I've been reading Air & Space Smithsonian magazine for about 15 years. It's my favorite magazine of them all (yes, even over every single car magazine I subscribe to or otherwise receive). My interest in aerospace topics, particularly with a military aspect, is my top interest and the focus of most of my leasure reading.
Nearly every car enthusiast I talk to wants to move up to planes "someday" (and sadly, very few do). If I let myself go fully into airplanes, I'd be spending 20 times there compared what I spend on cars. The airplane hobby would start with getting a private pilots license. Extensive flying lessons are required, and they are expensive (about the same as a pair of professional driving schools) - but that's only where it starts. Have you looked at the price of a plane recently? Hundreds of thousands of dollars for a decent plane (we're enthusiasts, so a moderate plane won't do and even those are very very expensive), and the maintainance and insurance is literally sky-high (no pun intended). Anything smacking of performance is is orbit.
Enthusiasts want to do it right, and go all the way. After enthusiasm, the bottom line to get started is time. And I just don't have the time it would take to do it right. In fact I don't have the time to do it even half-right. So while I lust after planes, my "domestic" life will have to be reading and visits as time allows to museums.
As it is, there isn't enough time to satisfy my interest in airplane museums, and my personal goal of flying in every single remaining flying B-17 in the world isn't going to be met anytime soon (and time is running out - they can't keep flying forever). So I'll have to stick to cars for day-to-day fun for a little while longer...
Where do cars and planes converge? Not many places. There was an interesting article in the April/May 2007 issue of Air & Space covering how sports car racing events in the very early days of the 50s were often held on active-duty Air Force Strategic Air Command runways. Given the mission of the SAC, the constant vigilance, you know the base commander would have to be a car enthusiast himself to let anybody out on "his" runways for a car race. And yet, that is exactly what happened.
Continue at link: http://www.airspacemag.com/issues/2007/april-may/o_and_o.php
When your concept car makes it all the way to BusinessWeek, it means your project is a greater success than you had hoped for! VW's outrageous concept car has been a great success for VW.
