So, I was reading Charles Krauthammer’s seminal (sorry) “Don’t Touch My Junk” op-ed in the WaPo today:
The ultimate idiocy is the full-body screening of the pilot. The pilot doesn’t need a bomb or box cutter to bring down a plane. All he has to do is drive it into the water, like the EgyptAir pilot who crashed his plane off Nantucket while intoning “I rely on God,” killing all on board.
But we must not bring that up. We pretend that we go through this nonsense as a small price paid to ensure the safety of air travel. Rubbish. This has nothing to do with safety – 95 percent of these inspections, searches, shoe removals and pat-downs are ridiculously unnecessary. The only reason we continue to do this is that people are too cowed to even question the absurd taboo against profiling – when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow, concrete, uniquely definable and universally known. So instead of seeking out terrorists, we seek out tubes of gel in stroller pouches.
The junk man’s revolt marks the point at which a docile public declares that it will tolerate only so much idiocy. Metal detector? Back-of-the-hand pat? Okay. We will swallow hard and pretend airline attackers are randomly distributed in the population.
But now you insist on a full-body scan, a fairly accurate representation of my naked image to be viewed by a total stranger? Or alternatively, the full-body pat-down, which, as the junk man correctly noted, would be sexual assault if performed by anyone else?
This time you have gone too far, Big Bro’. The sleeping giant awakes. Take my shoes, remove my belt, waste my time and try my patience. But don’t touch my junk.
And I was thinking, really: Maybe it’s time for a second look at that Part 135 air taxi service. I mean, the last time I ran the numbers it was hard to imagine building a small air charter business that could make any real money, once you’ve paid operating expenses. But I’m starting to believe there’s a market out there for jaunts between say, 300 and 1000 miles that take you more or less direct to your destination via a satellite airport rather via the Part 121 commercial air carrier hub and spoke system that routes you from Sandy Eggo to Fresno via Las Vegas or Oakland. With the added advantage of not having to get to the airport 90 minutes early – on a domestic flight, mind – so that you can find parking at $20 per day before being groped by a federal wage slave, get packed in like a sardine in a can between the hippy chick who hasn’t bathed since the 60s and the retired lumberjack who could stand to lose a pound or two, and then finally handed two packs of pretzels if you’re really charming. Then! You’ll get to wait at your destination for another 45 minutes while your baggage clears and jump in the public transport to the rental car agency for your sub-compact Daewoo Teensie-Weensie.
Alternatively, Sandy Eggans wishing to fly to Catalina for a weekend, Hawthorne for that bidness meeting at Manhattan Beach or Truckee for to schuss the schlopes – not to mention Vegas, baby – can meet Cap’n Lex at Montgomery Field, be in the machine in 15 minutes and dropped off at the door where a rental car awaits.
For, you know a price. Which doesn’t include groping. Unless you insist, and far be it from me to dissatisfy a customer, for we’re building our brand on the service, like.
Which leads us to the requirements of the mission. You have to be able to get there most of the time, weather notwithstanding, and there’s few of us who eagerly pine for the opportunity to cruise around in the hard clag while the ice accumulates. That leads me to a pressurized plane, like the Beech 58P Baron, for example, or maybe Cessna’s P210 if it’s six seats you want and you don’t mind having just the one engine.
The Baron can be had for between $400k and maybe $150k or so, depending on avionics, engine and airframe times. It carries six, of which one will pretty much have to be the pilot in something short of luxury to nearly a thousand miles according to Wikipedia, with 45 minutes of reserve. Operating costs are around $300 per hour with engine reserve, so a flight with a family of four from MYF to Truckee would be about two hours of flight time one way, or $600 prior to paying the pilot/owner. If the owner/operator wants to take out $100k a year from the job on 60 hours per month, he’d pay himself around $140 per hour, which adds up to $740 one way, split four ways for $185 a head.
Kayak.com tells me that an economy flight from San Diego to Reno – no flights go directly from Lindbergh to Truckee – will set you back $241 plus baggage fees with generous heapings of indignity thrown at no extra charge.
So win/win, yah?
Well, no: You can’t leave the equipment there for a week while Muffy and Biff take Heather and Aidan to the chalet, so until you get on a scheduled route, you’ll prolly have to deadhead the machine back again for other revenue generating flights until they’re ready to come home. So that’s effectively four total trips for two revenue generators, doubling the round trip cost to $370 a head. And that’s before you pay your monthly loan payment of $1800 on a mid-time, well equipped Baron 58P. Not to mention tie-down or hangaring at between $300 or $1000 per month. Let’s leave aside insurance for the nonce ($7600).
