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Oh, and we need more people to stand up for their local airports. Corrupt local politicians, developers, and fake-NIMBY land speculators are all arrayed to dest

Oh, and we need more people to stand up for their local airports. Corrupt local politicians, developers, and fake-NIMBY land speculators are all arrayed to destroy our nation's aviation infrastructure for personal profit. Even airlines are in on it. Innovations like this unleaded fuel and electrification will cease if there's no place to deploy them. So, I think GA is great in principle, and I use some products from it (mostly digital elevation data from airborne lidar, which is amazing). But it seems to have a very large component of taxpayers footing the bill for rich guys' toys/playgrounds (particularly for the infrastructure, not for planes themselves); this opinion has been influenced by talking with people I consider honest who have worked in municipal/county government, but I don't have any numbers. Can the many GA enthusiasts here give provide some insight into the public benefit from GA? Please note that I am sort of asking to be convinced and am not being antagonistic.

reaperducer 4y ago
There are places in America that are a hundred or more miles away from the nearest hospital. These small airports are vital to rural healthcare. Sure, all those people could move to more populated places, but then you'd have nothing to eat. Source: The company I work for is slightly involved with air ambulances.
AYBABTME 4y ago
For one, there's no country in the world where the GA scene is like it is in the US. There's airports everywhere and flying is mostly accessible. As such, like US universities attract the world's students, the US GA airports attract a _ton_ of foreign pilot students. That's just one angle. Another angle: the US is a lame duck in term of mass transit infrastructure like trains. So development and advancements in those fields occurs elsewhere, like in Europe and Asia. But in the case of aviation infrastructure, US is miles ahead. And as a result, a lot more aerospace stuff happens in the US than anywhere else. It's not as directly useful to the general public as inter-city trains, but it does have a lot of positive side effects for the economy and industries. Perhaps one day, flying will simplify and become commonplace for the average person, like cars that were, as an industry, born in the US. And then on that day, it'll seem pretty smart to have nurtured general aviation and allowed aerospace to germinate. GA looks like a rich people's hobby, and it sort of is. But it's not "10M$ in the bank" rich. The middle (as a treat) and upper class can afford to fly GA. In most other countries, that's just too out of reach for most people, it's not realistically in the cards unless you want to have a career in that field.
sokoloff 4y ago
In addition to air ambulance/medevac, aerial firefighting, overnight package intake and delivery, and medical lab test samples are all things that I think have fairly broad benefit if not widespread support and rely heavily on airports other than the 100 largest in the US. In times of natural disaster, GA airplanes are often delivering support and supplies using these non-primary airports. This often happens before the larger agencies can spin up and post-hurricane can often reach areas before the roads are fully open. In rural areas, like Alaska, they’re even more utilitarian. Most of the commercial pilots now got a lot of their 1500 required hours in some of the activities around these small airfields. And of course, there’s all the use of private aviation in support of businesses (logistics to prevent line shutdowns or move urgently needed repair crews to a factory). It’s not just rich folks buzzing around to kill time or flying around in their private jets. (Neither is that zero of it.)
- dreamcompiler 4y ago
  People from the lower 48 can't seem to conceive how important GA is to Alaska. If you grounded all GA planes in Alaska, thousands of people would start dying of starvation within a couple of weeks. There are simply no roads to most of rural Alaska.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    At that point the question does arise: is it long-term sustainable to keep such communities artificially alive, or would it make more sense to pay off their residents to move somewhere where they can be supplied with resources way more efficiently?
    - snowwrestler 4y ago
      GA in Alaska requires less public infrastructure than elsewhere because there are more planes that can land on and take off from water, snow, and unpaved surfaces. Also Alaska can easily afford basic infrastructure, heck they pay an annual stipend to permanent residents.
outworlder 4y ago
> But it seems to have a very large component of taxpayers footing the bill for rich guys' toys/playgrounds Eh, most are not that rich. There's a wide range of plane prices. From Honda Civic money, to millions of dollars. GA encompasses a whole bunch of activities. You do have the rich doctors flying in twins, yes. You also have Angel Flights, Pilots N Paws providing volunteer assistance for people and animals. You have flight training (we are going through a pilot shortage). Aero(photography/grammetry). Sightseeing flights (tourism industry). Transportation of people and cargo to remote areas. Etc. In some cases the revenue generated doesn't pay for the infrastructure. That's why so many airports have closed in the last couple of decades. There are also people just flying for fun. Usually in very cheap and economical planes burning single digit gallons per hour. Their gallon/mile figure can be pretty good even compared to cars (let alone SUVs).
- mschuster91 4y ago
  Lot of the aerophotography stuff is switching to UAVs these days though, it's easier to obtain pilots and the capability of modern UAV platforms is just amazing.
  - snowwrestler 4y ago
    AFAIK no privately available UAV system can match the range and flexibility for GA aircraft. For example photographing things that are dozens of miles from any road or airport. If I’m wrong I’d be interested to learn more.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      A DJI Matrice 300 can fly for an hour, at a distance of up to 15km [1]. Agreed, it's not going to be useful in the extreme outback, but enough to cover a lot of use cases in areas near civilization. [1] https://www.dji.com/uk/matrice-300/specs https://www.dji.com/uk/matrice-300/specs
      - p_l 4y ago
Spooky23 4y ago
When I worked retail a long time ago, one of the assistant managers flew every weekend. He wasn’t rich. Now he’s making a good living flying for Southwest iirc.
NonNefarious 4y ago
The people making these claims typically don't know anyone in GA or anything about their local airport. The taxpayers footing the bill for GA are GA USERS. GA pays way higher fuel taxes than the AIRLINES do. A large proportion (the majority?) of the people in GA are not rich. They simply choose to spend their money on flying, instead of on leasing a new giant SUV every three years. My flight instructor had to SAVE UP to buy a crummy portable GPS... and 15 years later he still doesn't own a plane. And that's not counting the entire industry's worth of people whose living depends on servicing aviation. Mechanics, painters, upholsterers, you name it. And this is a mostly DOMESTIC industry. It's despicable that GA doesn't enjoy more support from everyone, from legislators on down to Joe Plumber. "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks." Oh yeah, Hacker News? Then WHY IS THE REPLY BUTTON ENABLED? Why do you allow people to waste their time typing out a question or comment and THEN say, OH NO YOU CAN'T POST? Then you jerks "shadow ban" people who point out your offensive behavior.

