In article , Morgans wrote:

"Stefan" wrote
So, to summarize: Yes, there is fewer GA in Europe. But even if you
would wipe all avgas taxes, there wouldn't be more.

How do you come to that conclusion?

I suspect there would be a *slight* rise in GA activity - but when the
distances are short, IFR means icing and there's a good train service -
it generally doesn't make sense to use GA for anything other than
recreational purposes. Those who really want to fly for fun find a way -
many into soaring (and soaring in Europe isn't overall any more
expensive than it is in the US, and often it's a great deal cheaper due
to the prevalence of winch launching). If you converted every soaring
pilot to power tomorrow, it still wouldn't make France's GA activity
anywhere near as close as the US.

Case in point - even though our aviation isn't any cheaper than in
France, the activity level is much higher per head of populations - we
have two airports with GA for a population of only 78k, and a small but
vibrant GA community. That's because we don't have quite the level of
convenience in travel, due to 60nm of salt water. GA will get you much
closer to your destination in most cases than the airlines can.

In the US you have large distances between cities, poor intercity rail,
and generally not exactly great airline service (that has now become
even more of a rigmarole with the post-9/11 security) so business light
GA is a real going concern, which it will *never* be in France.

Delete all the avgas taxes in Europe and you
still wouldn't have much of a driver for business GA since the business
people can still do it faster, cheaper and more reliably on the train
due to the good rail network and closeness of population centres (and
the number of railway stations). Additionally, travelling by airline is
much more pleasant here - we are allowed to (shock horror) have nail
clippers on us, and don't have to have our ID checked three times, and
take our shoes off. (Last time I went through Houston Hobby for an
internal US flight, in Feburary of this year I had to:
1. take off my belt
2. take off my shoes
3. take my computer out of my bag
4. take my camcorder out my bag
5. a pre-screening before even reaching the metal detector
6. face a long line to get through the detector - long enough that I was
concerned that even though I'd turned up an hour before my flight, I was
going to miss it
7. show photo ID three times

I had to do the same thing at SLC when returning to Hobby too.

All these things are 'window dressing' security and don't help.
Generally for an airport in Britain, I have to do none of those things
in that list to get on an airliner. The only time I've had to show photo
ID was to collect e-tickets or get on an international flight (and in
the case of the e-ticket, it depended on the airport, some just want to
see the credit card you purchased the ticket with).

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"