When Buying, Carefully Consider the Mission
I live in San Diego. My typical mission is under 400NM. Sacramento, Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas or shorter, like Blythe, Calexico, Torrance or Brawley.
Buying a plane that will do 231KTs vs. a Piper 140 needs to be considered for these typical missions. I used to use a 1963, 145HP C-172 that would get me to Phoenix in about 2:25. Later, the Arrow 180 could do it in about 2:00+. Today, I would still be at SAN waiting for Southwest 442 to take off.
In either case, it takes about 1:00 to drive from home to the airport, pre-flight the plane and get in line for take off no matter which plane I flew. On the way back, it took almost as long to get home, park the plane, tie it down and drive home.
The total time involved might have been about :50 minutes shorter, but at what price? In either case, I could leave San Diego in the morning, see customers in Phoenix and be home for dinner. Great attribute of general aviation. Try driving that in your SUV. Add the cost of overnight in Phoenix and see what the numbers look like.
I have flown coast to coast in both an Arrow 180 and a Cessna 150, for different reasons. The mission is important in determining the economics.
Just my $1.237 worth. Times have changed. Opinions cost more now.
Buying a plane that will do 231KTs vs. a Piper 140 needs to be considered for these typical missions. I used to use a 1963, 145HP C-172 that would get me to Phoenix in about 2:25. Later, the Arrow 180 could do it in about 2:00+. Today, I would still be at SAN waiting for Southwest 442 to take off.
In either case, it takes about 1:00 to drive from home to the airport, pre-flight the plane and get in line for take off no matter which plane I flew. On the way back, it took almost as long to get home, park the plane, tie it down and drive home.
The total time involved might have been about :50 minutes shorter, but at what price? In either case, I could leave San Diego in the morning, see customers in Phoenix and be home for dinner. Great attribute of general aviation. Try driving that in your SUV. Add the cost of overnight in Phoenix and see what the numbers look like.
I have flown coast to coast in both an Arrow 180 and a Cessna 150, for different reasons. The mission is important in determining the economics.
Just my $1.237 worth. Times have changed. Opinions cost more now.
Comments
It takes me from Florida to Houston in under 5 hours ususally. I used to have a Warrior and find the Arrow better for my mission. I think on fuel, the Arrow actually delivers a better value for travel than the Warrior, but not for just flying around.
You mean if you flew commercial you'd still be waiting to take off or do you mean stuck behind them waiting?
If flying commercial from the same airport, you need to get there some 1-hr early for the flight and the drive to/from is the same so another advantage of GA.
Flyguy,
Where in Houston do you land?
Aside from the personal enjoyment/satisfaction of piloting myself to a destination, the *only* scenario where I can envision my plane honestly beating out other travel options is for visiting my sister and her family. She lives 250mi away via non-Interstate highways, and there is no direct commercial service. RJ travel via hub-and-spoke from my house to hers is expensive in both time and money. It's far enough by car that I don't make the trip lightly.
By small plane, her town becomes a day-trip destination. There's a GA-friendly airport 15 minutes from her house. I envision that becoming a well-worn path in the sky before too long.
I'm in debt up to my ears from my plane purchase, I get no financial benefit from plane ownership, the thing doesn't help me in my business or career, and except for one destination, commercial air (or car) travel options are almost universally better from a time/money standpoint.
And yet I'm amazingly happy with the plane I bought. It is both a completely irrational and completely necessary part of my life now, and I hope to keep flying it (or another small plane) for at least the next 25 years!
I fly out of HEG near Jacksonville. 689nm. I guess it takes a bit more than 5 going sometimes, but always less coming back as a tailwind is common going east. I have gone into T41 La Porte... and LBX Brazoria County. Not much going on in La Porte and hard to get an IFR clearance out of there with all the Hobby stuff so low near it... One Fall I had such a great tailwind at 11K that I did not see less than 220 ground speed the entire flight! Just a touch over 3 hours and no fuel stop!
Great cheap fuel along the way in Picayune LA (KMJD) if you need it. Nice place too.
Leaving on vacation tomorrow... going up to the Outer Banks in NC. That is a shorter run at 460nm. Fly into KMQI Dare County there... Pushing MAX with all the beach chairs, coolers, and everything else...! The Arrow flies nicely heavy.
Whether my little business was incorporated or not, was certainly not an issue. I was simply stating that using a small GA plane allowed me to expand my territory a bit and be more efficient. Our business supported 7-8 families for over 17 years. Being able to take on projects a couple hundred miles away and manage them efficiently allowed me to do that because we used Cessnas and Pipers.
Just take a look at what it would cost to get from San Diego to Bakersfield on the airlines or the time and cost of driving it. We could no longer have operated in those areas profitably without a light plane. We did not need a corporate jet - that was the intent of my original comments. The mission, in our case controlled the choice.
Take a look at how you can get from San Diego to Kingman, AZ on the airlines and the outrageous cost and you will see why GA gave me an advantage. And you still had to drive from Las Vegas to get there. Try Blythe or Flagstaff Arizona. Cost and time are also outrageous.
Again, just my now very expensive $1.237 worth.
Have a great 4th.
I do use the aircraft for business trips but not in the usual way. I consult for the Navy and the Defense Dept reimburses privately owned aircraft travel up to the amount that the trip would have cost using a common carrier. For shorter trips it's a real timesaver compared to the commercial option. My home airport is 10 minutes away and the closest commercial field is 90 minutes in traffic. Factor in the security, etc., and the little Arrow is a timesaver, if not a money saver. I'll also use it for longer trips, though that does get more expensive. In either case, a little subsidy for my cost-per-flight-hour is welcome.
We also use it frequently in the summer for short flights (45-60) minutes over to the Maryland and Jersey beaches. We can spend a full day at the beach and get home without exhaustion and without hotel bills. Driving from here is 3+45 without traffic and more typically 5+00, each way. I can take four people and a decent amount of beach gear and still have GW to spare.
A trip that would be one full leg (4-5 hrs in the warrior), to a place with little or no comm service is the ideal. That's under 5 hrs in the warrior. It is somewhere around 1-hr+ on the airlines if there were a direct flight and, with the leaving the house 3 hrs before the flight. 1 hrs flight and whatever the drive is at the other end, it gets competitive.
If I were planning to fly on business a lot, I would probably have an arrow to cut the time down.
I did go to a skydiving event in NC last year and, because I bought the ticket late, and there were delays on the flights coming home, the cost and time would have been competitive in the plane. This year I will fly myself.
With just my wife and me on board (335# total), full fuel and about 70# of luggage, we were about 200# under gross. If you want to carry 4 full size adults, you will have to leave fuel behind.
The older 180's have a shorter fuselage and the back seat is pretty tight. OK for kids and very small adults. Had a '68 Arrow which had the Hersey bar wing. Worked great when the kids were young.
Archer burns about 10 GPH and we used to get about 9 GPH with the Arrow.
As I have stated before, I am a serious fan of the Lycoming 360, 180 HP because of their proven record of reliability and longevity. The '68 finally got the original factory engine replaced about 5 years ago when it hit about 3000 hours.
Hope this helps.
If you're going to operate near gross weight, over big hills, and in the summer, you'll need to seriously consider the climb performance available under those conditions. IFR will double down on that where you'll face minimum climb performance rqmnts on some DP's SID's and MAP's. These considerations biased me towards the Turbo-Arrow though it took me a while to find one with the right combo of TBO remaining & avionics.
I have a PA 32-260 for sale that will cover your mission nicely Easy to fly, big load hauler and very roomy.
Duane