Let The Anti Aviation Hysteria Begin

A Chevy Passenger Van Can Do More Damage...


So I'm sitting here watching the news coverage of the "Potential Intentional/Unintentional Flight into Terrain" incident out in Austin, Texas and as is usual when a plane crashes everyone's already freaking out.

FOX News is doing a pretty good job of reminding everyone that a car or truck could do similar or greater damage.

They just reported that there are seventeen thousand airfields in the US, and only 450 have control towers, which makes moot the point that the guy probably didn't file a flight plan and without a control tower no one might have seen him take off.

Speaking from personal experience, operating out of a "controlled airspace" field is a pain in the butt...I learned how to fly at McCullem Field (RYY) in Kennesaw, Georgia in the early 1990's. It was an uncontrolled field using a "unicom" system where the pilots talked to each other in the take off and landing pattern.

You could park your car, go inside and rent an airplane, pick up the keys, do your preflight, top off the fuel tanks, and be in the air in less than an hour.

And no one knew where you were going unless you filed a flight plan, and that's something done in your own best interest just in case something goes wrong.

Any way, sit back with me and watch all of the wild eyed speculation and calls for "regulating all of those rich guys" who have pilots' licenses.

Know this...there are literally millions of hours spent in the air each year by competent, well trained and well intended pilots in the general aviation community.

Very few incidents like this ever occur, and even if this is an intentional act I say that the number of people killed and maimed and injured by idiots in the general non-aviation public holding DRIVERS LICENSES...something like 40,000 deaths each year...should as a minimum cause us to stop more people from driving, or at least make it harder to get a license, rather than using events like this to screw with all of the law abiding men and women out there who own and operate small airplanes.

Dammit...