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Holy moly that can't be good for you. Pollution levels near a highway are really bad. Under an airstrip? Egads. Don't little planes use leaded fuel?
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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Don’t little planes use leaded fuel?
Piston planes do, turbine planes don't. Unfortunately for small single engine planes, piston is still a lot more common and quite a bit cheaper than turboprops, though just like with airliners before, turboprops is (very) slowly becoming the norm for general aviation as well.
∆ This guy planes ∆
Thanks for the insight.
Even if aircraft are worse, I'd be curious how traffic factors in. Even a moderately busy highway would have several orders of magnitude more traffic than this community airstrip, I would imagine.
Do people fly for like, a trip to the grocery store? To work? Or is it for Sunday joyrides and the odd out of town trip?
I'm not an expert on pollution, but leaded fuel is extremely nasty stuff. There's a pretty substantial correlation between a big drop in violent crime and the ban on leaded fuel.
Here is a Forbes article... Mostly because it was the first to come up.
That is one of the most brutal claims of correlation I've ever seen, those two graphs are offset by 23 years.
Edit: not disputing leaded gas is bad for you, it for sure is.
The theory is that lead is extremely bad for developing minds. Hence the roughly 20 year offset. Kids exposed to it grew up to be a little nastier. Fully formed minds aren't as susceptible.
Again, I'm not an expert, but I'd be shocked if breathing in lead wasn't really really bad.
Lead is really bad for you.
But you've now made the leap from correlation to causation on what was already an incredibly shaky premise.
They are distinct concepts. We can agree that lead is bad for you without trying to bring murder rates into it.
Where is the air traffic controller for the neighborhood? Or do they never leave and enter at the same time?
The majority of airports don't have traffic control.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-towered_airport
There are similar neighborhoods out where I grew up, aviation is a big thing in the Antelope Valley. Ancient Valley/Pontious and Rosamond Skypark airports come immediately to mind.
Typically small airports like this use a common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) instead of ATC. Basically, there is a predefined frequency that everyone is on, and you have to announce your intentions and everything you do within the airspace, and if another pilot notices a conflict between you and them they have to tell you.
My dad wanted to move into one of these communities back in the seventies but it was Way Beyond his price range.
Rich assholes.
I have a coworker who moved to one of these not long ago. He's definitely not rich. Do you see the size of the houses? Do those look extravagant to you?
Most of the folks living in places like this have opted to invest in planes rather than cars or nice houses. My buddy drives a shitbox car but he's got a hell of a hotrod airplane that he does stunt racing in.
Different strokes for different folks. I also used to assume anyone with a plane was a t rich asshole status, but it's a whole lifestyle for some middle income, and likely single, folk.
Not usually. If you were rich, you’d just have your chauffeur drive you to the local airport, because your megabucks business jet would need a much longer runway than you find in these.
Most of these people have several-decades-old Cessnas or Pipers that probably cost around what you’d pay for a second car (bought new).