Article: 7765 of rec.aviation.misc Newsgroups: rec.aviation.piloting,rec.aviation.misc Path: newshost.ncd.com!ncd.com!olivea!hal.com!decwrl!news.kpc.com!kpc!peck.com!geoff From: geoff@peck.com (Geoff Peck) Subject: Good Aviation Press! Message-ID: <1994Jan11.081207.26810@peck.com> Organization: Geoffrey G. Peck, Consultant, San Jose CA Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 08:12:07 GMT Lines: 189 Xref: newshost.ncd.com rec.aviation.piloting:2683 rec.aviation.misc:7765 The following article and its accompanying sidebar appeared starting on the front page of the first section (!) of the San Francisco Chronicle on Friday, January 7, 1994. It is one of the most GA-friendly articles I've seen in the general press for a long time! [Typos/scannos are entirely my or my scanner's fault.] [And congrats to netter Brian Lloyd, who is quoted!] Geoff A SPECIAL BREED OF BAY AREA COMMUTER Flying to Work By Jamie Beckett Chronicle Peninsula Bureau An elite group of Bay Area workers have found a way to escape both the regions high housing costs and grueling commutes: They fly to work. From the Sacramento Valley to the Central Coast, from Sonoma, Modesto, the Sierra foothills, Lake Tahoe and elsewhere in the state, people are leaving their cars at home and soaring above traffic in Cessnas, Pipers and other small airplanes. No one knows exactly how many Bay Area workers take to the skies for their daily commute, although it is probably no more than a few hundred. But what makes them different from most who have left the Bay Area in search of roomier, cheaper housing is that they have been able to do so without giving up their relatively generous salaries. "We could buy the house and the airplane for what it would cost us to live in the Bay Area," said Brian Lloyd, a computer networking consultant who works in Silicon ValIey but lives in Cameron Park, a community built around an airport about 26 miles east of Sacramento. Lloyd and his wife, Constance, were unable to find a Bay Area home that they could afford for their blended family of seven. In Cameron Park, however, they bought a six-bedroom, three bath house with a library and an office. The cost: $248,000. The Lloyds are both pilots, and most days they fly to work together. "The door-to-door time is 1 hour and 15 minutes. If we drove, it would be three hours -- and that's with no traffic," Lloyd said. Gene Ladd, meanwhile, lives on three oak-shaded acres in Sonoma County's Mayacamas Mountains. He works in Menlo Park at Sun Microsystems' International division. "A place like where I live would cost me an arm and a legon the Peninsula," said Ladd, who used to face a four-hour round trip every weekday. Besides the stress of fighting rush-hour traffic, Ladd found his career had stalled because he lived so far from work. After a bout with cancer two years ago, he began flying. Soon afterward, he was promoted to senior manager. "Every morning I get to fly over the San Francisco Bay, and every night I get to fly over the Golden Gate Bridge," he said. "I feel like I'm the luckiest guy alive." The Costs of Flying Flying is not cheap. New airplanes are expensive -- prices range from $100,000 to $150,000 -- and are in short supply. Battered by liability lawsuits, U.S. companies last year built only 551 small aircraft, according to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. Some companies, such as Cessna, no longer make small planes. Two bills to limit liability have been introduced in Congress, which pilots hope will spur production. Aircraft fuel is costly, too, at $2 a gallon or more. That adds up, since most small airplanes burn eight to 10 gallons an hour -- about the time it takes to fly from outside Sacramento to most Bay Area airports. Pilots pay what are known as "tie-down" fees of $100 a month or more to park their aircraft at local airports. Like cars, aircraft must be insured and receive regular maintenance. Plus, commuters must keep an extra car at the airport so they can drive to work once they land. But many pilots insist that flying to work is not as expensive as it seems, especially if you consider the more than $100,000 difference in housing costs between, say, San Mateo County and Sacramento. Although new aircraft are prohibitively expensive for most people, used aircraft can sometimes be purchased for as little as $20,000. "You can get a used Cherokee (aircraft) for what a car costs. As long as it's maintained properly, it's fine," said Dr. B. J. Yuke, a dentist who has been flying from her home in Tahoe City to her practice in Pleasant Hill for four years. It Doesn't Have to Cost a Lot Indeed, Danny Pennington, a pilot for a Bay Area pharmaceutical company, figured he could actually save money by buying an airplane. For less than $175,000, he and his wife were able to buy a large house on six acres