Calif. techies now buying, renting private airplanes
Source: San Jose Mercury News
... In another byproduct of the digital Gilded Age that has turned the Bay Area into one big startup-tropolis, the tech community is undergoing a remarkable altitudinal adjustment. Whether it's Intel using its fleet of corporate jets to essentially run a private regional airline, or the retired Apple big shot getting his pilot's license so he can zip back from his San Luis Obispo home to have lunch in Cupertino, or the San Francisco twenty-something learning to fly because it's a "beautiful hobby" that lets him "defy physics," the region's tech warriors are spreading their wings.
"I'm seeing more and more young people who've made money from tech startups and are now buying planes," said Walt Gyger, owner of the Trade Winds Aviation flight school at Reid-Hillview Airport in San Jose.
... Bill Sutherland, director of marketing operations for Apple, said friends got him interested in flying in 2009, and when an in-law told him about how he used his plane for his own business, "that flipped my switch.
"Someone said it might make sense to buy my own plane for my training, so I got a used Cessna 172 for like $118,000," said Sutherland, who knows at least six fellow Apple employees who fly.
Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_27432989/bay-area-techies-take-skies
= new reply since forum marked as read
