Only for poor people.
If you make $300,000 a year or more, a Lear 55 Longhorn on demand rental does make economic sense. It is all about what your time is worth per hour…
Yes they do absolutely. Weight and balance is a big deal on smaller aircraft and it is legally regulated by the FAA. Some pilots push these numbers but it isn’t a good idea. It is rare to find an affordable small multi-seat private aircraft that can handle maximum fuel, passenger load, and payload at the same time. Something has to give so you have to trade out one or more of those factors to be safe and in compliance with regulations. Many crashes have occurred when the center of gravity got out of whack on small planes especially during takeoff.
I was just thinking about the rare times that I actually flew somewhere to expedite the journey under operation cost-be-damned. Both times I got stranded due to the weather and they weren’t single day delays.
Anecdotally, since I don’t have an IFR license I stay away from bad weather but the 3 times I flew with experienced pilots in poor weather it killed any desire I had to upgrade my license. It’s just an excuse to get into trouble. The only way I would use it would be to punch holes in cloud layers.
I’ve been briefly IFR many times – with IFR dad. I flew under the hood from WJF to MFD once; the ‘weather’ only clearing so that I could look at Mt. Shasta, which I always enjoy. I was in actual IFR at night for a few hours on one trip. The vertigo was frustrating. I knew I was in a bank, but the instruments said otherwise. Flying by the needles, with vertigo, was the hardest flying I’ve done. And I remember dad spending hours updating his charts. (I think he had them for the whole country!) So much record-keeping! When I start flying up here in Rainland, I’ll have to get my IFR rating and keep it up.
The freakiest thing I remember was flying into MFD. There were peaks sticking up through a solid layer, and dad was making these seemingly-random turns. I had faith in his training of course, but it was a little disconcerting flying into clouds with rocks sticking up out of them.
I haven’t flown privately for almost 10 years, but for me it has nothing to do with cost and everything to do with whether I want the trip itself to be an experience or if I’m only interested in getting somewhere. If I’m interested in the aerial equivalent of a road trip and I have the money, I would fly myself, but if I just need to be somewhere at a particular time, I’ll fly commercially.
With that in mind, I’ve flown to airshows, spent weeks flying up and down New Zealand visiting friends on the way, and flown home to visit my Mum. In each case I was in to the whole experience of the trip and the cost was never a consideration. In fact if I hadn’t flown myself I likely would not have gone at all, as it was the trip itself that was important, not the destination.
I have the same philosophy to driving. I recently drove 6000 kms while moving house. We did it with two young children and it was definitely not to save money or anything like that, but rather to see bits of country we hadn’t seen before.
The whole IFR thing is a non issue for me*, if I need to be somewhere so badly that being IFR rated would make a difference, then I’d go commercially. If I’m flying myself, I want to go VFR following roads and valleys and coastlines.
*Edit: I have a current instrument rating but it’s not something I’ve used privately.
Ditto. When I was flying professionally, I used my GA plane (PA-30) for fun, not for get-there. On a couple occasions I did use it for really going someplace, and the hassle of GA outweighed the hassle of commercial. Admittedly, if I did that often, I’d have probably gotten a little better at the logistics, so the GA would have become easier.
Maybe I was just spoiled, but the idea of flying real IFR in a unpressurized piston with 1960s instruments & 1990s avionics (and no radar) left me cold. Too much risk for not much reward.
If I ever get another aircraft (unlikely), it’ll be a Citabria or similar. Low, slow, & lookit the pretty sky & ground. Though for a solo flyer, a Citabria isn’t a bad XC machine for the proverbial 300 mile trip.
**Johnny **- Back in around '80 I once fetched up in Dagget for an unplanned overnight when the winds reduced my mighty C-150’s groundspeed westbound to about 20 knots. Had a hell of a time taxiing & getting tied down. Somebody who owned a nearby scruffy motel came out to pick us up & loaned us their car for the evening. Talked to the FSS guy coming & going - I wonder if that was your Dad?
Biggest problem with IFR conditions up here in the PNW is that’s also quite often icing conditions. If your aircraft isn’t certified for flight into known icing (and at my level, they almost certainly aren’t) you aren’t going anywhere more often than not, instrument rating or no.
Dad transferred to WJF (Lancaster) in 1976, and remained there until he retired in 1992 or so. So he wasn’t at DAG in 1980.
Yes, that’s more of a problem here than it was in the Mojave Desert! 