Amortizing the leaner of the two fixed costs of $2100 a month ($1800 + $300 for a simple tie-down vice a plush hangar) over a single pilot operation limited to 60 hours per month yields another $35 per hour of costs, always assuming you can generate 60 hours of business per month, which is a mighty assumption. On our notional trip to Truckee and back, that’s $280, or $70 per seat added expense: $440, nearly twice what the Part 121 carriers are charging.
Alternate platforms include the turboprop Pilatus PC-12 or the twin engined King Air. While a turboprop will be more efficient per passenger mile, the acquisition costs can be daunting: $2+ million for 10 seats for the PC-12, between one and two million for a King air with the same seating arrangement. At six percent, the note on a $2mil airplane is $14,328 per month, and the King Air 200′s operating cost is around $650 per hour (the Pilatus is only $350).
Either way, ouch.
Although… although: Planequest’s total operating cost for the PC-12 is just over $500 per hour, but that’s based on an annual usage of only 288 hours per year. Say we operate the machine only 50 hours per month on an annual basis (600 hours), we can cut the amortization of the fixed prices by over 50%: Napkin math says ~$425 per hour. A round trip to flight to Truckee and back now takes us only 3.3 hours. At the lower operating rate, we’ve got to pay Lex $166 per hour so he can pay his patriotic taxes on the full $100k, so that adds up to a total of ~$600 per hour. Total cost for the trip is $1980, and with eight pax that’s $250 or so, $500 if you’ve got to dead head between revenue flights. But all that’s before we pay $14k per month in interest on the loan, unless they’re giving them away. Which adds a whopping $280 per hour to the cost on a 50 hour month, unless we hire a staff of at least two or three additional aviators to fly the machine when Lex is sleeping.
So, I’m still not quite sure we’re there, nor am I certain how anyone makes this work.
Update: Part of the public math challenge is knowing which FAA part is air taxi, and which is scheduled carrier.
Aye. There’s the spare crew for the day or two a week when Cap’n Lex goes on Liberty, or scampers off with the Hobbit for a wee bit of R&R. Why not go for two or three or four of said platform and make it Lex’ Flying Circus, perhaps incorporating the weekend Barn Stormers into the act? Clients love to have their taxi drop them off at their own private charter flight, so there’s a part of the marketing plan (and reverse, if you please).
It’s all in the marketing, bub. It’s all in the marketing…
I’ve been wondering for some time, reading these TSA stories, why someone (or several someones) doesn’t start something like what you described. I figured the answer was “money” but I know nothing about flying. So, a dumb question: could what you propose work if several pilots, each working in turn in order to have more flying hours available, created a sort of co-op…?
The main cost for such a small operation is the hardware, not the wetware (pilots).
Having pilots fly for free or at cost would certainly reduce cost, but might not make it profitable.
It works for current operators because they target the luxury market explicitly, people willing to pay top dollar to get a private aircraft and not have to go through security lines.
Most often it’s a full service ticket including optional limo service at both ends or at least rental car.
They cater to medium size companies that need occasional business jet transport but not enough to warrant buying their own, celebrities with the same needs, people wanting something special for their 25th wedding aniversary, etc.
A decent sized market, but definitely not your average business or leasure traveller.
And of course, once/if it takes off and there’s thousands of these things buzzing around the TSA will start to impose its “security” on them too, or the Fed will reregulate them as airlines or ban them outright because they’re too far out of central control, provide unregistered movement of its subjects.
Time is money. Business will pay a lot to save hours. When a CEO is making 7 figures, it is time is more important than money.
yup. Wasn’t criticising people using private jets. I’d do it too if I could afford it and it made economic sense.
Was merely trying to get the point across why it’s not a viable option for most people to use them.
You can change “I’m still not quite sure we’re there” to “I’m quite sure we’re still not there.”
You’ve barely scratched the surface. Insurance. Certification. Maintenance. Training. Marketing. Facilities. Etc. Etc. Etc.
You make a small fortune in aviation by starting out with a very large fortune.
You make a small fortune in aviation by starting out with a very large fortune.
That made me laugh.
“I know there’s a lot of money in aviation; I put it there” is another one.
Or, “an airplane is a hole in the air you fill with money.”
Planning on buying a puddle-jumper?
Not to mention the CPA, yadda yadda yadda…..