on a hill in Mariposa. Pennington then paid about $20,000 for the airplane. Some pilots defray costs by forming plane pool. Thomas Palmer, a former engineer for L Electronics in Sunnyvale, was spending $100 to $120 daily flying from his home in Auburn to either Palo Alto or San Jose airports until he found three passengers to split the costs. (The Federal Aviation Administration requires a special license to charge passengers, but pilots may share costs equally with riders.) After he noticed that most pilots were traveling alone, Palmer created a database to match flyers with riders. He disbanded the service when he retired. "There's a lot of reasons people want to live up here, but often jobs are in the Bay Area," Palmer said. "If your time is worth anything, flying is not that expensive." For many who commute by air, convenience -- not cost -- is the primary concern. Harry Kullijian, who owns a nursing home in Menlo Park, moved to Modesto to raise his family in a rural setting. For years, he drove two hours each way. The commute was so taxing that to keep from falling asleep he would apply ice packs to himself in the car. "I knew I'd have to learn to fly or give up the business," Kullijian said. So, at age 53, he bought a Cessna and signed up for flying lessons. Hidden Benefits There are other benefits to commuting by air. For many pilots, it is an excuse to indulge in their passion for flying nearly every day. Others find the added mobility benefits their business. "Without an airplane, I'd be on the road all the time," said Bill George, who provides sales and service in nine states for a Dallas based distributor of aircraft communications and navigation equipment. Charles Russell, president and chief executive at Visa International, began flying to work after the credit card company moved from San Francisco to San Mateo. Russell and his family lived in Novato, and he was reluctant to relocate his two high school age daughters. He said he planned to move after his daughters graduated. Eighteen years later, he is still flying. (sidebar, accompanied by a photo of a Cessna taxiing on Cam Park's Boeing Road) A Community Built for Flight Junkies Sacramento suburb has roads for runways, garages for hangars By Jamie Beckett Chronicle Peninsula Bureau Cameron Park (El Dorado County) Entering this Sacramento suburb is like stepping through the looking glass. In the driveways where cars ought to be, there are airplanes. Model planes double as mailboxes. And as you cruise Boeing Road or Lockheed Court, you are as likely to be sharing the road with a Mooney or a Cessna as a Chevrolet or a Ford. Here, rush hour backs up the runway, not the freeway. This is the Cameron Park Air District, a neighborhood built around an airport, one of about 500 such communities nationwide. You do not have to fly to live here, but it helps. Residents include professional pilots, air show performers and people like La Roy and Sharon Tymes, who met in a pilots' club for people who are members of the high-IQ group Mensa. The Tymeses own a Cessna called Mokulele -- Hawaiian for "ship that flies" -- that is parked in a hangar adjoining their home. The couple moved to Cameron Park from Palo Alto about a year and half ago. For fun, they sit in their hot tub and watch the planes land. "The first time I came here, it was like a strange dream," said La Roy Tymes. "The idea of having an airplane integrated into my lifestyle seemed almost too good to be true." Communities like Cameron Park, known as airpark, are the stuff of many pilots' dreams. Streets double as taxiways, no one minds aircraft noise and almost everyone keeps a small plane parked in the driveway or tucked in a hangar. Residents often find, for the first time, neighbors with whom they can share such hobbies as building full-scale fiberglass airplanes from kits or restoring military aircraft. Concentrated in the West and in Florida, airparks have become home to tens of thousands of flying enthusiasts, according to Dave Sclair, publisher of General Aviation News & Flyer, which compiles an annual airpark directory. The nation's first airpark, Sierra Sky park in Fresno, opened in 1946. Actor John Travolta lives in what is probably the country's largest airpark, Spruce Creek in Daytona Beach, Fla. For residents of airport communities, it is not unusual to spend a day as Cameron Park's Bill George did recently when he took a date to the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Ore. "It's a magic carpet, that's what it is," said George, who flies a cream-colored Mooney 201 that matches his stucco house. Inside his sprawling ranch is a frosted glass mural of an airplane above the Jacuzzi. Aircraft art is plentiful here. Another resident's home sports an airplane in stained glass. Still others hold miniature replicas of antique aircraft.