Trump and Clinton and general aviation
October 30th, 2016 at 7:13 pm (Flying, Politics)
The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) is one of my favorite organizations, mainly due to their intense dedication to ongoing education and pilot safety. They also do a lot of advocacy for the general aviation (GA) community.
This AOPA article provides a fascinating glimpse into the intersection of the current presidential election and GA:
Wow, both Trump and Clinton have already spent millions of dollars to cover their campaign travels. Even more wow: it costs them “between $5,000 and $14,000 per flight hour” (!!). My brain boggles at this. I pay $105 per hour to fly a Cessna 172. You wouldn’t want to tour the country for a campaign in it, but still…
The biggest wow? To fly Air Force One, “the government places the price tag at $206,337 per flight hour.” (!!!) You could just buy a new plane every hour and have money to spare. (This figure includes security costs and presumably the staffing as a whole as well as the plane itself, fuel, etc.)
The article also reports on the results of several questions AOPA posed to both presidential candidates. Only one candidate replied. Guess which one?
Both candidates’ campaign planes