Way back in the day, a friend and I were considering pooling our resources to purchase a C-47 and refit it with turboprops and go into the air charter service. He already had a commercial multi-engine rating. It wasn’t a problem talking about acquisition costs, fuel, etc. The real costs that put the kibosh on things were the insurance rates, maintenance, hanger fees, airport fees, etc. It’s all that ancillary stuff that sucks the profit right out of it.
Those costs will eat you up. I wonder if a small carrier can sell their paper losses like the major players?
Air Taxi is 135, airlines 121, just to be clear.
I have a Twin Beech for sale that will haul 8 and baggage in 1950s comfort with a lot more style. Pax might not agree, though.
Since it has ‘nose art’ I’m in, like Yesterday. Nice plane.
A bee-yoo-tee-ful bird Tailspin! Maybe you and Cap’n Lex could do a joint venture!
The first people the guys in Florida hired were Ops Analysis types and programmers. Idea was to have a fleet of 600(?) VLJs doing point to point at business class costs using algorithms based on those the truckers use. They went down the tubes with the economy, but the idea still strikes me as one who’s time is right.
That interactive cockpit, that was way cool.
We are going through certification on a Rolls Royce powered (RB-211) B757-200 passenger airplane that will be marketed moving professional and college sports teams. The cost model is somewhat similar, just different numbers. Also have 164 seats, 12 first and 152 coach. Hope to sign up the Boston Red Sox for the season for about 90 hours of flyign over 6 months (Mar-Oct). I need to sell another 1000 hours to make this thing hum. Any ideas are welcome. First revenue flights Dec 20th or so depending on the FAA Initial Operating Experience flights.
Just need enough guys making these runs to get the demand up. Then a dispatch/clearing house like used by independent truckers might be able to make it work.
Can’t compete with the airlines. They can somehow run decades in the red, declare bankruptcy, re-do their ‘business model’, and somehow come back and do it all over again……MULTIPLE TIMES!!!!!
As far as the TSA thing at IND……think VERTICAL BUTTSTROKE. Problem solved. Pick up your nail clippers and proceed back onto the airplane.
121 = Scheduled Air Carrier
135 = On demand Charter
Lex, like you say, “small fortune out of big fortune.” BUT, I canlink you up with guys with lots of ops experience in P210′s and 58P’s if you’re looking to while away the time. Oh, and bring lots and lots and lots of printer paper, you’ll need it just to document every single thing the FAA will demand for you to maintain your 135 ticket.
There is another way, however, and it’s legit and works under Part 91. But you need owners with deep pockets as they will be official owners of the aircraft. Kind of like a fractional, but different.
Dude,
you forget the “free” factor. Many pilots (me included) would love free flight time, or at least a free burger and coke at the other end. I’m in favor of a King Air taxi service. Pretty comfy, even a potty and coffee pot, good legs, de-ice capable, WX radar, and a solid coupled AP. The Lance is nice but shhhh, don’t tell her, she is getting slower by the day. 160 kts just ain’t what it used to be.
I volunteer for 20 hrs per month. Lipitor optional to defray the burgers’ impact.
Is anyone renting out this type of aircraft? Does anyone know someone (multiple someones) looking for a tax loss? If the rental rate is reasonable, would that make this thing work?
I would love to see this work, if you could get the ticket prices within 15 to 25 percent of the airlines, it might be a viable plan.
Paul
OT but the word needs to be spread:
Dept. of Veterans’ Affairs has an important blog now-
http://www.blogs.va.gov/VAntage/
Saw it on Army of Dude
All this chat makes me look forward to the flight home for Thanksgiving even more. Fortunately, the wife and I will probably not be “radiated” nor groped at ROA. However, returning from MSY, all bets are off. I just hope that all the burly male TSA types have taken the day off when we return and that only the cute blondes are on duty when we leave. In that case, I’m going to set off all kinds of alarms and opt out for the grip and grope. Sure hope the wife doesn’t object.
If the general public ever becomes aware of the relative ease with which flying is done by the executive business community, the pathetic airborne bus service they now endure will come to a fast end (except perhaps for the cheaper charters).
Not only do corporate aircraft (props, jets, helos) knock hours off executive automobile commutes, they eliminate the current TSA hassel and arrive both ends earlier by eliminating any hub and spoke rigamaroles.
Nice to know, Lex, that someone is actually tracking the costs. When the paying public finally wakes up to real possibilities, demand will begin to ramp up and volume will certainly allow decreased costs, as well. – That is, if there is still a middle class.
