You guys are sooooo lucky...
It always baffles me when someone uses that kind of logic. Comparing America to Europe, for example, which some enjoy doing, leads to the inevitable conclusion that we have it pretty good here in the US, whether you're talking about healthcare, business, lifestyles or flying.
But, instead of enjoying that situation, some prefer to feel guilty about it and conclude that we should change it to be more like Europe. After all, that's only fair.
Because everyone else has higher fuel prices, more taxation, more limitations on when and where they can fly, WE should not enjoy our freedom to enjoy flying and should change OUR system to be more like theirs. Makes ZERO sense to me.
But hey, that's just me.
I totally agree... Let me paint the picture on how it is on this side of the Atlantic...
I imported a RV-9 from Florida last year (on the best things I did during my 47years on mothership Earth) and apart from shipping fees, had to pay 19 % Value Added Tax to the Dutch Government
. They also stole 4 % import tax
which I succesfully reclaimed because aircraft are free from import tax... Now the fun begins..
Certificate of Registration and Certificate of Airworthiness were $ 504.00. Since we are so **** enviromentally concerned, each and every aircraft needs to have a Noise Statement which requires 7 passes over a fixed point, climb and level off to determine time and distance over an 15 meter obstacle and thereafter make 7 passes over a microphone. This takes the better part of two days, including all the paperwork and set me back $ 708 (Yes, you're not in a bad dream here... sevenhundred and eight dollars).. Allright, paperwork is complete apart from a Radio Certificate License which comes at $ 164.
Flying can start now. Not IFR of course, this is strictly forbidden for Experimentals and eventhough my 2007 RV-9 is fully equipped for IFR flight, with glass instruments and steam gauges to back things up, the clouds may only be inspected from the inside by tired and beaten spam cans with vacuum powered instruments. Night VFR is forbidden as well and so are airwork and commercial operations (to name just a few areas we must stay away from)
Landing at my home base requires me to pay $ 22.00 to the airport and $ 13.00 to Air Traffic Control for every touch I make.
100LL fuel is an area that I want to stay away from. It would bring tears to my eyes having to compare US and European fuel prices......
I'm not complaining, on the contrary, I love the fact that I have an aircraft at my disposal and love every minute flying it and I'm not cutting back on the number of hours I fly, life is too short to go slow
..
I guess my point is that my American friends have all the right in the world to complain about the $ 5 the FAA wants every three years to renew your Certificate but I couldn't stop laughing about that and would most likely send them $ 50 to cover for the next 30 years. I would then grab my bicycle and head out to the airport to fly...