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The $100 … er … $150 Hamburger

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Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • Airport restaurants, which vary greatly in quality from basic diners to gourmet establishments like "Matthew's at the Airport" in Paso Robles, serve as vital community hubs for pilots.
  • Rising fuel prices and economic challenges are causing a significant decline in patronage and widespread closures of airport cafes nationwide.
  • To combat these challenges and preserve these unique gathering places, the author suggests pilots adopt shared expense models, reminiscent of historical barnstormer traditions, to make flying more affordable.
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For all the fuss made about California’s huge population, almost two-thirds of its 36.5 million people are squeezed into just 8 percent of the land. That leaves an awful lot of open spaces in between, as anyone who’s ever flown — or driven — between San Francisco and Los Angeles can attest.

But my friend Jeff, who does demo flights for Cirrus, had a turbo SR22 G3 in Los Angeles he wanted me to try, and I was looking for an excuse to take the Cheetah somewhere. So we started looking for somewhere halfway in between to meet for lunch. “Halfway,” mind you, being in terms of time, not distance, since the Cirrus SR22 could run speed circles around my little sky slug.

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