I am seriously thinking about upgrading, say a Mooney M-20C. No airtaxi but personal transportation, fair economy for the 180 horsepower and a 150 knot cruise for just the two of us. The wife says as soon those scanners are put in locally, we will no longer fly commercial air. The maggots holed up in the Hindu Kush have won. It ain’t Sharia law but the government has now redefined the Constitutional rights of American citizens. Krauthammer is right on. What do you think the reaction of the Founders? And they thought The Quartering Act was an outrage, now the government can get into your knickers without your permission. Some dipship TSA supervisor made the comment to the guy in SD that he surrendered his rights when he bought the airline ticket. That is what happens when the government gets to think for you and no one calls them on it. Security is one thing, arrogant politically correct idiocy is another.
M20C is a great airplane, Dust, fast and economical.
Used to work for a company that would pay coach or cost, whichever was less. If the meeting or conferences was 700 miles or less from Columbus OH the Mooney got me there, and that covered a good piece of the US. I arrived enthused and eager, not beat and pissed.
If you don’t know Gordon Baxter, a Mooney enthusiast, you’ll really enjoy everything he writes. If this one doesn’t wet your appetite, nothing will. It might be blasphemy, but I give him just an edge over Richard Bach and Ernie Gann because of his downtoearthness.
Gordon Baxter was never a fighter pilot during WWII. He was, however, a great writer who knew how to express the feelings in the soul of every pilot and aviation enthusiast without being overly dramatic.
I highly recommend his “Logs of a Pasture Pilot” and the sequel, “More Logs of a Pasture Pilot”.
You’re right, and he wrote for Flying, not Aviation magazine. He wrote for Car and Driver first, as I recall.
Bax had tried to go the Aviation Cadet routine in the AAF. He had a good column that was worth reading. Not soemthing that you read to be informed about the nuts and bolts of flying, that was for Richard Collins to handle. Bax wrote about why you fly.
Bax and Len Morgan went back in the early oughts, alas, and both are now dead. Alas.
Tailspin,
Great piece to read. In sort of a Lexish way. There’s a nice M-20C in Barnstormers for what I would call a very reasonable price. Prolly needs a really good pre-buy inspection tho. I’ll have to look up the books Advokaat. “Pasture” piloting is pretty much what I do now. 98% of all my flying is off of grass. Wheels last a long time that way. Best,
What? …No Stinson?
Wilko, Love Stinson 108s but in regards to the travel issues above, the Stinson 108 has two serious drawbacks for me. First, I am 6’2″ and 230 and the seat is still designed for a 1946 sized American. I like flying it but a two plus hour flight gets uncomfortable. Rudder pedals don’t adjust and the seat is designed for someone about 5’9″ max. With the conventional gear, it is an imperative to keep one’s heels flat on the floor on final and roll out as you know. Between that and the johnson bar flap handle up that leaves little room for the yoke for the alerons. After having flown one for 5 hours I figured out why they named it the 108- it cruises at 108. Mph that is. Still they got great lines and the charm of the post-war period.
Dust, what species of 108 did you fly? Thinking seriously about a -2 or -3 as I begin my “descent to the initial” flying-wise over the next 20 years or so. I’m ~6′/205#’s and have sat in a -2, but no flight time. Yet.
CJ,
Flew a 108-1 with the six cylinder 150Hp Franklin but the -2 and -3 pretty much have the same interior dimensions. I have heard the seats are different in the -3 but have the same range of travel. If you get the opportunity to sit in one again, pull johnson bar all the way up to full flaps with the throttle at idle. Pull the yoke out to neutral and see if how much lateral movement you get. That will tell you how you’ll physically fit as you are trimming up on downwind for base and final. I found out the hard way. On my first base and final when I was getting my Stinson checkride. I’ll suspect you’ll be fine at your size. Two inches on the legs is a lot.
I joined the Stinson Discussion Forum over on Yahoo.com. Well worth your checking them out as a great source of all things Stinsonness.
