That said, flying cross-country at 500 AGL, just because
the view is better, strikes me as tempting fate a wee bit too much.

I fail to see what passing a snowplow and dramatizing the resulting
tragedy has to do with aviation.

In any case, the same can reasonably be said of jumping out of a
perfectly good airplane is also tempting fate a wee bit too much, as
is climbing a mountain on foot, flying single pilot night IFR in the
Pathfinder, or doing aerobatics.. In fact, one very experienced
member of my flying club maintains that the autopilot should be used
all the time, and to hand fly puts passengers in grave danger.

I won't even =mention= what the life-shortening stress of running an
aviation-themed hotel as opposed to taking some nice, safe job such as
chartered accountancy does to your poor wife and children when you are
raced to the hospital with a heart attack after the last guest stiffed
the maids, who then quit en masse just before the big convention. Who
will comfort them at the gravesite? Your relatives and friends will
be any less devastated?

Just like *that*, all your life's dreams gone, in the blink of an eye.

That said, I ask you - why do you fly in those dangerous crazy
contraptions in the first place? I've read some of the stories you've
posted, and while I wouldn't call them "crazy", some of them have
given me pause to wonder.

Jose
--
Money: What you need when you run out of brains.
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