will only come with time. There are only a few airfields around that stock the fuel. (And from what I can tell… none that are here in Australia)
Interesting, now I guess we need general availability and maybe a ban on leaded fuels. Still gonna take some number of years before that happens, especially given the vast majority of oil companies don’t really care all that much.
Also now the FAA approved it, we just need every other agency in every other country to also approve it, should be a lot easier to do so now the FAA has and has the test data to offer.
mildlyinteresting
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