As you probably know, the difference from the -1 to the -2/-3 is that they have the 165 hp Franklin. The -3 has the bigger tail and rudder and 50 gallon fuel capacity. There are some Stinsons with engine upgrades/swaps to 180hp or greater. Univair has a kit and STC. That would make them a fantastic airplane. I enjoyed the Stinson as it had excellent aleron response,easy to keep the ball centered in turns and just a great solid feel. Landings were smooth and definite with no float and didn’t show me a tendency to want to swap ends once the tail wheel was on the turf. It liked to settle on three point but wheel landings are easy. On base and final, I found you needed to carry a little power or keep the airspeed up, especially when on the heavy end of the envelope. Don’t know how they behave on pavement but I suspect pretty much the same. Best,
Dust, thanks for the gouge, I’ll do that. Guy in town has a 108-2 with the 165 Franklin he’s recovered and redone the engine compartment. He’s got it for sale, and I have another friend who’s thinking of letting their metalized 108-2 go. Lot so temptation; good thing I have utterly no spare cash right now or I’d be twice as poor as I am now! I also joined the Yahoo group and am following it closely.
One piece of advice I heard is that -3′s are great on floats due to the tail, but that same big tail makes crosswinds on runway more of a challenge than on a -2. 108-2′s are much better on wheels, plenty of lateral control but you need the ventral fin when you put them on floats. But becoming the caretaker of a classic tube-and-fabric aircraft for a few years has a definite appeal to me.
I want LexAir. There must be a way to make it happen. Maybe your own airfield, and a nice Quonset for the bird? You’ll probably want someplace safe outside of Cali to bug out to when the State starts hauling its citizens in for “voluntary” kidney donations to pay for its cancerous budget, anyway.
Dunno if the “manual surface check” option is safe for customers, what with the Hobbit giving the gimlet eye, but I’d probably spring for the “witty banter” upgrade from the cockpit
(I do admire you, Lex, but I like my kneecaps more.)
Dust,
Good call; I was hoping someone would see the correlation with the 3rd A. It was distinctly in opposition to “national security” interests.
Good book here on just this subject….
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL1095329M/Commuter_airlines_of_the_United_States
Required reading I would opine.
With the amalgamation of global networked behemoths, perhaps it is time for a new genus of marsupials to spring up.
The one guy who could pull it all together…if he were so inclined…is this dude…
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100928/NEWS11/100929749
In my busy screening of the Internet today, I discovered one essay on the misbehavior of the TSA toward America’s flying public which contained the germ of a good idea.
In the next months and years, we are going to be having many members of the military returning from deployment in our latest wars. Many of them may not be able to walk back into their former jobs. The great majority of these vets are bright, disciplined and know how to be respectful of others. The suggestion was that they would make a vastly superior staff for the security screeners of the flying public. God knows they could hardly be worse.
Frankly, I would far rather be screened by a bright, respectful, courteous youg man or woman who knows how to use his/her head in dealing with the flying public than I would by these deck apes who currently seem to be manning the naked body scanners and intrusive pat-downs, and making fun of the elderly, the infirm, the Nuns and little screaming three year old girls.
Of course, there are always some bad apples in every barrel. But the number of bad apples in the TSA screening staff far outweighs statistical expectations. If I owned a private security firm I would be snapping up some of these bright young ex-military people for my staff. And I’d be advertising to airports all over the country the superior qualities of my private security staff over the badly trained, arrogant and discourteous folks who currently work for TSA as screeners.
What do you all think? Now, be gentle … we old folks are sensitive.
Marianne
Interesting thoughts, as I’ve wondered about the troops coming back, and what jobs will they get.
The best private Security Officers I know are former military, and we sure as heck owe them help in making the transition.
Hopefully the trend of airports opting out of TSA, with the intent to provide provide private security, will continue.
Course, I would like to see the TSA abolished, but that, as they say, is another story. When I read yesterday that the Federal Labor Relations Board ruled that “In a significant victory for federal employee unions, the Federal Labor Relations Authority decided Friday that Transportation Security Administration staffers will be allowed to vote on union representation.” http://wapo.st/cxZkIb it almost made me ill.
Cap,
It seems as though many a fine scheme falls afoul of the ruinous costs of your beloved Sandy Eggo. P’raps it’s time (and then some) for to hie thee hither. $100k/year is not a necessity everywhere.
Just sayin’.
Low level aerobatics, Combat sorties; Bush pilot flying. Not much margin for error.
Commercial Aviation start-ups? Even less margin for error.
Flying passengers can be a tough, tough business given the economic climate, thin margins, and the vagaries of consumer sentiments. Still, I, like Lex, have frequently wondered what it might be like to make money in anything related to flying. This article suggests it’s not for the faint hearted
It takes a compelling idea, skill, and tremendous quantities of drive and money to make it. Commercial Aviation entrepreneurs share this pilot tendency: We both manage risks and no one expects they will become a statistic.
