Does it make sense, ever?

I now commute 3 hours to work, one way, work 3-5 days and drive home. How much more would flying something small/cheap (152, etc) cost?

I would be flying from one small airport to another in a low cost of living area (both ends)so I would imagine any airport related fees etc would be at the lower end of normal.

I have been looking at an excuse to take lessons!

I have a 172 for about 5 years now and just calculated it cost $1,000 per month to sit in the Hangar. Hangar, Insurance, maintenance. Fuel in Lakeland is now around $5.00 per gallon and it burns 8 gallons an hour.

There is an old pilot addage that fits here: "Time to spare? Go by air".

For a 3 hour one way driving trip say 130 miles, flying will not save much,if any time over driving.

Assume you drive 15 minutes to your local airport,

take 45 minutes to get the plane out of the hanger,preflight it, get it topped off with gas,
re-check the weather (assume you did it at home also), take a pee, swallow some bad coffee,maybe defrost the plane or air a tire,

perhaps file a vfr flight plan after waiting for the clouds to lift then taxi out (assume 15 min.),

probably hold 5 min. for landing traffic,

and finally fly to your destination airport (at least an hour plus flight in a 152)

take 10 minutes for the approach, landing and to taxi to the tie down area,

then take another 20 minutes to tie the aircraft down, put away maps, glance over your shoulder to admire your plane as you walk to the FBO to take another pee and swallow some more bad coffee,

and finally drive (assume you have another car at the work airport) or get a ride to work (assume another 15 min. if your airport car will start and does not have a flat tire),

you will find that you are spending more money and taking the same amount of time to go to work.

- but it will be more fun most of the time - except for a couple of trips each year when it is scaring the crap out of you.

LOL

I thought as much.

Will have to adjust the math to get it by the wife.



Seriously, thanks for the insight!

I have been trying to make the $$$ make sense...but I just fly for fun...not to save money.

Cheap flying died during the 70's. You have to be either directly utilizing your airplane to generate income or your hourly rate for the job you perform must justify the expense of aircraft operation. Otherwise, private flying is a very expensive luxury and you can't justify it financially.

It's like dangerous game hunting. You don't need to do it but it sure is fun.

The only way you can justfiy it is how much is your time worth? Airplanes and to some extent helicopters can be very cost effective transportation, IE: moving crew around offshore oil fields. It only works when time is money and it has to be a lot of money. Use to own a 150 back in the early 1970's and I use it to fly to my job on long Island for one summer rather than drive, the drive was about 6 hours one way. It worked ok my flight time from my home airport to were I was working was 18 min or so. It still was not cheap, but it saved me time and the expense of keeping to homes. It was a seasonl job. At that time my DOC's were about 17 an hour. it would take about 17 bucks worth of gas for my car at the time to make the drive, and then there was tolls and traffic. The only down side was when I could not go do to WX. Didn't matter much the job was towing banners so you didn't fly when the Wx was bad. I just used it as a time building thing. It can work but you really have to run the numbers to see what your costs are going to be and do it for a while to get the real cost vs benifit.