Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

I've done it US-Canada, and entering Canada was an absolute pleasure and smooth experience; coming back into the US has become much more hassle (and I'm a US citizen, flying an N-reg [US] airplane). That was before 9/11 and Homeland Security.

Now, entering the US is much more aggravating and "tense".

It's not so much that there's lots of red tape, but that the entire experience I perceive as unfriendly and waiting to spring a $5000 fine of you for missing some timing deadline by a few minutes or for having the paperwork innocently imperfectly filled out.

There's also a sense of discoordination. You have to file electronically, and then call the customs office on the phone, giving them a small window for your arrival. You used to just be able to have ATC advise customs of your ETA.

It's to the point where when I need to go to Windsor, Canada, I will often overfly the Windsor airport, cross back into the US, land at Detroit (either Metro or City airport) and rent a car to drive back into Canada. If I just overfly Canada but takeoff and land in the US, it's still a domestic flight and I avoid all the hassle.

I'm sure if I did it more often that it would become routine and seem less arcane and fraught with peril, but I only have occassion to do it a couple times per year, max, and Detroit is really close to Windsor anyway, so it'll stay a mystery for me until I go island hopping the Carribean. That's where a rental car from San Juan, PR or Miami doesn't work as a substitute for a border-crossing.

You're not taking into account the vastly simpler design of an electric aircraft. An electrically propelled aircraft will have maintenance requirements similar to a glider. Fewer engine overhauls and much simpler procedures means significantly reduced cost.

Well, these kind of problems have their own way of being solved. Look at uber.com - you would take your "buddy friend" you just get acquainted with over the Internet!

More like a sports car that takes ultra premium as the plane can't carry a lot of people, can't tow anything and generally can't fly in bad weather.

I don't think you're taking into account the vastly increased battery maintenance, inspection and capacity testing that will be required.

Yes, you'll save a lot on not maintaining a piston IC engine.

You'll give some of that back in inspection processes to ensure that you don't have 95% of the range that you think you have. If you run of out power in a Leaf or a Tesla, it's overwhelmingly likely that the car will come to rest on a piece of pavement and intact. If you run out of juice in an electric airplane, you turn into a glider, and it's far from assured that you'll end up at an airport or on pavement.

I'm not scare-mongering, but that's the point of view the FAA will take on inspection and testing requirements for electric storage systems to achieve equivalent level of safety.

I know when I add 40 gallons into my left tank (beyond the unusable fuel) that I have added 40 gallons of range. I need some similar assurance for battery capacity. (again, it's not me, but the FAA.)

Just have a look at the annual inspection requirements for ELT and starting batteries for piston airplanes. And those are not propulsion systems. The batteries that run the AHRS in the G1000 and Aspen systems are also onerous and those batteries are crazy expensive relative to their capacity.

I can see electrics working for flight school airplanes, especially if they can get the 80% recharge time down under 2 hours.

I don't see them as practical for cross-country travel anytime soon without advances in battery tech; those are inevitable, but I don't see them displacing liquid organic fuels in my flying career for 1000nm legs.