If there were 25 million active GA pilots...

"Dan Luke" c172rgATbellsouthDOTnet wrote:

If there were 25 million active GA pilots in the USA instead of 400,000 or so:

There would be GA airports *everywhere*.

There would also be GA *airplanes* everywhere and the number of midair
collisions would increase dramatically. It's a big sky, but not
*that* big.

You could rent a T hangar for less than the cost of a 1 br apartment.

Hangar rates would be about the same--can you say "law of supply and
demand"?

The accident rate would be about the same but the fatal accident rate would
be lower due to modern, more crashworthy designs.

Accident rates would skyrocket, both fatal and non-fatal.

You'd give the engine in your airplane about as much thought as you do the
one in your car. The idea of sending oil samples off for analysis at each
change would seem absurd.

Dream on.

Your new "family" airplane would be air conditioned. It would have a headup
synthetic vision/HITS display, emergency autoland capability, real time data
link weather and a CD/DVD player.

Air conditioning is for wimps--gain some altitude for goodness sakes.
Heads-up display? Keep your silly heads-up display. Data link? Real
time weather data link is here now and will be quite affordable in the
near future. CD player? If you're gonna be plugged into a CD player,
you'll not be piloting my airplane.

You'd have a second, "fun" airplane.

Yeah, sure. Your conclusions are as fanciful as your premise.