Onalaska overhead...

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Not far from my current position: "A Texas Mystery: Small Town Has 1,000 Registered Aircraft But No Airport" [Zero Hedge]. Onalaska, Texas [Wiki]. This would mean more than one aircraft per household even taking into account the estimated increase in population of 40% (forty) in the last decade. "We shouldn't require less information [...] to register a car than to register an aircraft" no shit...but they do: it costs a whopping five dollars (USD5) to register a plane with the The Federal Aviation Administration; then the FAA will assign the aircraft a tail code that starts with an the letter N. (see example, image, left). OK, very complicated stuff...but "The report said most of the aircraft owners were not based in Texas nor the US but were foreigners." Oh, that's OK then? "In another audit of the five major trust companies[*], federal investigators found the companies "could not or would not provide" the identities of 75% of the foreign owners requested." FFS.

[*] Foreign multinational corporations often use trusts to register a plane because the FAA demands registrations have a US citizen on file.