What about all the relatively poor Alaskans who fly small planes around (no roads, tracking animals, checking traps)? What are the dynamics such that they can afford that lifestyle?
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-we-tallied-alaska-avi...
> A KUCB and ProPublica analysis has found that in recent years, Alaska has accounted for a growing share of the country’s fatalities from crashes involving small commercial aircraft. Since 2016, 42% of the country’s deaths in these crashes occurred in Alaska, up from 26% in the early 2000s.
Rental prices include everything so you can own your own plane for less, it'll be ancient and old, and if you do your own maintenance it can be even cheaper.
Most people who own do so for flexibility rather than savings. It usually costs more to own, but it also lets you get a plane you probably can't rent, configure it the way you want, leave all the headsets and supplies in the plane, fly it when you want without scheduling, fly it somewhere and stay for a week without paying daily minimums, etc.
There's a middle-ground which is quite common of the "own a share" - you and five others buy and maintain a plane and "rent" it from yourself - this works great if the times you want to fly don't all overlap.
I really wish I could have found great partners two decades ago. (I'd probably have a lot more money in the bank now, even if it meant we'd have missed more Christmas trips or moved that travel to the airlines because a partner had the airplane.)