For the majority of us, the most seriously frustrating part of general aviation flying is that we can’t do enough of it because of the cost. Despite periodic, breathless advertising claims of airplanes that can be flown for pennies a mile, the cold, hard fact about rising above the planet and moving under control is that it is expensive—and there aren’t any silver bullets that will magically shred the cost.
There are, fortunately, incremental steps we can take to reduce what it costs an individual to fly. One of the best is joint aircraft ownership via co-ownership or a flying club, to spread the fixed and some of the variable costs among two or more people.