Love this description of work nirvana. The desktop publishing revolution allowed me to have a typesetting business with a low cost of entry, but…. I struggled all 15 years I was an independent business with health insurance and the associated cartels. A medical incident could have bankrupted me. I submit that the reason most people stay employed is the health insurance problem. What will we do as a country to breakup the health care monopolies…
The link to the article on commercial aviation is broken -- and I would *really* like to read it, as teaching commercial pilot candidates about avoiding the feces-storm that the FAA will rain down on their heads if they violate common carriage/holding out regulations is part of what I do as a ground instructor. It's a topic that attracts misunderstandings and "facts everyone knows that ain't so" like a neodymium magnet attracts iron filings.
Got it! This is some great stuff. Love this line: “Should I drive, or do I have
time to take a plane?” Pilots themselves often put it: "Time to spare? Go by air!" (Although we are usually talking about the 10-minute pre-flight inspection that turns into an hour of having to find the chuck for the air compressor, a quart of oil...or having to sit out a patch of weather that is affecting nothing but the five mile circle with your airport at the center.)
Meh. Last place I flew to was over 600 miles away and would have taken 9+ hours to drive according to Google Maps. Even with the various air travel delays, flying is a clear time saver.
That's true for long flights, but not for short regional hops--which is what we were writing about. The hub-and-spoke model works very well for longer flights, and especially for direct flights between hub cities. It is rarely optimal for flights from one non-hub city to another non-hub city (e.g., Nashville to Asheville or, even more so, Smyrna to Asheville). Your flight was a clear time-saver. But conceptually, there are vast numbers of flights that people would take from on non-hub to another non-hub, but they don't even consider doing so because of the enormous time it would take.
Yeah, there's definitely a break-even point somewhere along the line. That's why I've been following Hyperloop technology eagerly for a good while now; if engineers can manage to actually build one — by no means a certainty! — it should be able to revolutionize medium-distance travel, bringing air-flight speeds without all the overhead involved in safely getting up six miles and back down again.
Hyperloops might be useful for densely populated urban corridors (maybe). They'll do nothing for travel between a cattle ranch in Montana and a state park in Wyoming. Or a trip from Alexandria, VA (where I live) to Norton, Virginia (where I have a close friend whom I have never visited). Planepooling can revolutionize that sort of travel. And a large percentage of the latent demand for travel in America is that sort of trip.
Love this description of work nirvana. The desktop publishing revolution allowed me to have a typesetting business with a low cost of entry, but…. I struggled all 15 years I was an independent business with health insurance and the associated cartels. A medical incident could have bankrupted me. I submit that the reason most people stay employed is the health insurance problem. What will we do as a country to breakup the health care monopolies…
The link to the article on commercial aviation is broken -- and I would *really* like to read it, as teaching commercial pilot candidates about avoiding the feces-storm that the FAA will rain down on their heads if they violate common carriage/holding out regulations is part of what I do as a ground instructor. It's a topic that attracts misunderstandings and "facts everyone knows that ain't so" like a neodymium magnet attracts iron filings.
Thanks. I’ll fix it when I’m home. But here’s the link: https://www.mercatus.org/research/working-papers/planepooling-and-air-taxis-post-covid-aviation
Got it! This is some great stuff. Love this line: “Should I drive, or do I have
time to take a plane?” Pilots themselves often put it: "Time to spare? Go by air!" (Although we are usually talking about the 10-minute pre-flight inspection that turns into an hour of having to find the chuck for the air compressor, a quart of oil...or having to sit out a patch of weather that is affecting nothing but the five mile circle with your airport at the center.)
Meh. Last place I flew to was over 600 miles away and would have taken 9+ hours to drive according to Google Maps. Even with the various air travel delays, flying is a clear time saver.
That's true for long flights, but not for short regional hops--which is what we were writing about. The hub-and-spoke model works very well for longer flights, and especially for direct flights between hub cities. It is rarely optimal for flights from one non-hub city to another non-hub city (e.g., Nashville to Asheville or, even more so, Smyrna to Asheville). Your flight was a clear time-saver. But conceptually, there are vast numbers of flights that people would take from on non-hub to another non-hub, but they don't even consider doing so because of the enormous time it would take.
Yeah, there's definitely a break-even point somewhere along the line. That's why I've been following Hyperloop technology eagerly for a good while now; if engineers can manage to actually build one — by no means a certainty! — it should be able to revolutionize medium-distance travel, bringing air-flight speeds without all the overhead involved in safely getting up six miles and back down again.
Hyperloops might be useful for densely populated urban corridors (maybe). They'll do nothing for travel between a cattle ranch in Montana and a state park in Wyoming. Or a trip from Alexandria, VA (where I live) to Norton, Virginia (where I have a close friend whom I have never visited). Planepooling can revolutionize that sort of travel. And a large percentage of the latent demand for travel in America is that sort of trip.
If I must say so, that's probably my favorite line in the article, as well. :)