Ah, the Cost of Flying

April 5, 2022 – We have several items in this month's issue directly relating to the cost of flying. Not only is Avgas likely to follow the “through the roof” pricing that automotive gasoline is seeing right now but two new items are going to add significantly to the cost. The ADS-B mandate discussed elsewhere will add a significant price tag to any aircraft. My Tailbeaconx with an AV-20 control head works extremely well on my RV-9A, and it does replace my existing transponder, but at around $4,000 CDN it's not an inexpensive item. Certified aircraft will probably be dealing with much higher costs.

The second item, perhaps not so directly relevant if you are already an aircraft owner not looking for an upgrade, is the proposed luxury tax. See the separate article in this issue. One interesting question is why has the tax been proposed for aircraft starting at $100,000 but for boats only starting at $250,000? It took hours of digging to understand the proposed tax structure, so I hope the article helps.

We owe a big thank you to Chris Moran for being willing to take the chair at our EAA Canada charitable organization. He's already hard at work trying to get our teams working closer together. If you have anything you'd like to donate to this worthy cause — financial awards to beginning aviators — please check out the “donate” tab at EAACanada.ca. You can get a CRA-approved receipt for your donation.

As always, we like to thank our authors. They contribute without any kind of payment, for your benefit. Next time you see one of them please thank them for their hard work. Mike Davenport, Bill Evans, Jeff Seaborn, and John Wyman have all contributed this month.

Please consider taking some weight of their shoulders by contributing an article yourself, even if it's only that favourite aviation photo or the latest trick you discovered to make flying that much better.