Unfortunatley, if we were lucky enough to make this thing work economically, it may create enough operators to gain scrutiny and prompt the TSA to start screening PAX in GA or air charter operations and presto, back to where we started.
I took a jaunt in a Cirrus SR-22 last weekend. Glass cockpit, FADEC(almost but close enough), TCAS, side stick controllers and 200 horses under the hood. Unfortunately, only room for the PIC and 3 paying passengers alas. Still, a joy play with.
Yooper, I’m over here in Daloot. I have an ’06 SR22GTS, let me know when you want to do some more Cirrus flying. Yes, the speed is really addictive. Kind of like heroin, only more expensive.
)
There’s a company, I forget the name now, that acts as a broker for freight. You need to move a pallet from point X to point Y by Wednesday, you call them up and offer the load, size, and price. The regional broker then posts this load on the web site, at which point thousands of truck drivers waiting at truck stops and dispatchers see if that fits into their schedule and accept the offer if it does.
The service and broker take something around 15%, the driver gets the remaining 85.
Trucks get about 6mpg, burning between $30/hr and $50/hr in diesel. Then there’s the six-figure cost of the tractor portion, not to mention the trailer, tires, oil, etc… This little service has revolutionized freight hauling in the United States. You almost *never* see a semi dead-heading back to base any more. That’s just lost income.
Seems to me planes and trucks have a lot in common. And there’s a heckuva lot more trucks on the road than there are planes in the sky. I think we’ve a system that can handle the capacity and solve the delivery of breathing cargo from point A to point B for a specific cost.
– Max
Whoa, whoa, whoa . . . you got pretzels last time you flew?
I got Peanuts and Sprite from Delta this week. Twice.
I got bupkiss from American . . .
The Retrospectoscope is the only infallible instrument in science. After my Dad died I was stuck in North Georgia with no vehicle. I had already acquired a violent animus against airline flight back in the nineties (photo ID) and that was out of the question. It didn’t occur to me, for some reason, either to charter a small plane or rent a car to get back to Florida (I had sufficient money to do either, at the time). I reckon I was too messed up by the loss to think straight. By the time I bought a truck in GA and drove it home, the events which led to the loss of my inheritance had already been set in motion.
I seem to recall an effort to insinuate the TSA into air charters, that would moot the whole deal… especially as if they charge for coming out to hassle your pax for you.
Potosi,
Too late, TSA is involved in air charter. I flew from Boca Raton to Washington Dulles last week on the Challenger and the crew chief at the FBO asked me before the flight a little personal info. He had to check my name, and DOB against the “no-fly list.” There were no x-rays, metal detectors, body scans or invasive cavity checks, but rest assured, big brother is involved.
Potosi Joel … The effort to insinuate the TSA into *any* aircraft based business activity is the very reason we need to remember that sneaky little clause placed in the TSA charter by Rep. Mica — that after two years of enduring TSA, airports can choose to reject TSA screening in favor of hiring private security screeners. And some busy airports are already inquiring about this option. Of course, the government would have to pay the cost of the private screeners. And they claim the right to dictate how the screening would take place. But smart human beings like yourselves are always able to think outside the box, and take much of the stink out of the really stinky goings on in airport screening. Much of it is encapsulated in empathy for the victims and courtesy toward them. And much of it is present in our military already.
Marianne
Instead of a Baron, I’d seriously consider a Cessna Caravan for air taxi work. From what I’ve seen, the Caravan would probably be the better choice.
Ok, stupid question time. I understand about insurance costs, the planes gulp a ton of fuel compared to a typical auto, hangar fees, etc… But why are the planes so darn expensive in the first place? Is it the small size of the production run compared any single model year of autos?
Not a comment on aviation, but a comment on language. We have witenessed a significant moment in the evolution of language. Recall, if you are old enough, the Flintstones cartoon show which graced the ether in the days before cable TV and featured a line in it’s theme song “We’ll have a gay old time!”. Since then the meaning has changed but at what point in time we know not when.
However, last week was the definitive turning point for another word. No longer can a man say “I’m going to get clean up my junk in the garage.”
George V.
[...] properly allowed for, sneers at the political correctness; you name it. Neptunus Lex looks for a way around them, and one of his commenters suggests hiring ex-military to do the work. An analyst notes gravely [...]
I’d bet many including commenters above conclude “That’s the price of doing business in the modern world..” I’d contend with others that if we don’t beat these b-stards into oblivion on the battlefield, we deserve what we get.
Btw Airmail, off to Boca in the am…(-*