Jay Honeck writes:

I've given this some thought, however, and I don't see how it could
happen. For aviation to truly expand would require stepping back to a
simpler, less litigious time. We, as a society, would have to
mentally accept and treat air travel in the same casual, almost callous
way that we treat travel by road -- and that means that people are
going to die.

But it also means that they would die in much greater numbers.

I'm sure most of us have heard that the sea is less forgiving than the
land, and the air is less forgiving than the sea (and space is less
forgiving than the air). This means that death rates go up with each
type of transportation. All else being equal, far more people will
always die in the air than on the ground. Commercial airlines reverse
this by fanatical devotion to safety (most of which is admittedly
forced upon them by the government), but fundamentally aviation is
many times more dangerous than travelling on land.

So, given this state of affairs, we're going to have to settle for some
half-steps. We're only going to be able to promote GA a little at a
time, and hope that that's enough to save it, because our people are so
afraid of dying that they can never live.

The sad truth is that our society is no longer set up to embrace
freedom -- and that means that most folks will never be able to
appreciate general aviation.

I can fully agree with this part. Modern society is a culture of
fear, and a culture of fear is also one of diminishing freedoms.

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