31–40 of 251 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
avgas is more expensive doe
Yeah, where I am, it's about 5/3 as expensive. The upper bound improvement factor you can get over driving due to flying in a straight line is 2/sqrt(2), so your best case cost-equivalent efficiency is about 11 mpg.
Don't get me wrong but I do not get what's so exciting about flying yourself or owning a plane. Flying is for getting from point A to B. Flying just for fun missing any purpose might be fun the first couple of times but then it's like driving a bus from A to A.
Also thrilling is trying to put yourself on a 50' wide piece of pavement while going 70mph in a medium that's moving, unlike the pavement.
Oh, and the view is awesome.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
avgas is more expensive doe
Yeah, where I am, it's about 5/3 as expensive. The upper bound improvement factor you can get over driving due to flying in a straight line is 2/sqrt(2), so your best case cost-equivalent efficiency is about 11 mpg.
You forgot the LAQ: "Can someone who only 'trained' on a Flight Simulator be able to take-off and land in a real plane?'
Landing is a different story...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You must be fantastically unlucky, by my research (I'm afraid I've lost the citation) the number of pilots who die in flying accidents is about 1/50. How many pilots did you know?
A reasonable number, but many of them were stunt pilots -- or thought they were stunt pilots. I didn't mean to create a false impression. Also remember I mentioned that was a 12-year period.
Lincoln Beachey thought it was a dream to go up to heaven in a flying machine The machine broke down and down he fell thought he'd go to heaven but he went to Lincoln Beachey thought it was a dream ...
RIP Lincoln Beachey, drowned in SF Bay 1915
There are a couple of websites for airplane pooling around: http://www.skypool.com/ Like ridesharing / carpooling, just with airplanes. They are clearly not as successful as the car variant, but when flight destinations / times match they might offer a little adventure on the route (and one could avoid some of the traffic jams around the Bay Area).
In the Yes, Prime Minister sense.
[1] I once had a boss that picked up $200 cars. He asked me to move it out of the company car park for him once, warning that the brakes didn't work and I'd need to use the handbrake to stop.
It's important to say that the general aviation population has gotten much smaller over the last few decades. It was a lot more popular 25 years ago when I flew much more than I do now. A number of aircraft manufacturers have stopped building small general-aviation planes for a number of reasons including liability and a reduction in public interest. I started flying about 1980. By 1992, 12 years later, about half th…
> about half the pilots I knew in 1980 (instructors as well as students) had been killed in flying accidents Wow, that's certainly dissuasive. By the way, are there some kind of autopilots on modern amateur planes? Or is that even possible to integrate any ?
(I don't fly and know nothing about this but it sounds pretty cool)
It's important to say that the general aviation population has gotten much smaller over the last few decades. It was a lot more popular 25 years ago when I flew much more than I do now. A number of aircraft manufacturers have stopped building small general-aviation planes for a number of reasons including liability and a reduction in public interest. I started flying about 1980. By 1992, 12 years later, about half th…
> about half the pilots I knew in 1980 (instructors as well as students) had been killed in flying accidents Wow, that's certainly dissuasive. By the way, are there some kind of autopilots on modern amateur planes? Or is that even possible to integrate any ?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> By the way, are there some kind of autopilots on modern amateur planes? By "amateur planes" do you mean ultralights or experimental homebuilts? The answer depends on which -- an ultralight could hardly tolerate the extra weight that a decent autopilot would require. And most experimental homebuilt owners probably want the pleasure of actually flying their planes. Autopilots are more attractive to people who fly lon…
>an ultralight could hardly tolerate the extra weight that a decent autopilot would require Where does most of the weight come from in an autopilot?
There are a couple of websites for airplane pooling around: http://www.skypool.com/ Like ridesharing / carpooling, just with airplanes. They are clearly not as successful as the car variant, but when flight destinations / times match they might offer a little adventure on the route (and one could avoid some of the traffic jams around the Bay Area).
There are a lot of legal land mines with operations like this. The FAA separates flight operations along a couple of subtle lines that make the difference between a commercial and private operation. As soon as a private pilot says to the general public "I am flying from here to there on this day and it will cost this much to come." you are now "holding out" as the FAA puts it. This requires you to be a commercial pil…
This is something I plan to do if/when I burn out on programming. Though I guess there is always the saying: "how do you become a millionaire?" "become a billionaire and start an airline."