The Great Ongoing Aviation Thread (general and other)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
141

I used to work with a guy who was a flight instructor. Black guy, but light skinned. Could pass for Middle-Eastern. He took a student on a long instructional flight from L.A. to SFO not long after the raid (Reagan’s) on Libya. That day he was wearing a camouflaged T-shirt with ammo belts and hand grenades silkscreened on it. From a distance the graphics apparently looked real. Security fell on them as soon as they were out of the plane.

Security: What’s your nationality?
Coworker: I am American!
Sec: Where are you from?
CW: From here!
Sec: No. What’s your ethnicity?
CW: I’m Black.
Sec: … Oh. What about him? [indicating the student]
CW: Egypt…

142

If they were already profiling him, can you imagine how much worse than normal that would have turned out if one of them had been injured by the prop? Glad that situation worked out alright.

143

That polish pilot did a good job the other day in Warsaw…

144

So I just stumbled across a show called “Flying Wild Alaska” on the Discovery Channel. On the one hand, it seems…a little on the dramatic side. On the other hand, based on what I’m seeing from the girl who is currently learning to fly, if she can do it, I’m sure I can. :slight_smile:

145

I think I saw that episode. I don’t know if it was that one or another, but they did seem to play up the ‘danger’ of landing on an unimproved strip. It was as if the guy was on the edge of disaster, when to me it looked pretty undramatic.

146

Here’s another scenario where, I could imagine, you might get pulled over by a traffic cop as you taxi. If you’re rich enough to live like this:

In some places, there are little mini-airports on the edge of town with a residential neighborhood of streets and houses immediately around it. I think they are called “Sky Parks.” The houses have HUMONGOUS garages where they keep their airplanes. To get flying, you just drive your airplane down the street from your garage to the runway.

So I suppose a cop could stop a plane there for one reason or another.

There is such a neighborhood, for example, at the north edge of Fresno, CA.

As the city grows, there is increasing development in the area, and I suspect that the little airport will have to go away before much longer. I don’t think they’d let it stay, with more and more houses, schools, and shopping centers just across the street.

ETA: You too can buy a home there!

147

(Missed edit window for above air park post) –

Here’s a Wiki article about this. It lists several other similar air parks. There’s a photo here of a residential street, with an airplane in front of a house in the driveway.

148

Are there stats somewhere about GA airports? I know that locally, along about a 35 mile stretch of Highway 12, there are 3 active private airports – I don’t think any of them have scheduled commercial flights, but at least on of them has a sign for flying lessons. I wonder if that density is unusual. Middleton, Sauk Prairie, and Baraboo.

Actually, I see that the Middleton airport was bought by the city a few years back. Is that unusual for an airport with no commercial flights?

149

Well, he made a normal landing with the wheels up. Nothing particularly noteworthy unless there was a 25 knot crosswind.

Now the pilot who landed a 767 on a drag strip with no engines. That would have been something to see. He cross controlled it to avoid overshooting the runway.

150

nm

151

This Wiki article says [emphasis mine]:

According to the FAA Administrator’s Fact Book:


Airports 
                     Number of U.S. Airports 
                       (As of December 31) 
                                        2009    2008    2007 
Total Airports                        19,750  19,930  20,341 
Airports                              13,494  13,589  13,822 
Heliports                              5,571   5,568   5,708 
Seaplane Bases                           497     503     527 
Gliderports                               35      35      35 
Balloonports                              14      14      15 
Ultralight Flightparks                   139     139     147 
Total Civil Public Use Airports        5,178   5,202   5,221 
Civil Public Use Part 139                559     560     565
Civil Public Use Non-Part 139	       4,619   4,642   4,656 
Civil Public Use Airports Abandoned..     16      16      18 
Newly Established Public Use               5       3       9 
Total Civil Private Use Airports      14,298  14,451  14,839 
Civil Private Use Airports Abandoned.    360     461     297 
Newly Established Private Use	         214     151     274 
Military Airports                        274     277     281

It’s not unusual for a municipality to own an airport. I’d guess that most airports you see in a city or town are publicly owned, even if they do not have scheduled flights. I reckon there are a couple of reasons for this. First, land around settled areas is expensive. Municipalities are probably in a better position to make the land available for the Public Good than individuals or corporations. Another reason is that, as stated previously, GA airports contribute much to the economy. Better facilities are more attractive to the pilots and businesses. A municipality tends to have more resources for airport improvements and maintenance. Pilots effectively pay a ‘use tax’ every time they buy fuel. These fuel taxes go into a fund earmarked for airport purposes. When a municipality wants to upgrade its airport, they can get money from the FAA to help defray the cost. I don’t know if that option is available to privately-owned public-use airports.

152

I thought I’d tabulate the prices of Cessna 172s and Skyhawks over the years. Unfortunately, that information in The Cessna 172 is incomplete and in any case only goes to 1987. I searched for articles to find reviews with prices and was able to fill in a couple of blanks. The 2011 price is from a Cessna retailer who is taking orders for 2011 aircraft.

When the 172 was introduced, it was simply called ‘172’. Eventually an up-market model was offered called the Skyhawk, which features more complete avionics and trim. Later there were other sub-models such as the Skyhawk II and Hawk XP, not to mention the 172RG Cutlass. To keep the table simple, I’ve divided the models into two columns: ‘172 or Basic’, and ‘Skyhawk or Equipped’. The former is the base model, and the latter is the one with options. That one does not include the Hawk XP with its more powerful (and expensive) engine or ‘upgrades on the upgrades’ ones. The prices reflect the MSRPs of the base models and the most common upgraded models. I should note that the options list is rather short nowadays, as new Skyhawk SPs are very well equipped. I think that the Garmin G1000 ‘glass cockpit’ is standard now.

