Scary. Yup. Now, if they lowered the insane taxes on landings, approaches, and gasoline, I'd bet there would be a lot more aviation....
The most recent mind boggler is a proposal from OfCom, the UK version of the FCC, that as of 2014 there will be a charge for those using the electromagnetic spectrum for radio broadcasting. Everybody who uses any VHF or UHF radio frequency has to pay for the privilege. They are even proposing to charge the RNLI (the excellent charity lifeboat service) pay a stunning 260K pounds ($377,000) per year to use VHF radio on their lifeboats.
The new scheme would also affect VHF used in aircraft. This has drawn quite a lot of criticism as you can imagine but I'm not sure it has been quashed. Usually these things seem to lay dormant for a bit and then, when nobody is pay much attention, they go into effect.
