AOPA talking rubbish

Ron Rosenfeld wrote in
:

That's because the percentage of population that are pilots in the
European countries is much less than in the US.

Hmmm, why is that?

--

"Dylan Smith" wrote in message ...
: On 2007-02-20, Orval Fairbairn wrote:
: I'm not sure what is being referenced as "rubbish."
:
: The AOPA article being exaggerated. My own situation is proof that the
: AOPA article is a gross exaggeration. However, AOPA is quite right to
: want to lobby *against* user fees. AOPA rails against the popular press
: for writing distortions and half truths - they need to apply that
: standard to themselves too!
:
: Other than that, AOPA is quite right to lobby against insane user fees.
:
: --
: Yes, the Reply-To email address is valid.
: Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de



How does your situation provide proof that the AOPA article is a gross exaggeration?

On 19 Feb., 00:00, "Chris" wrote:
Read the following in the February edition of AOPA magazine by Thomas Haines
the editor in chief.

"General aviation of the future may look like that in Europe today -
where user fees have existed for years. There only the ultrawealthy fly
anything. The wealthy fly microlights and non of them enjoy the robust
infrastructure that we enjoy in this country."

OK, to add my 2 cents here,
I'm a German PPL-Holder. I have talked to people who went to the US to
build time, have a nice pilot-trip or whatever. They all agreed that
its considerably cheaper in the US and comperatively less buerocratic
(sp?).
It really semms to be cheaper and easier to get access to GA in the
US, and the place is a lot more GA-friendly.
Still it is only that it is more expensive here not completely out of
reach for almost everyone. There are clubs, you can join, get the
license and fly. But because it is more expensive, you have to be
enough of a geek to really do it. Owning planes seems to be a lot more
expensive to, because you see a lot of N-registered planes here
(relatively), and there are really few who go all the way and own a
plane or a share.
I am a software developer and I'm not exactly poor, but certainly not
overly wealthy. If I had a job with less pay, I would still have gone
ahead and obtained my PPL because I really wanted to. When I talk to
people who earn about what I do, most of them tell me its too
expensive, too much hassle, they stick to riding a motor bike. Or
whatever.

The problem is, you can hardly compare the pay between the US and
Germany e.g. and much less between the US and all of Europe.
In the club where I learned to fly and still fly, there are quite a
few people who are not wealthy, even some who are considerably less
wealthy than me. You know, you can always fly gliders or something,
which is cheaper.

So, the bottom line is: no, its not only for the overly wealthy in
Europe. Anyone getting paid for his job should be able to go for a
license. But because its much more expensive and to some extend more
complicated, a whole lot of people just dont do it.
But it is true that you (the US GA pilot community) should stand up
against these fees, because if you dont, your GA will end up just like
ours is today. Maybe even worse.

It is nice to hear that the head of EASA tries to shape the european
GA ike the US one. But from my experience, the buerocrats and
politicians will screw this up. Just as always. I mean, I'm supporting
groups that are trying to make GA more accessible here, but as you all
know, our community is small, getting older and is in the end all but
unheard.

OK, my 2 cents.

Regards,

Peer

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 23:25:25 -0000, "Chris"
wrote in :


"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
. ..
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 19:24:35 -0000, "Chris"
wrote in :

The US has one ATC system, Europe has nearly 40.

Isn't the fact that they are all in compliance with International
Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards, make that a moot point?

Not at all. They may all be in compliance with ICAO but that does not stop
the airspace systems being different,

Take Class E airspace - basically none existent in the UK but as soon as
you
cross the FIR into French airspace it is class E.

Our class D is treated like the US class B and we have class down to the
surface - in fact a lot of our airspace below 19000 ft is class A.

In Sweden there is no class A or B airspace.

In the UK there is no night VFR, its either SVFR in CAS or IFR. You can
fly
IFR without an instrument rating as long as the conditions are VMC. This
is
not allowed in France.

You only have to go through the respective AIPs to see the differences
posted by each country from the ICAO norm.

The some countries are in a customs union and some are not so travelling
from UK to France requires a stop at a customs airfield but going from
France to Germany does not. And so it goes on.

In Germany one sets 0021 on the transponder for VFR flight below 5000' and
0022 above. In the UK it is 7000.

The of course there are the aeronautical charts - all different.

And all this for a trip no further than say Albany to Boston.


I had no idea. Thanks.

My pleasure

Now then back to the point, fancy going through all of that in the US with
each state doing its own thing. Would it be any surprise that people don't
both flying.

