Avgas in France has reached $7.50/gal !

On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 09:14:46 +0000 (UTC), (G Farris)
wrote in ::

They list 47000 pilots, plus another 13000 glider pilots. As many of the
glider pilots may also be included in the first figure (redundancy) and the
discussion is not particularly centered on gliding, I propose we simply ignore
the 13000 figure for the purposes of this discussion, and consider the number
to be 47000. Divided into the overall population figure of almost 60M, this
yields 1 pilot for 1275 pop. The US figure, I believe is about 800000 pilots,
for nearly 300M population - or 1 pilot per 375 pop - 3 1/2 times as many.
Approximately 50% of US pilots are instrument rated, compared with 15% of
French pilots. If you exclude airline pilots, the percentage of IR rated PPL's
in France is anecdotal.


If your French statistics are as incorrect as what you believe US
pilot statistics to be, it might be better to completely disregard
your conclusions. You'll find up to date US information he
http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/factcard.pdf

In article ,
says...


If your French statistics are as incorrect as what you believe US
pilot statistics to be, it might be better to completely disregard
your conclusions. You'll find up to date US information he
http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/factcard.pdf

Thanks for the correction. The French statistic was from a current DGAC
publication, while I admit I was "guessing" on the US figure (because I
consider the information to be well-known and readily available to
contributors here, while the actual French numbers were proving elusive to
acquire).

So the corrected comparison becomes : 1 pilot for 1275 pop in France
1 pilot for 472 pop in the US - about 2.7X as many.

Call it three times instead of three and a half. Your call as to whether that
changes the argument fundamentally. Are the US numbers increasing or
declining?

Thanks for pointing out the error.

G Faris

Here's the link, by the way, for the report that I got the numbers from.

http://www.aviation-civile.gouv.fr/h...df/annexes.pdf

In French, obviously.

If your French statistics are as incorrect as what you believe US
pilot statistics to be, it might be better to completely disregard
your conclusions. You'll find up to date US information he
http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/factcard.pdf

The US pilot statistics are from the FAA's website.

And you'll verify my other statistics with little effort by using Google.
Some are from the CIA's website (which is very cool, BTW), and some are from
French websites.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Bob Fry wrote:

It's actually rather intelligent. Smallish land area, larger
population, means it's ideal for high-speed transit: airlines and fast
trains. Add some good highways, which they have, and voila, a pretty
decent place to live.

that stuff is neither necessary nor sufficient for a decent place to live.


For Fry it is.

Cub Driver wrote:

There are other reasons, of course, one being that (in effect, for
most purposes) there is no VFR flight.

I don't know where you get that from. VFR in France (as in whole Europe)
is not only possible but delightful.

Most European nations are, by American standards, very congested.

This is in fact one reason. First, distances are much smaller. Second,
for most missions, you are much faster using public transportation or
the car. And third, maybe, Europeans, even pilots, seem to care much
more about noise and pollution. BTW, this is another reason why Thielert
developed the Diesel, not only cost. We just see no point in burning 10
gallons an hour when we can get away with 3 using a modern engine.

It's one thing to travel in Switzerland by road, but doing it in a
lightplane must be a bit scary. French and German (never mind
Italian!) are just not that similar. Add to that the tradition that
ATC should speak in English, and that altitude is expressed in feet
when you are accustomed to meters. Even if you trust yourself to be
perfectly bi- or tri-lingual, how can you be sure that the gent you're
talking to is equally blessed?

Being Swiss myself, I can tell you that flying here is not scary at all.
Quite the opposite, flying in the Alps is one of the most wonderful
things to do, and a landing at a French altiport is just plain fun.
Airspce structure is rather complicated, but you get used to it rather
quickly. It requires good preparation of the flight, though.

And for the languages... well, ATC speaks English, and they carefully
stick to pre-defines phrases, which even pilots with a limited knowledge
of English can learn by heart (which in fact is what many do). On the
ground, though, things are a bit different, but I've never had problems
to understand people, as long as both parties really want.

Stefan

Jay Honeck wrote:

If aviation weren't dead in France, they should have
the same PROPORTION of pilots, aircraft and airports as the US.

If aviation were dead in France, they wouldn't build Airbusses.

Stefan

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
[...]
that stuff is neither necessary nor sufficient for a decent place to live.

And aviation is?

Frankly, I'm not that surprised Jay continues to dig his hole. He's just
not the kind of guy to engage in any sort of retrospection. Suffice to say,
however, that:

* Aviation seems to be reasonably healthy in France in the first place,
in spite of the gas prices (his analysis is completely lacking, never mind
that correlation does not show causation)

* Even if the French people decided to eliminate aviation, if that's
what they want to do as a people, I don't see what's so "dunderheaded" about
that. Not the course I'd take, but I fail to see how it's an inherently
"dunderheaded" thing to do.

* Even if it were "dunderheaded" to do so, calling an entire country
"dunderheaded" is still offensive. It's no different than calling all
Americans "dunderheaded", just because 50% of them were "dunderheaded"
enough to reelect a president who willfully fabricated justification for a
war. The other 50% weren't, and saying they are is offensive.

Bob F, I appreciate you pointing out that this isn't so much about getting
Jay to understand his errors (a futile goal, if ever there was one) as it is
about showing the rest of the readership that not all participants of this
newsgroup are as narrow-minded and bigoted as Jay. But I think we've
accomplished that goal...we're not going to get anywhere by continuing to
feed the bigots.

Pete

Myself, I believe a dunderhead is someone who thinks just one President
fabricated a reason for war when the Democrat they voted for supported the
same dang information. As did the Democratic President before the current
Pres! Geesh must just be a massive conspiracy,...DUCK! Look Out it's the
black helos coming to get you!!! And I shall leave it at that......

Semper Fi !
Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech

"Bob Fry"
And Iowa has less airports than either Wisconsin or Illinois, making
Iowa even less relevant to any aviation discussion. So when are you
stopping your posts, so we can talk about *real* aviation states, like
California or Texas?

:-) for the humor impaired.


I laughed


Montblack