1. GA is not limited to the rich. Once you're at about the median US income (or 1/3 of what an SV developer makes, give or take), it is within reach. Slightly more than that and it's starts approaching "affordable," especially as a hobby and not a means of transportation.
2. Money buys you things. By definition people with more money will not be burdened by the same things as those with less.
> Money buys you things. By definition people with more money will not be burdened by the same things as those with less.
The commons are a superset of things provisioned by government, and we expect that the commons will be relatively unburdened and available equally to rich and poor.
Being unburdened by hunger and stress about paying rent is one thing; being unburdened by preferential treatment by the state is another.
Best estimate I can find, her flight cost her work about $20,000 round-trip.
I think we're upper-middle-class-ish, but there's no way we could justify chartering a jet for a family vacation if it costs as much as a car (a smaller jet might "only" be around $12,000 for the same trip AFAICT).
I know the poster specifically mentioned a jet but GA in general is absolutely within reach. With a license it costs maybe $150/hr to fly a Cessna 172 (and you're usually only billed for time the engine's actually running).
Can a Cessna 172 take me and my wife and child across the country to New York? Is parking a plane there free?
"Especially as a hobby" has nothing to do with what we're talking about here. Horseback riding is also affordable as a hobby, but nobody's bringing it up in a thread about the TSA because it has just as much relevance.
It can range anywhere from $6,000 to $15,000 (at the extremely high end) to get your PPL. Ramp fees vary.. Usually free if you buy 10 gallons of gas while you're there, otherwise $5-$15 per day.
Can a Cessna 172 get you to New York? Sure, if you have the time. It'll be a long and monotonous flight though.
Now, with all of that said, your point still stands. GA flying is a hobby and almost always more expensive than hopping on an airline.
That's not really a good comparison. You might as well say driving is within reach for most people.
You can drive at 70MPH. Windspeed doesn't impact you. The Cesna will cruise at ~140MPH. Windspeed might delay your arrival to the point that it's much faster to drive for shorter trips though. The jet will do 530MPH.
Maybe the Cesna makes sense if there's no reasonably direct route by freeway. Or you're island hopping. It seems like a fairly small window where chartering a Cesna makes sense though (IMO). You can't transport a family of 4 with luggage. It'll be more expensive than the (commercial, not private) Jet, and take about 4 times longer. For every 1-1/2 hours of Jet travel, you'll have to refuel the Cesna as well. And if you though economy class on a commercial Jet was uncomfortable you're in for a rude awakening as well. ;-)
Private jets are typically much smaller and have a correspondingly lower potential for mayhem. Yes, there's overlap, there are small airliners and some big private jets, but overall the risk is different, so there's no reason to expect the security measures to be the same.
The Falcon 2000 she flew on this morning is about 1/3 the weight and fuel load of the SWA 737 she might have otherwise.
I'm not sure what's unreasonable about the comparison. If the TSA were actually necessary, it would seem like a huge gap in security to allow just anyone with the cash to charter a few private jets around the country.
And that 737 is in turn about 1/3rd the weight and fuel load of the 767s that crashed into the World Trade Center. That's about a factor of 10 difference in kinetic and chemical energy from that Falcon 2000. If 9/11 had been carried out with Falcon 2000s we'd be talking about good the repairs look and how you can barely tell where the holes were on the WTC towers.
I'm not calling the comparison unreasonable, I'm simply saying that the two are not the same, so it's perfectly reasonable for the security to be different too.
I'll take "Common Carriers" for $400 , Alex. Just holding GenAv to common carrier standards for a sense of a level playing field seems silly to me. Worse is still worse.
2. Money buys you things. By definition people with more money will not be burdened by the same things as those with less.