Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Question for the Pilots

".....I am getting tiered of burning vehicles up before I get them paid off."

yup, pretty STUPID, that particular strategy /game plan.

Champagne tastes on a Beer budget.

"consider" that.

GTC

I get paid well for my job. It just has some costs involved with the pay.

".....I am getting tiered of burning vehicles up before I get them paid off."

YOU said that.

I just said THIS.......

yup, pretty STUPID, that particular strategy /game plan.

kinda' WORKS, if you get my general drift.

Buy (go further into hock on ?) an airplane to commute less than 60 miles ?

GREAT plan, ....brilliant, far reaching, perspicacious and sharp witted, you'll "Save" a bundle.

really, you will,....honest

GTC

That is why I asked for advice from Pilots. I needed the inside scoop before I made a big mistake. I use to say that my time was not worth much off of the clock but I am seeing things in a different light as I get older. cutting 3/4 of my travel time at this point in my life is looking pretty good but I do need to look at the costs involved.

I dunno' dick about aircraft, .....maintaining, repairing, or flying em'.

Just shooting blind here.

Buy something OLD, and rare, with limited parts availability, The FAA will help you locate and substitute spares.

Great "investment".

You'll make a fortune on reselling it.

GTC

No investment for me it is called transportation and I do not resale my vehicles. I run them until they stop working and when the plane stopped working I would not have to worry about fixin it because I would have my own wings at that point (hopefully)

In that case, sign onto the FAA "New Small Aircraft Owner's Program".

They'll save you a TON of hard earned bucks.

Nice friendly helpful folks, all of em'

GTC

I've been working on planes for 51 years and flying them for 48 years. Planes can be fairly cheap to buy/own. You can buy a Cessna 150, Aeronca Chief, and other assorted small planes for below $20K. Borrow the money on your house, then you won't have to to insure it. Liability only.
You can legally burn car gas with no ethanol in it. The small 4 cylinder engines burn about 5 gal./hour. An Annual inspection here is $500/$1000. If you buy a good one, and don't ding it, the maintenance is not terrible until you need an engine overhaul or cover job. Planes are cheaper to own than a horse is.
If your only going to fly to work and back, you don't need a Private License. A student ticket with the proper sign off by an instructor will do.
Good luck.

Iirc cessna used to make a "commuter" model 152. It was targeted for the socal market. Socal is about the only place with the proper weather to make an idea like that possibile.

With that being said, unless your boss is really understanding, when the fog rolls in unexpectedly and keeps you from getting to work, you might not have to worry about getting to that job ever again.

Yup

They sell that EVERYWHERE in California, I hear.

GTC

Move closer to the job, near the coast has much better temps and air quality in So. Cal.

The good thing about this job is that I am the boss. I run the crew. and the people over me are hardly ever there or they or in the main office 80 miles away. as for showing up late I would still get up like I was diving my truck and if the weather permitted I would fly and then take some relaxing time before I started the day. I can pretty much set my own hours as long as I work my 8 and set everyone else up with there work schedule.

I was thinking a Cessna 172 or 175 so that I could take some trips with it and have a little cargo space or take some friends up. I started my training in a 150 so I know how much room is in one.

I have to do some investigation before I take the plunge and the Fire has been very informative.

Check out the "vfr corridors" on a terminal chart. Those are what you are going to need to use.

Have you thought about 'hitch-hiking'??

Yes when my bike broke down on the 105 fwy inside left emergence lane 1 mile east of the 110 fwy at 3:00 in the after noon with cars going 80 mph past me. I did not get off of the road until 6:00 that night By 4:00 they were only doing about 15 mpg. that was the up side to that day.

Why not get a small RV

It's not really a viable idea.

I'm a pilot with a large cargo airline. I've been doing that for 11 years, before that I spent 10 years flying in the Marine Corps. I'd like to tell you that your idea would work, but there are a lot of reasons that it won't.

First, small airplanes ARE money pits. You know how they say a boat is a hole in the water that you pour money into? An airplane is the same except multiplied by a factor of 10X. You can buy some beat up 1960's Cessna 150 for $20K, but that's going to be with a worn out engine that'll need replacing for $$$ before long, and it won't be IFR certified. Having an instrument ticket and an IFR airplane are essential if you're going to rely upon it for transportation. Just getting the instrument rating is expensive, and a well outfitted IFR suite will cost almost as much as the airplane. The instrumentation has to be checked by a mechanic periodically to keep the plane IFR legal, so that's an added expense also. You don't mention the hours you'll be flying, but in my opinion single engine VFR operations at night are dumb, yea they're legal, but you're basically in an emergency situation as soon as you take off in my opinion. Don't think that southern California is immune to bad weather conditions. I've only had to do three no kidding real Category III approaches (zero ceiling height, you don't have to see the runway to land) to get into an airport in my career, and all three of them have been at LAX. Long Beach gets the same weather.

A lot of the other things guys on here are saying holds true also. By the time you get to the airport, get the thing unstrapped and preflighted, fly to Long Beach while getting vectored all over the sky by SoCal approach (yea, you're gonna have to talk to them, they're not gonna let you run around VFR all over the place), then park it and get off the airport then you've eaten up a lot of time.

The best example I can give you as proof that it isn't a good idea is to consider this: Where I work we have 4600 pilots who do this stuff for a living. Many of them (not me) own their own small airplanes. Not a single one of them that I'm aware of uses them to commute to work, every one that has one uses it as a weekend toy. General aviation is something that has never really lived up to it's promise except in rare cases like Alaska where that's often the only way to get somewhere. The FAA generally doesn't like private pilots with small aircraft buzzing around, especially in places like SoCal. They make it difficult and expensive to do it legally and that's by design on their part.

Funshooter, I recognize the desire as I once commuted the same distance, but what you're contemplating won't work out.

Time to drive to your airport
+
Time to preflight, start and taxi
+
Time enroute
+
Time to park and secure
+
Time from destination airport to work

Reverse to get home...5 days a week. Gas up a couple times a week, plan to drive when unexpected maintenance is required.

You're not going to save much time and will incur a lot of expense. Avgas is pricey stuff these days.

-OR-

Go for the whole banana and bounce off the wall a few times...

You've received some very sound advice and it's clear that there is no economic sense in trying to do this but I'll toss in some intangibles.

Do you want to do it? Maybe not every day but a couple days a week when the weather is clear and a million?

You worked on your private before so you have an interest in aviation. Do you want to be part of that airport culture. Hang around and get a cup of coffee or a beer and BS about flying with others? On a weekend fly up to a vintage fly-in or breakfast?

I don't miss the Navy but after 2500 hours in EA-6B's I miss flying every day and a private ticket is in my future but I won'd do it in the silliness that is the DC/Baltimore madhouse. It's going to have to wait for retirement in NH and there I could easily fall into the small airport culture. Now, a Maule or a Cub? Hmmmm.

So, if you want to do it do it but it's another hobby/avocation that is seriously unforgiving of mistakes.

What is the actual operating cost of a piper arrow or m20e these days? I would guess it has to be around a $100 an hour or more.