On the point of European airspace harmonisation, whose standards are they
going to use? The reality is that it will be a compromise so everyone will
have to learn a new system, but the French will have their opt outs, the
Germans theirs etc.

"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
Orval Fairbairn wrote:

In article ,
Matt Whiting wrote:


Stefan wrote:


Ron Rosenfeld schrieb:


Is there a need to tell such lies?
Do you guys believe it?


I suppose it is one reason why Europe, with a population more than two
and
half times that of the United States, has a fraction of the GA
activity.


Which gives you the answer: Yes, there are people who believe this
rubbish.

I've yet to see any proof that it is rubbish.

Matt


I'm not sure what is being referenced as "rubbish."

Is it the AOPA alarms? Is it the European socialist attitude towards GA?
Is it the idea that some people are not paying their "fair share" (as
defined by those making the claims)?

I haven't read the a AOPA comments, but I think the gist of it is that
they claimed that GA was much less accessible in Europe than in the USA. I
personally believe this to be true, but admittedly haven't seen anything
even approximating data on this topic. I'd like to see the percentages of
the population in a few European countries that are GA pilots and aircraft
owners vs. the US. I haven't had time to search much yet, but thought
some of the folks who live in Europe and who were claiming that the AOPA
assertion was rubbish would step up with some data.

The AOPA claim was that only the ultrawealthy fly anything and the wealthy
only fly microlights. That is what's being said is rubbish. Such a sweeping
generalisation is simply not true.

Its on the same scale as saying all Americans are rednecks.

"Ron Rosenfeld" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 10:11:29 -0000, Dylan Smith
wrote:

On 2007-02-19, Ron Rosenfeld wrote:
I suppose it is one reason why Europe, with a population more than two
and
half times that of the United States, has a fraction of the GA activity.
--ron

Europe isn't nearly as homogenous as the United States in terms of
wealth. Europe (just the European Union) includes countries like Romania
and Bulgaria where just owning a *car* is a struggle - these countries
are still recovering from decades of Soviet rule and have economies
which are in a desperate condition even compared to France (let alone
the United States). If you look at Europe in a wider context than just
the EU, you end up with countries like Albania with a GDP per capita of
$5600 (compared with the GDP per capita of the United States which is
$43500 - almost 10 times higher).

That's very true. There are certainly areas of the US with similar
disadvantages. The inner cities and some rural areas come to mind.
Probably not as poor as Romania, though.

You can't really think of Europe in the same terms as the fifty states
of the US. Europe is pretty disparate in both wealth and culture. It's
not like an equivalent of the US where they speak funny languages.

Even if GA in Europe had no regulation whatsoever, there would be a lot
less GA activity in Europe than in the United States.

There is some good news though - the head of EASA has said he wants to
reduce the regulatory burden on GA and see it as 'healthy as it is in
the United States'. It remains to be seen whether they will actually
implement it, but over the last 18 months they have been making the
right noises. They even listened to and accepted the responses from GA
pilots over the Single European Sky which shocked the hell out of me.

That's good. My only experience with European flying is a bit of flying
in
the Azores, in a Portugese registered a/c. It seemed it was more
difficult
and expensive to obtain a temporary license. The flying privileges were
significantly more limited to what I have in the US.

Well if you can to the UK you could use your FAA certificate and not worry
about a temporary certificate at all because its not needed. However in a G
reg you would be limited to day VFR only but in an N reg you would have full
privileges.

Now how easy is that.

wrote in message
oups.com...
On 19 Feb., 00:00, "Chris" wrote:
Read the following in the February edition of AOPA magazine by Thomas
Haines
the editor in chief.

"General aviation of the future may look like that in Europe today -
where user fees have existed for years. There only the ultrawealthy fly
anything. The wealthy fly microlights and non of them enjoy the robust
infrastructure that we enjoy in this country."

OK, to add my 2 cents here,
I'm a German PPL-Holder. I have talked to people who went to the US to
build time, have a nice pilot-trip or whatever. They all agreed that
its considerably cheaper in the US and comperatively less buerocratic
(sp?).
It really semms to be cheaper and easier to get access to GA in the
US, and the place is a lot more GA-friendly.
Still it is only that it is more expensive here not completely out of
reach for almost everyone. There are clubs, you can join, get the
license and fly. But because it is more expensive, you have to be
enough of a geek to really do it. Owning planes seems to be a lot more
expensive to, because you see a lot of N-registered planes here
(relatively), and there are really few who go all the way and own a
plane or a share.
I am a software developer and I'm not exactly poor, but certainly not
overly wealthy. If I had a job with less pay, I would still have gone
ahead and obtained my PPL because I really wanted to. When I talk to
people who earn about what I do, most of them tell me its too
expensive, too much hassle, they stick to riding a motor bike. Or
whatever.

