greg_mp wrote:
Obviously that guy has or uses a jet and is fine with it.
Not to my knowledge. He is the president of AOPA Germany.
greg_mp wrote:
This guy forgot to say that his wealthy situation is probaly due to his parents and a lot of luck. People like that have a tendancy to ignore that hard and clever work is not always making you wealthy, but for them it can justify denigration and a feeling of being of a cast of priviledge people that are attacked on this point. These “ecological terrorist” are actiing against a behavior, they don’t care about people. It could be x or y, as soon as they are using their jet to make a pee to the airport 1000nm south.
I have no clue what in the text provoked this rant. The article does preciously little to warrant any such allegations. It asks the serious questions how a country can tolerate this kind of behaviour without people loosing trust in it’s justice system. Particularly in Germany people are used to quite strict rulekeeping and very much unused to acts like destruction of property being simply tolerated because of the “noble” cause behind it. Similarily, lots of people who have spent hours and hours in security lines at airports ask the serious question what the point of all that is, if people who cut through fences and attack airplanes get away with it?
Apparently the airplane which was attacked is operated by a corporation in northern Germany. And it has been repeatedly used to fly donor organs very recently. As of the time of the attack, it won’t be available to fill this role.
I think it is vitally important that the term “private jet” gets thrown out. The larger part of those jets are what they call themselves: Business Jets.
Peter wrote:
Another POV from Germany here.
Well, he writes: “Today, no one needs to be convinced of the necessity of climate protection.”
That is, unfortunately, wishful thinking. Many people need to be convinced. You only have to read some of the sections of EuroGA to realise this.
Ok I read it again in a french translation, but it’s hard as I’m not a german speaker (may be should I shut up :/).
The writer is fairly pointing out that not frankly punishing the activits is not a good thing (which I totally agree) and is unfortunately an open door to accept such behavior.
But afterward, victimising “the rich” is not very clever, because he’s pushing to splitting people instead of gathering them (we are living in the same world). Going further in this direction which was not needed, he’s finishing by talking about “the Diktatur” that looks like to happen soon, like driving himself to the godwin point where no more discussion is possible.
The last paragraph I already mentionned looks like a clumsy attempt to resist to this Diktatur…
I don’t know the guy and I don’t condemn him, I think it’s legitimate to wonder how and why these activits have not been sentenced to anything more than “go home”. But associating him (and then the AOPA Germany) into the diktatur against eco-activists is very unlikely to calm things down. He’s just going to far, but I suspect he’s trying to satisfy his jets members.
There was plenty of possibility to turn positively this accident, mentioning the fact that operator is actively working to organs donor transportation. He could also enforce that for one time, the issue with processes, barriers, badge and other pita we are all having in this kind of airport should find here a justification. Gathering.
But no, he prefer to enter the war against diktatur. Very clumsy from my point of view, but I’m sure many would find this readout satisfying.
We are in a time where a lot of people and politicians are splitting people, pushing them against each other. We should not go this way,
In any civilised society, law and order is delivered according to current priorities.
And these change.
The UK for example allows peaceful protest. So there isn’t a law which makes it illegal to glue yourself to a motorway and block the traffic, because you want to make a statement on something. Why not? Because this form of protest has only just started. And there is a specific legal immunity to a protester whose action – blocking the traffic – causes someone in an ambulance in the blocked traffic to die.
And every civilised country in Europe is struggling with this; different ones in different ways.
Like the struggle with internet hackers, the law is always one step behind.
And the willingness to legislate, even where the need may seem obvious, varies according to public attitudes, which is why the protesters organise their PR very carefully. If they just ruined some bizjet, they would be prosecuted for criminal damage (or whatever it is called in Germany).
Peter wrote:
In any civilised society, law and order is delivered according to current priorities.
That is true, but we must not forget that law and morals are not the same thing.
Regardless of your religion, in this case the moral and legal violations are both awful.
A business jet is a wonderful, productive and entirely legal thing that costs somebody a lot of money and has to earn its keep. These people are neither wonderful nor productive. They are childish idiots who need to be shown the necessity to earn their own keep, and pay back what they’ve taken from others who earned it.
greg_mp wrote:
Ok I read it again in a french translation, but it’s hard as I’m not a german speaker
I think the style in which this is written – many rethorical questions, some double negatives – stumps most translation programs.
Silvaire wrote:
A business jet is a wonderful, productive and entirely legal thing that costs somebody a lot of money and has to earn its keep
Thank you @Silvaire, I could not agree more. One of my typical arguments to defend GA is along that line:
Acquiring a business or private aircraft is socially a much better investment for a business or a person with money to spare ( I avoid using the word “rich” which is very targettable) than the more typical and socially acceptable acquisition of real estate for speculative purposes. The latter will only increase the wealth of those involved in the transactions, although in a certain proportion may foster some related employment.
An aircraft distributes wealth in a much higher proportion and much more social way, starting with those that designed and built it but then continuing with those that are necessary to support the continued operation. Hundreds of families are very directly and positively impacted by a single business jet during its life.
I couldn’t care less about perceived the ‘social value’ of a business jet, in the sense of these destructive idiots’ so called values. It’s a tool bought with money that is not ‘to spare’ and instead helps the owner remain productive, earning its keep in doing so and keeping the business profitable. Productive, profitable business is the basis of well being… for everybody who works. Those that maintain the plane etc. are just one part of the company that needs to make money to make payroll.
I’ve spent time in back of business jets, generally flying from the same airport where I have my plane and hangar. The reason for doing so was to get somewhere quickly to work and then get back quickly to work some more. The most interesting example might be leaving at 6 AM, flying 1500 nm in a mid-size biz jet to a remote non-towered airport, doing a job nearby that required me (only) to do it, then returning to base and having a late dinner with my wife. Then back to the office as normal the next day. That was great, preventing expensive people at the site from standing around doing nothing for a couple of days. Also better I might add than making the same trip crammed in the back of smelly Lear 35 (‘executive mailing tube’) on different occasions 
BTW as the owner of rental properties, I can assure you my busting my behind to buy them and pay for them regardless of vacancy, and maintaining them in my ‘spare’ time (all of which has taken over 33 years of effort, starting with $100 in the bank) has benefitted a lot of people who have lived there for a period without making the same effort, often leaving an expensive to repair mess in their wake. Presumably the tenants get the same value out of the monthly rent transaction that I do, given that they seek out the property and sign the lease. I’m anyway happy to have made money (mainly via capital gain) in providing that paid service to tenants in my ‘spare’ time and by investing my earned discretionary income. The return on investment and sweat equity will keep me flying in a well earned retirement some day.
Silvaire wrote:
the perceived ‘social value’ of a business jet, in the sense of these destructive idiots’ so called values
There is intrinsic moral value in our activities providing help to others in our society. That has little to do with the social value as perceived by the destructive persons in the OP.
In that sense I would think there is a lot of value in your real estate as well as your GA activities.
Like it or not, in a democratic place like the USA but even more so in Europe, the perceived value of an activity has a big impact on its long-term viability, so we should really care about it if we care about GA.
Unlike the USA, in Europe we have done too little to help our society understand and appreciate the value of GA. I for one would like to change that.
In fact, the aviation industry as a whole seems to be too ashamed of its supposedly-planet-threatening existence to openly explain and even realize its value to society…we have tended to stay low profile in this part of the world but does anyone still think this is working as a survival strategy for GA?
