It always amuses me that the guardian only really exists thanks to their cayman islands tax exempt offshore funds and investments which they so hate others using yet are very quiet about themselves.
It’s not surprising they’re keen to bash GA too
Most people (and by that, I mean the vast majority) don’t see any benefit to them of the existence of private transport in aviation.
While we live in democracies, where “The Will of the People” is bandied around like confetti, we would do well to recognise that our activity is not only the preserve of a tiny elite, but is seen as damaging to the health, welfare and future of most people. And by people, in this context I mean voters and their children.
The Guardian is doing us all a favour by reminding us that we cannot ignore these facts. Wishing away The Guardian is not going to change the underlying electoral statistics.
We have to do better than responding to this kind of report with scorn and abuse.
I agree, I think the only way to deal with this is for people to realise the value of liberty and individual freedoms across the board.
Unfortunately it does seem there is a very vocal group who push for control of everything they can.
Liberty and individual freedoms vs their effect on other people (cv gun laws in America) has been done to death in a million fora since the beginning of thought, and I am sure Peter doesn’t want that fruitless debate on here.
We need a little more Realpolitik than just appealing to the Sense of Values of the electorate.
We have a couple of airfields nearby Toulouse – one of them, Lasbordes (LFCL) is right at the edge of the city. The management there is trying to make the field look a little less evil to the neighbors so they’re happy to let me set up beehives there. Sounds frivolous but it made me wonder – how could we make airports feel more relevant to non pilots? Emphasize on their economic impact?
Whilst I agree with Timothy’s sentiment about the PR problem we have, the report cited by the article is a fine example of a phenomenon common at present – people who don’t understand technology boldly proclaiming, without justification, that technology will solve some problem. When I say they don’t understand technology I don’t just mean they’re not an expert on this particular thing (most people aren’t, including me), but that they fundamentally don’t understand very much science at all.
The study found that as many as four out of five private jet journeys within Europe today cover distances that could be completed by small electric aircraft currently in commercial development that would enter the market in the mid 2020s.
This is bonkers. There is no solution at present to the fundamental size and weight problem with batteries. You just cannot carry enough electrical power to keep an aircraft that can carry a useful load in the air for a useful amount of time.
Well, interesting idea by Mr Corbyn, not really surprising coming from “a think tank near Mr Corbyn” or similar folks.
The big question will be if the UK will be handed to someone who has been repeatedly described to have a mindset “left of Lenin” and is quite determined to bring his visions to life, were he to be given the job at Nr 10. Not surprisingly, he was also said to be quite for exiting the union because those ideas of his can not possibly work in a country which is part of common legislation?
Well, banning the evil biz jets for good will most probably do one thing: It will cause an exodus of people who use them to friendlier shores. If it will be necessary to resort to that is another question, quite possibly a PM Corbyn will make quite some people look for greener shores even before he can turn the UK into a workers and peasant state.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
It will cause an exodus of people who use them to friendlier shores.
Do you really think anyone with access to private jet transportation will change anything because of a few hundred CHF? It’s chump change. Especially transcon flights on larger jets originating in Switzerland cost in the region of hundredthousand+ CHF per flight. A typerating for a G4/550 is 100k USD, and you need more than one pilot.
I don’t understand Switzerland well enough but it must be an attractive place to live if you have lots of money. Maybe not so if you don’t. So yes, it will hurt the puddle jumper pilot but not so much the jet clientele.
Maybe I misunderstand you but the fear of private jets being used elsewhere (be it CH or UK) is a tad unrealistic, isn’t it?
Mooney_Driver wrote:
repeatedly described to have a mindset “left of Lenin”
Maybe he is repeatedly described like that, but if anyone seriously believes it is true, then I think (s)he has misunderstood Lenin…
Snoopy wrote:
Maybe I misunderstand you but the fear of private jets being used elsewhere (be it CH or UK) is a tad unrealistic, isn’t it?
I would hope so, if people want to fly in their own jets they should be able to do so. I think what he was referring to the Guardian article which puts forward the idea to ban all private jets by 2025.
