Jay Honeck wrote:

Now, of course, we'll hear from 100 guys who claim that they don't want
to share the skies with a bunch of under-trained pilots. To which I
can only say: What will we do when there are not enough of us around
to support the GA infrastructure?

Unfortunately, I think we are already there. All of the airports near
me that used to have restaurants have at best a vending machine now. I
used to be able to fly to at least 6 nice airport restaurants within 80
nm and I know know of only two, and one is at my home field and thus not
all that attractive as a "fly to" destination. The other is at IPT, but
you now have to park a mile away as they closed the east ramp that let
you park right out front of the restaurant.

And the field I learned to fly at, N38, sells fuel (self service), but
has no flight instruction, no maintenance, etc. I fear that the
inevitable has already begun and we just haven't realized it yet. I
suspect that just as the airlines went to the hub structure, so soon
will GA have a similiar structure. There will be a few larger airports
where you can get maintenance done and the rest of the airports will
either disappear or have at most a self-service fuel farm.


Matt