We don't even have oleo struts to worry about, and that makes it easier to handle the maintenance. Renteria likes his Piper Warrior for the same reason. It's simple, efficient, and not too expensive to fly. In a bigger airplane, the costs would double. In an effort to reduce expenses as much as possible, many of the pilots try to do much of the routine maintenance on their airplanes themselves.
Cost is also the reason some of the pilots choose to fly into Hawthorne.
Don Hanson, who commutes from Corona, flew his Cessna 152 into LAX for five years until parking got too expensive. He now keeps a car at Hawthorne and drives the last few miles to work. Most of the pilots try to defray the costs of commuting by taking passengers to help share expenses. If someone is not going into work on a particular day, he can try to find someone to take his seat, but he pays for the seat whether it is filled or not. Airplane pooling, they say, makes flying less expensive than driving their individual cars, although it is still more expensive than a van pool.