Again, there are many gaps in the data. Please PM me, email me, or post here if you can fill in the gaps (preferably with citations) and I’ll add the data to my spreadsheet.

So here’s the historical MSRP data for the 172 and Skyhawk that I could find:


Year	172 or Basic	Skyhawk or Equipped
1956	  $8,995.00	
1960	  $9,450.00	
1963	  $8,985.00	 $11,590.00
1964	 $10,245.00	 $11,995.00
1967	 $12,450.00	 $13,300.00
1968	 $10,950.00	 $12,750.00
1970	 $12,500.00	 $13,995.00
1972	 $13,425.00	 $14,995.00
1976	 $16,055.00	 $17,890.00
1978	 $22,300.00	 $29,950.00
1982		         $33,950.00
1985		         $44,000.00
1987		         $49,600.00
1998		        $124,500.00
2005	$171,250.00	$229,750.00
2008	$197,000.00	$297,000.00
2009		        $297,000.00
2010		        $297,000.00
2011		        $307,500.00
153

I was making minimum wage doing data entry in 1982. The price of a new Skyhawk was less than five times my income. Around 1987 I was making around $25K/yr, so a new Skyhawk was about twice my salary. Today I make what I think is an ‘average’ wage, and the price of a new Skyhawk is more than six times my income. So a new Skyhawk was actually more affordable when I was making minimum wage, than they are now with a middle-class income. :stuck_out_tongue: (Or is that :mad: ?)

154

How much does it cost to own an airplane? I made a spreadsheet. Of course I fudged a bit. You can burn 6 gph or nearly 10 gph, depending on your power setting. AVGAS prices vary with the market. Some engines burn more oil than other engines. Maintenance costs per hour are a total guess. I found an older figure online and added a little to it. I don’t know how they arrived at that number. Engine overhaul costs were derived by picking a somewhat-close cost for an overhaul and dividing it by 2,000. I don’t know how much the prop ‘overhaul’ is (actually there is no TBO on the prop; it’s either good or it isn’t, and is replaced when it isn’t serviceable), so I rounded up a figure I found online. Insurance? who can say. I’m not calling a broker to make a post on a message board. That number is totally anally-derived. Tie-down costs are what they are here, per year. Hangars (if you can get one) are about $2,400/year. Prices for tie-down/hangar vary depending on where you are. The more you fly, the cheaper the hourly cost is (within limits, of course). I’ve heard it said that one needs to fly at least 300 hours/year before the cost of owning is lower than the cost of renting, so I used that number. That’s 6 hours a week, or three hours a day for weekend flying. Quite a lot, actually – especially up here in Rainland where weather doesn’t always cooperate. Not to mention the total cost of flying that much in a year. (Flying fewer hours the hourly rate would increase, but the annual cost of flying would go down.)

Based on the numbers I used, owning a Cessna 172 Skyhawk and flying it 300 hours per year is a couple of bucks more expensive per hour than renting one for the same amount of time. I’ve probably missed a couple of items, too. For example, interest on the loan you used to buy the plane in the first place. Does that count? It would if you put the plane on leaseback. But a personal flying flivver? Maybe not.

Anyway, this is what I came up with. You can copy and paste it into your own spreadsheet and play with the numbers effective in your area, and for different airplanes if you know their specs.


Fuel (GPH)	                            9.00
Fuel price/gallon	                    6.50
**Fuel cost per hour	                   58.50**
Oil consumption qt/hour	                    0.10
Oil price/qt	                            7.50
**Oil cost per hour	                    0.75**
Maintenance cost/hour	                   30.00
Hourly engine reserve	                    9.00
Prop T/R reserve	                    2.00
**Total Variable Costs/Hour:	          100.25**
Annual insurance	                 3000.00
Hangar/Tie-down	                          480.00
**Total Fixed Costs:	                 3480.00**
Hours/year	                          300.00
**Total Variable & Fixed Costs/Year:	33555.00
Fixed Cost/Hour:	                   11.60
Total Costs/Hour:	                  111.85**
155

That would be for something with a Lycoming O-320 engine. Figure an O-235 would burn 6 gallons an hour.

156

The Skyhawk uses an O-320.

157

as do many aircraft. I was just adding info.

158

In the last decade I’ve paid as little as $50/month for a tie down and as much as $300/month for a hangar.
My insurance is closer to $1200/year.
Hourly engine reserve seems about right except most engines are actually 2000 hours OR 10 Years. Most pilots I know fly fewer than 200 hours a year so the 10 years TBO comes up first raising the cost per hour.
Don’t forget a reserve for painting the plane. It’s a major cost and it’ll need it about every 20 years at a minimum. More often if kept outside.
If you have a certified GPS you’ll be paying for a data card subscription. If the GPS gets weather via satellite radio that’s another subscription.
Maintenance cost is probably closer to $15/hour if you’re really flying 300 hours a year. I have definitely paid over $30/hour in a given year, but that was because I was flying closer to 100 hours/year. I think it’s probably better to estimate that for that type of plane after annuals and all the stuff that breaks during the year you’ll probably average around $3500/year in maintenance no matter how much you fly it.

159

The $10k a skyhawk cost in 1960 is only about $70k in today’s money, so I’d say you’re right.

160

I’m curious: Where did that figure come from?

I sneaked (snuck?) over to SDMB from work today. (Not logged on there, as they don’t like ‘social’ sites.) Using IE-whatever-is-on-the-new-computer, the columns on my tables are messed up. They look fine here at home, using Safari. I probably should have deleted the tabs. So my apologies if anyone is seeing misplaced numbers.