Avgas in France has reached $7.50/gal !

Well, it seems a lot of French can afford it.
Hence the number of aerodromes(aprox 400 open for public use, not
counting MLA fields) and French aircraft(a lot).

If you have money enough you do not care what it costs.

-Kees

wrote in message
oups.com...
Well, it seems a lot of French can afford it.
Hence the number of aerodromes(aprox 400 open for public use, not
counting MLA fields) and French aircraft(a lot).

Hmm...they have more airport than Texas, though they are smaller and much
more densely populated. Texas also has some 15,000 registered aircraft (AOPA
GA Fact Sheet). Something is fishy here.

Matt Barrow wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

Well, it seems a lot of French can afford it.
Hence the number of aerodromes(aprox 400 open for public use, not
counting MLA fields) and French aircraft(a lot).


Hmm...they have more airport than Texas, though they are smaller and much
more densely populated. Texas also has some 15,000 registered aircraft (AOPA
GA Fact Sheet). Something is fishy here.

That's irrelavant. How many operations a year do they have?

Strangely, I could find no statistics about French pilots. Anyone know
how many pilots are in France?

However, here are the French airport statistics:

Airports - with paved runways:
Total: 283

Airports - with unpaved runways:
total: 195

Heliports:
3

In other words, France has about the same number of airports as
Wisconsin and Illinois -- making French aviation hardly a topic worthy
of continued discussion.

Anyone who might doubt that aviation is dead in France (by comparison
with the US) should note that the US has more than 19,000 airports,
meaning that France has around 2% of the airports we have.

Some more stats from France:

Category of Aircraft / Number of aircraft
Aeroplane 6347
Amphibius 1
Balloon 675
Glider 1669
Gyroplane 1
Helicopter 792
Other 63

I'm assuming that this number includes all French commercial airliners.
Since the US has around 211,000 aircraft, France has about 3% of the
number of aircraft of the US.

So, I guess the bottom line is that aviation in France is simply
irrelevant, dead or not. Given the miniscule number of airplanes,
airports, and pilots in France, it's surprising to me that they haven't
eliminated avgas taxes all together.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

BTW: With France's population of 60 million (compared to the US
population of 295 million), statistically France should be expected to
have around 42,000 aircraft and 3,800 airports, all things being equal.


Since they have 6300 and 481, respectively, I'd say their avgas prices
have done a remarkably good job of killing aviation in France.

Of course, this comparison doesn't take into account France's tiny (by
comparison) land-mass (which means they don't have room for as many
airports), but it nevertheless highlights what a horrendous impact
outrageous over-taxation can have on aviation.

What a dunderheaded thing to do!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination

"JH" == Jay Honeck writes:

JH BTW: With France's population of 60 million (compared to the
JH US population of 295 million), statistically France should be
JH expected to have around 42,000 aircraft and 3,800 airports,
JH all things being equal.

And we should have bullet trains, great scenery, world-class cities,
and great wine and cheese. Well, California has all but the first.
How's Iowa doing? World-class hog-calling contests, maybe?

JH Of course, this comparison doesn't take into account France's
JH tiny (by comparison) land-mass (which means they don't have
JH room for as many airports), but it nevertheless highlights
JH what a horrendous impact outrageous over-taxation can have on
JH aviation.

JH What a dunderheaded thing to do!

It's actually rather intelligent. Smallish land area, larger
population, means it's ideal for high-speed transit: airlines and fast
trains. Add some good highways, which they have, and voila, a pretty
decent place to live.

In article ,
Bob Fry wrote:

It's actually rather intelligent. Smallish land area, larger
population, means it's ideal for high-speed transit: airlines and fast
trains. Add some good highways, which they have, and voila, a pretty
decent place to live.

that stuff is neither necessary nor sufficient for a decent place to live.

--
Bob Noel
looking for a sig the lawyers will like

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Bob Fry wrote:

It's actually rather intelligent. Smallish land area, larger
population, means it's ideal for high-speed transit: airlines and fast
trains. Add some good highways, which they have, and voila, a pretty
decent place to live.

that stuff is neither necessary nor sufficient for a decent place to live.


For Fry it is.

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
[...]
that stuff is neither necessary nor sufficient for a decent place to live.

And aviation is?

Frankly, I'm not that surprised Jay continues to dig his hole. He's just
not the kind of guy to engage in any sort of retrospection. Suffice to say,
however, that:

* Aviation seems to be reasonably healthy in France in the first place,
in spite of the gas prices (his analysis is completely lacking, never mind
that correlation does not show causation)

* Even if the French people decided to eliminate aviation, if that's
what they want to do as a people, I don't see what's so "dunderheaded" about
that. Not the course I'd take, but I fail to see how it's an inherently
"dunderheaded" thing to do.

* Even if it were "dunderheaded" to do so, calling an entire country
"dunderheaded" is still offensive. It's no different than calling all
Americans "dunderheaded", just because 50% of them were "dunderheaded"
enough to reelect a president who willfully fabricated justification for a
war. The other 50% weren't, and saying they are is offensive.

Bob F, I appreciate you pointing out that this isn't so much about getting
Jay to understand his errors (a futile goal, if ever there was one) as it is
about showing the rest of the readership that not all participants of this
newsgroup are as narrow-minded and bigoted as Jay. But I think we've
accomplished that goal...we're not going to get anywhere by continuing to
feed the bigots.

Pete

Since they have 6300 and 481, respectively, I'd say their avgas prices
have done a remarkably good job of killing aviation in France.

There are other reasons, of course, one being that (in effect, for
most purposes) there is no VFR flight.

Most European nations are, by American standards, very congested. It's
probably not a coincidence that the only European posting here
regularly flies on the Isle of Man.

The multiplicity of languages must also be a considerable problem.
It's one thing to travel in Switzerland by road, but doing it in a
lightplane must be a bit scary. French and German (never mind
Italian!) are just not that similar. Add to that the tradition that
ATC should speak in English, and that altitude is expressed in feet
when you are accustomed to meters. Even if you trust yourself to be
perfectly bi- or tri-lingual, how can you be sure that the gent you're
talking to is equally blessed?

-- all the best, Dan Ford

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