reaperducer 4y ago

There are places in America that are a hundred or more miles away from the nearest hospital. These small airports are vital to rural healthcare. Sure, all those people could move to more populated places, but then you'd have nothing to eat. Source: The company I work for is slightly involved with air ambulances.

AYBABTME 4y ago

For one, there's no country in the world where the GA scene is like it is in the US. There's airports everywhere and flying is mostly accessible. As such, like US universities attract the world's students, the US GA airports attract a _ton_ of foreign pilot students. That's just one angle. Another angle: the US is a lame duck in term of mass transit infrastructure like trains. So development and advancements in those fields occurs elsewhere, like in Europe and Asia. But in the case of aviation infrastructure, US is miles ahead. And as a result, a lot more aerospace stuff happens in the US than anywhere else. It's not as directly useful to the general public as inter-city trains, but it does have a lot of positive side effects for the economy and industries. Perhaps one day, flying will simplify and become commonplace for the average person, like cars that were, as an industry, born in the US. And then on that day, it'll seem pretty smart to have nurtured general aviation and allowed aerospace to germinate. GA looks like a rich people's hobby, and it sort of is. But it's not "10M$ in the bank" rich. The middle (as a treat) and upper class can afford to fly GA. In most other countries, that's just too out of reach for most people, it's not realistically in the cards unless you want to have a career in that field.

