Thinking it’s a hobby is an american thing. I’ve never met anyone who do it, but for Kobe Bryant, Harrisson Ford, Tom Cruise it seems normal.

Most people save $400 per month tops, that they spend on holidays.

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UniverseHacker 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

It’s a doable common hobby for middle class Americans. I grew up in a rural area with a dirt airstrip and everyone owned planes- even people that could barely afford a reliable used car. You can sometimes find something like an old Cessna for about $20k, and if you’re willing to do “experimental” planes that you fix yourself, sometimes just a few $k. Like anything, if you’re an insider in the community you can get good deals, sometimes even free from friends that age out, etc.

Many universities in rural areas have student clubs that offer lessons and rent club owned planes for cheap.

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prmoustache 5 days ago | parent [-]

> even people that could barely afford a reliable used car. You can sometimes find something like an old Cessna for about $20k,

Not sure what you call a "reliable used car". My low mileage for its age 2006 Mercedes B200 costed me 5.5k€ for instance. A car doesn't have to cost a lot to be reliable.

Around me $20k is an expensive price for a car and most people buy second hand +20y old cars they buy for less than 5k€.

	▲	UniverseHacker 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Cultural attitudes about that vary a lot by locale I think. That is not how most American consumers think, at least where I live… people largely consider older cars, especially German ones to be too unreliable to count on and they are (wrongly) believed to be so expensive to maintain that it will cost more than a new car- so they're categorically ruled out. Even people that can barely afford food or housing will often take out a loan for a new or nearly new car under the idea that they won’t get to work consistently otherwise. I am also into older cars and can get a reliable car for a few hundred dollars, but I would never be able to convince anyone else I know that it is an option. So yea, you can get a reliable car for a lot less than a cheap airplane only if you don’t have some irrational bias against older cars.

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tjr 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A lot of people fly. It's pretty common to be a fractional owner in a relatively inexpensive airplane and use it one day a week or some such.

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nradov 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It's sad that more countries outside of North America haven't actively developed their general aviation industries. It's never going to be cheap (or safe) but there's no good reason to impose the high taxes and regulatory constraints that keep it should be out of reach from regular upper-middle class people in many countries.