The subsidies to GA are MASSIVE

Skylune,

You seem to assume that the main purpose of GA airports is
entertainment for private pilots. This is incorrect.

Public GA airports are part the the U.S. transportation infrastructure.
They are essential for providing support for activities that are in
the public interest. These activities include:

Aerial Firefighting
Time critical medical tranportation
Disaster relief (often airports are the only access points to affected
areas)
U.S. Mail delivery
Package and parcel delivery
and many more...

Should private pilots have to pay the full cost of the infrastructure
if it is there to serve the public interest? If private pilots went
away tommorrow, most of the airports would still need to exist to serve
public needs, and they would receive less fuel tax support than they do
now. Talk about a subsidy!

Dean

Skylune wrote:
Now that I have again provided the amount of annual funding deriving from
GA fuel taxes (including AV GAS and Jet A), compare that to 2005 capital
grants to airports by looking at the ACTUAL 2005 DATA below. (Note that
these figures DO NOT include the $150K annual operating subsidy that many
GA airports receive.)

DAMN: the subsidies are enormous, as every informed person knows....

http://www.faa.gov/airports_airtraff...rants_2005.pdf