The problem is, you can hardly compare the pay between the US and
Germany e.g. and much less between the US and all of Europe.
In the club where I learned to fly and still fly, there are quite a
few people who are not wealthy, even some who are considerably less
wealthy than me. You know, you can always fly gliders or something,
which is cheaper.

So, the bottom line is: no, its not only for the overly wealthy in
Europe. Anyone getting paid for his job should be able to go for a
license. But because its much more expensive and to some extend more
complicated, a whole lot of people just dont do it.
But it is true that you (the US GA pilot community) should stand up
against these fees, because if you dont, your GA will end up just like
ours is today. Maybe even worse.

It is nice to hear that the head of EASA tries to shape the european
GA ike the US one. But from my experience, the buerocrats and
politicians will screw this up. Just as always. I mean, I'm supporting
groups that are trying to make GA more accessible here, but as you all
know, our community is small, getting older and is in the end all but
unheard.

OK, my 2 cents.

Regards,

Peer

Spot on, perhaps European flyers are more dedicated to their passion as it
is tougher and you need to be more flexible and resilient to keep going in
the face of what to you Americans seems impossible odds.

I hope as well you win the battle to avoid user fees for purely selfish
reasons.

I still have a lot of the US to explore by light aircraft which I hope to
get out of my system over the next 10 years.

I have already done E coast to W coast, RI, to Ca and back and now I want to
doing NW to SE and SW to NE and then finish off NE to SE.

The next great adventure in will be to fly a light aircraft to and then
across China which I think will be possible in 10 years time. Now that would
be the ultimate experience.

On Feb 20, 8:42 pm, "Blueskies" wrote:
"Dylan Smith" wrote in ...

: On 2007-02-20, Orval Fairbairn wrote:
: I'm not sure what is being referenced as "rubbish."
:
: The AOPA article being exaggerated. My own situation is proof that the
: AOPA article is a gross exaggeration. However, AOPA is quite right to
: want to lobby *against* user fees. AOPA rails against the popular press
: for writing distortions and half truths - they need to apply that
: standard to themselves too!
:
: Other than that, AOPA is quite right to lobby against insane user fees.
:
: --
: Yes, the Reply-To email address is valid.
: Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute:http://oolite-linux.berlios.de

How does your situation provide proof that the AOPA article is a gross exaggeration?

A more honest argument would be that eliminating the massive tax
subsidies that go to the thousands of GA airports (for capital as well
as operating purposes), would increase the costs to GA. The FACT is
that GA AV gas taxes, at 19.3 cents per gallon, contribute roughly 5%
to the Aviation Trust Fund. Boyer cannot change this, and therefore
never refers to this critical fact. You think that only 5% or so of
the entire FAA budget gets allocated to GA? Well, the Bureau of
Transportation Statistics thinks otherwise, as do influential think
tanks such as the Reason Foundation.
The fact is that capital and operating grants to the thousands of GA
airports are paid mostly by passengers on commercial airliners and by
the general taxpaying public (due to the General Fund contribution
that the Destroyer is trying so desperately to keep).

As Boyer has said (absurdly), commercial ticket taxes don't hurt the
commercial carriers because they pass it on to the passengers. OK, if
this is true, maybe rather than user fees the FBOs should be charged a
separate tax to cover the full cost of operating and equipping the
airport at which they are based. It won't hurt them: they can simply
pass it on to the users, just like the commercial carriers do.

Oh, yeah, commercial carriers (which transport millions of people
every year) are "special interests" according to the AOPA, which is
apparently not a special interest, but instead is concerned with good
public policy.

You think that only 5% or so of
the entire FAA budget gets allocated to GA?

As you know, where money is spent isn't the same as where that money
provides the benefit.

The fact is that capital and operating grants to the thousands of GA
airports are paid mostly by passengers on commercial airliners...

....who benefit by having us spam cans land at those airports instead of
at the ones with long lines of jets waiting to take off.

Jose
--
Humans are pack animals. Above all things, they have a deep need to
follow something, be it a leader, a creed, or a mob. Whosoever fully
understands this holds the world in his hands.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jose" wrote

...who benefit by having us spam cans land at those airports instead of at
the ones with long lines of jets waiting to take off.

Not to mention that the chances are pretty good that the person in the front
of their airliner doing the driving, was probably trained in one of those
small planes, at one of those small airports.
--
Jim in NC