There are many words that draw folks to this type of news: VLJ Revolution, Air Taxi, Paradigm Shift etc. And that's all good. In fact, even Cirrus is breaking new ground with their aviation technology and developing aircraft and manufacturing technology that may leave legacy manufacturers scratching their head as their marketshare slips below historical levels.

This story, however, needs a little more clarification. We linked to Point 2 Point a while ago since it appeared that public funds had been used to fund a consulting study in which the consultant then put themselves forth as the natural selection for executing the recommendations of the consulting study. While our memory is foggy and dim, and certainly clouded with other outlandish aviation tales, the bulk of the local carrier seemed to come from what they perceived were questionable use of public funds. After all, why can't all air carriers go to the trough of public money?

Now in fairness to the Point 2 Point folks.. this all seemed rather legitimate, with the one exception: Most local air carriers were all screaming foul for this and other reasons. This news is interesting in that it appears that Point 2 Point is well on its way. But as many local air taxi firms pointed out, there is one critical problem with the combination of North Dakota and Single Engine Piston Operations - Weather.

Weather is unforgiving.. it regularly unleashes the power to shut human activity down on the ground, never mind the aircraft that should not wander into icing or any conditions it can not easily outclimb. As far as we know the Cirrus SR 22 is not pressurized and does not fly above 10,000 msl legally under Part 135 - but we could be wrong.. after all, we're just website guys.

This sentence got us particularily interested:

The bold in the paragraph above is ours. We put it in there since we wanted to throw in one critical caveat: When and where you choose so long as conditions permit the Cirrus SR 22 to safely navigate the low ceilings, icing, and weather it cannot outclimb, which happens in North Dakota, but we'll be sure to see that it does not conflict with your need for safe ad hoc movement from A to B.

It has been so long since I have operated Part 135 (5 + years now) that I could not tell you the status of the current single engine rules for Part 135 flight.. but I can tell you that I personally would not expect to brave North Dakota "when and where I wanted".. I'd leave that to the pilot of my PC12 or Caravan.