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Euro and GA

Interesting thoughts AF.
It is fun to see US pilots completely lost about crossing a border with a plane, which we do almost naturally. They also usually go on vacation 2000nm from home, while 75% of the french stay in france for the holidays. No need of a plane to spend 2 weeks stuck 300nm from home

I have to confess I am jealous of US pilots. It is wrong I know, and I try not too.

LFOU, France

@LFHNflightstudent indeed. Stuck in the US due to the quarantine period.
Spending two weeks in a hotel room doing nothing isn’t feasible atm.
:/

AF wrote:

The airplane was like a symbol for how we went and won (or helped win) WW2. So people admire aviation here quite a bit, and are thankful for it.

I think that’s probably very different for places like Europe where the bombs were falling. Airplanes dropping bombs would probably cause one to associate the noise fo a propeller with destruction… never wanting to hear one again.

Very big contrast, as no bombs were dropped on the US (except Hawaii).

Airplanes aren’t scary here, they generally never were (unless people are afraid of turbulence ;)

That last bit is conjecture, as I have no way of knowing for sure, but it might hold water.

Interesting “kitchen psychology” but probably wrong, I don’t think anyone under 80 in Europe still associates the sound of propeller planes with bombs and destruction.

I think you mentioning GA being an elitist activity is much more relevant to the discussion of GA in Europe. As is the fact that Europe simply has a lot less “space” for GA, due to the much higher population density. Airfields take up a lot of space, and will almost invariably be close to the homes of a noise-sensitive population.

In Germany at least, noise pollution seems to be the main argument against GA activity among the general public, followed by environmental pollution (CO2). The “elitist” thing plays less of a role due to flying clubs. Organising almost anything into a club activity automatically makes that activity somewhat more acceptable in Germany…

Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

MedEwok wrote:

Interesting “kitchen psychology”

Great phrase!
Ist das “Küchepsychologie” auf Deutsch? Oder was anderes..?

I don’t think the population density plays much of a role in the US.
Again, many people like airplanes and it is a normal part of the culture here, much like cars are traffic are.

One simply doesn’t buy a house directly under R18 unless it is so cheap it can’t be passed up!
In Orlando they would vary between R18 and R36 (17/35 as well) to help alleviate the suffering of those directly under the flight path.

But generally speaking most airports were built before the population centers and thus have the privilege of being “grandfathered in”.

The only real airports I’ve heard of that have struggles like that are Santa Monica. But that’s because the property around there is only for the very wealthy and they feel entitled to own everything if they’re playing millions for an acre of land.

MedEwok wrote:

Organising almost anything into a club activity automatically makes that activity somewhat more acceptable in Germany…

I think there needs to be a “Night flyer Club” then!
Der Nachtflügelverein.

The club would set up night landings at rural airports. :D
This would solve a lot of… shortcomings.

The club volunteers to fly medical supplies and other critical stuff so that the it had a positive light in the public.

I’d gladly throw a cooler of heart in the back on night flights if it meant I could fly around Europe to small airfields after dark.

Again, big :D because I do know what I’m saying is facetiousness to Germans and Europeans.

Despite the Küchenphilisophie about WW heroes (great piece of fiction) and romanticizing US situation there are some very simple an trivial reasons, why role of GA in Europe is completely different from the US:
- Europeans like their freedom! That is the reason why we do not have formed United States of Europe with a federal government. The downside of that is that basically for the entire 20th century the economies of the different European countries have been quite disconnected: Esp. very few small and medium size companies had business in more than one European state. Economies have been more local. Therefore there was simply not the need for a medium sized construction company to the a GA plane between its different construction sites all over Europe, because they had none.
- Europeans like Infrastructure! Therefore we have built Roads on which you can drive faster than 65mph (and are allowed to do this) and we have built a railroad system that actually gets you to places where you want to go. And as the train station naturally is in the city center while any airfield is on the fringes, for many city pairs the center to center time is just faster by train. (thus unmasking “The club volunteers to fly medical supplies and other critical stuff” as complete nonsense because there are little practical applications of this – despite hospital to hospital transports of patients and organs which should not be done by amateurs).
- Europeans like to be undisturbed! Population density of the US is 36/km^2 (and still 40/km^2 for the lower 48). Population density in the EU is 117/km^2. So by flying in Europe you disturb 3 times more people with your noise as by flying in the US. And as Europeans have the strong belief that personal freedoms end where you interfere with the personal freedom of someone else, we don’t like noise created by others.

So absolutely: If you want/need to get from a mid sized town in France to a mid sized town in Romania GA would be as useful as for getting from a mid sized town in Ohio to a midsize town in Missouri – it’s just that there are by far less people who might want to do it…

Last Edited by Malibuflyer at 16 Jul 05:26
Germany

@Malibuflyer
Glorious story.

AF wrote:

Stuck in the US due to the quarantine period.
Spending two weeks in a hotel room doing nothing isn’t feasible atm.

Aren’t you a pilot? There is a crew exemption if you mean the UK quarantine.

EGTK Oxford
Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

You can always manage to get some “personal work” done while flying? or does it have to be “work = ATPL with 300pax behind” ?

Last Edited by Ibra at 17 Jul 09:58
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom
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