What Exactly is a $100 Hamburger

What exactly is a $100 hamburger? It is a burger consisting of Japanese Wagyu beef that has been infused with white truffle butter, topped with James Montgomery cheddar cheese, and a fried quail egg. (I can already tell this post will be very hard to write without a trip to In-N-Out.) But to my crazy flying family and pilots everywhere, the $100 hamburger is aviation slang for any burger served in a non-local small airport restaurant. The high price tag doesn't have anything to do with the burger's quality, and it has more to do with what it takes to get one.

You see, the mouthwatering Wagyu beef hamburger described above is the $295 Le Burger Extravagant, which is served at New York's Serendipity 3 restaurant. Its superior ingredients and high-end location dictate its price tag. The pilot's $100 hamburger is priced this way due to the high cost of flying. Totaling up the cost of operating a small airplane for a roughly two-hour flight experience can make anyone discover that it isn't the $3 ground chuck that's commanding the price.

To break it down, let's assume you own a lovely small traditional aircraft often found sitting on the ramp at any local airport. If you add up the costs of fuel, required engine maintenance, labor expenses, and everything else involved with flying to get that yummy burger, those dollars quickly add up to well over $100. This doesn't even include the cost of the hamburger itself! Image if every time you went out to lunch, just getting to the restaurant cost you $100! This sort of realization makes flying seem more like a hobby for the few than anything within reach for the vast majority. It also supports the idea that driving is more comfortable, so why even bother with flying.

To compare, the automobile was first seen as transportation for only the wealthy few who bought cars for pleasure, comfort, and status. In 1900 the cost to own a car was well over $1,000 until Henry Ford hit the scene. His Model-T sold for $850, and as popularity grew for his horseless buggy, prices dropped to $265 a car. With that affordable price tag, the Model T grew in popularity leading to greater freedom and mobility for all Americans.

Through growing accessibility and market demand, over time, cars became more efficient. We've moved away from the heavy gas-guzzling land cruisers to sportier fuel-efficient vehicles. And today, the market is still evolving, ultimately shifting away from internal combustion engines to all-electric cars. Like Porsche, Volkswagen, Jaguar, and even Aston Martin, many traditional automotive manufacturers anticipate electric vehicles playing a massive role soon.

Even driving has become more comfortable with automated driver assistance features such as steering, acceleration, and lane correction functions. All of these improvements make for a more enjoyable, safer, and more affordable driving experience. This leads me to ask, "Why did the automobile get less expensive and easier to drive while flying went in the opposite direction?"

I often meet eager young adults, hungry to learn how to fly, handed years-old training manuals for airplanes that way outdate the young adult. It seems as the years go by that the $100 hamburger is getting more costly, not less! Imagine if we applied the same innovation found in the automotive industry to general aviation. What would that do the price of the $100 hamburger?

I grew up in an aviation family. Everything we did revolve around flying. The opportunity to fly was always around me, but our airplanes different. You see, I come from a family of homebuilders, which means we built tiny composite aircraft and then put Volkswagen engines in them to fly. It was an exciting childhood, and it wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I realized that not everyone had airplanes in their garages. I come from the experimental flying community, which meant our hamburgers were a bit less than $100 and flying was much more accessible than general aviation.

Experimental aviation is all about trying new concepts. Experimenting with new ideas often brings with it exciting innovations. One such design that I often write about is electric aviation. Electric aviation can drive down operating costs to 1/6 of conventional aircraft. This brings the $100 hamburger down to approximately $16. Now that's a "taster" price!

While electric aviation is still in the experimental stage, waiting on certification, it is right around the corner. General aviation has an inspiring future. I look forward to concepts like these turning an expensive hobby experienced by only a few into a thriving transportation model and hamburgers we can all afford.