Jay Honeck writes:

Just for fun, I have overlaid the flight plan we're currently enjoying
on a map of Europe. The results are stunning, to me, as for the same
expenditure of time we could easily have flown the following route in
Europe:

London, United Kingdom (completely over-flying Germany) to Vienna,
Austria
Vienna, Austria to Milan, Italy
Milan, Italy to Madrid, Spain

Not particularly stunning to me. It's just simple geography.

During this flight we would have overflown nine (or more) countries,
with all the complications inherent with that task, covering much of
Europe. By comparison, this flight in America has barely scratched
the Eastern Seaboard.

Nothing surprising about that, either. Every country in Europe has its own
rules for flight, often loosely based on ICAO rules, but still with enough
complications to make flight vastly more complicated in Europe.

Considering that our current flight has been almost effortless, with
minimal contact with air traffic control (VFR flight following, and,
of course, interaction with control towers at larger airfields), with
no landing fees, only a couple of parking fees, and the highest price
per gallon of avgas paid (thus far) pegged at $4.10 per gallon, it
really is a truism that you simply can't beat GA flying in the good
ol' U.S. of A.

It's mainly just a fortuitous consequence of the size of the country.

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