sokoloff 4y ago

In addition to air ambulance/medevac, aerial firefighting, overnight package intake and delivery, and medical lab test samples are all things that I think have fairly broad benefit if not widespread support and rely heavily on airports other than the 100 largest in the US. In times of natural disaster, GA airplanes are often delivering support and supplies using these non-primary airports. This often happens before the larger agencies can spin up and post-hurricane can often reach areas before the roads are fully open. In rural areas, like Alaska, they’re even more utilitarian. Most of the commercial pilots now got a lot of their 1500 required hours in some of the activities around these small airfields. And of course, there’s all the use of private aviation in support of businesses (logistics to prevent line shutdowns or move urgently needed repair crews to a factory). It’s not just rich folks buzzing around to kill time or flying around in their private jets. (Neither is that zero of it.)

dreamcompiler 4y ago
People from the lower 48 can't seem to conceive how important GA is to Alaska. If you grounded all GA planes in Alaska, thousands of people would start dying of starvation within a couple of weeks. There are simply no roads to most of rural Alaska.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  At that point the question does arise: is it long-term sustainable to keep such communities artificially alive, or would it make more sense to pay off their residents to move somewhere where they can be supplied with resources way more efficiently?
  - snowwrestler 4y ago
    GA in Alaska requires less public infrastructure than elsewhere because there are more planes that can land on and take off from water, snow, and unpaved surfaces. Also Alaska can easily afford basic infrastructure, heck they pay an annual stipend to permanent residents.

outworlder 4y ago

> But it seems to have a very large component of taxpayers footing the bill for rich guys' toys/playgrounds Eh, most are not that rich. There's a wide range of plane prices. From Honda Civic money, to millions of dollars. GA encompasses a whole bunch of activities. You do have the rich doctors flying in twins, yes. You also have Angel Flights, Pilots N Paws providing volunteer assistance for people and animals. You have flight training (we are going through a pilot shortage). Aero(photography/grammetry). Sightseeing flights (tourism industry). Transportation of people and cargo to remote areas. Etc. In some cases the revenue generated doesn't pay for the infrastructure. That's why so many airports have closed in the last couple of decades. There are also people just flying for fun. Usually in very cheap and economical planes burning single digit gallons per hour. Their gallon/mile figure can be pretty good even compared to cars (let alone SUVs).

mschuster91 4y ago
Lot of the aerophotography stuff is switching to UAVs these days though, it's easier to obtain pilots and the capability of modern UAV platforms is just amazing.
- snowwrestler 4y ago
  AFAIK no privately available UAV system can match the range and flexibility for GA aircraft. For example photographing things that are dozens of miles from any road or airport. If I’m wrong I’d be interested to learn more.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    A DJI Matrice 300 can fly for an hour, at a distance of up to 15km [1]. Agreed, it's not going to be useful in the extreme outback, but enough to cover a lot of use cases in areas near civilization. [1] https://www.dji.com/uk/matrice-300/specs https://www.dji.com/uk/matrice-300/specs
    - p_l 4y ago

Spooky23 4y ago

When I worked retail a long time ago, one of the assistant managers flew every weekend. He wasn’t rich. Now he’s making a good living flying for Southwest iirc.

NonNefarious 4y ago

The people making these claims typically don't know anyone in GA or anything about their local airport. The taxpayers footing the bill for GA are GA USERS. GA pays way higher fuel taxes than the AIRLINES do. A large proportion (the majority?) of the people in GA are not rich. They simply choose to spend their money on flying, instead of on leasing a new giant SUV every three years. My flight instructor had to SAVE UP to buy a crummy portable GPS... and 15 years later he still doesn't own a plane. And that's not counting the entire industry's worth of people whose living depends on servicing aviation. Mechanics, painters, upholsterers, you name it. And this is a mostly DOMESTIC industry. It's despicable that GA doesn't enjoy more support from everyone, from legislators on down to Joe Plumber. "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks." Oh yeah, Hacker News? Then WHY IS THE REPLY BUTTON ENABLED? Why do you allow people to waste their time typing out a question or comment and THEN say, OH NO YOU CAN'T POST? Then you jerks "shadow ban" people who point out your offensive behavior.