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Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

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Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#241

Post by bulte-rs »

niekmaas wrote: post #68
Udo wrote: post #56

I would love an app that matches passengers to GA flights going between airfields, essentially a ride-sharing option for small aircraft. Pilots could offload a bit of the fuel cost and passengers could go between short range destinations very fast if they're lucky.

A private pilot license (PPL) does not allow for commercial flying (charging passengers). To charge passengers to pilot requires a commercial pilot license.

Not only a CPL/ATPL but also an Air Operator's Certificate. Unfortunately it's not as easy as buying yourself a license, rent a plane and start making money.

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#242

Post by mcdougle »

lutorm wrote: post #154
mcdougle wrote: post #111

I've been toying with the idea of getting my pilot's license (eventually) partially for the sake of avoiding the TSA when I actually have to travel. What I'm curious about is how difficult/expensive it is to rent a plane that can fly further than stated in the article? (say, TX to CA, for instance) I imagine it wouldn't make much sense to buy a huge cross-country jet for the occasional long trips, although I am kind…

I think renting such a plane would be difficult, but there are home-built airplanes with ranges over 1000 miles. You need a big bladder to go that far, though...

Really? I've heard it should be pretty easy, and that unless you're planning to fly often, renting is by far the best way to go (aside from just taking the airlines). Then again, my sources might not be all that knowledgable!

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#243

Post by logfromblammo »

sokoloff wrote: post #171
logfromblammo wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were my ass up in the air, I think I would prefer that the electric power to the drive motor(s) be provided by a very reliable Diesel-cycle or external combustion generator and not just a battery pack, at least with our current generation of battery technologies. #2 fuel oil is far more energy-dense than any battery that I can afford.

Agreed. Aviation diesels typically burn Jet-A (widely available at airports, obviously) which is similar in energy content to #2 (and about 50x the energy content of Li-ion batteries on a J/g basis).

As far as I know, the major difference between Jet-A and #2 is that is has a much lower gel point than even the northern winter diesel fuels, because higher = colder. If you already have electric motors, wouldn't electrically heated fuel tanks suddenly be more possible than trying to divert waste heat out of fuel-burning engines?

You could save a LOT of money on fuel if you could use off-road #2 oil instead of Jet-A.

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#244

Post by bdunbar »

GFischer wrote: post #231
bdunbar wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> except you die if you screw up. That happens with boats, too. Perhaps not as often - boats don't fall out of the sky when they stop working - but it happens.

The death rate for yatch sailing is way below that of general aviation. It's reported at 5.4 deaths per 100.000. I've been involved in some ugly accidents myself as a crew member (a broken mast off the coast) and the only thing I got from that is an anecdote :) . Unless you're in a mid-Atlantic crossing or caught in a storm, most screwups are recoverable. That's not to say you don't have to respect the sea - you defi…

> The death rate for yatch sailing is way below that of general aviation.

Oh, sure. I'm personally aware of only one yacht casualty, and that was sudden and unexpected. The boat jibed while the fellow was standing, the boom swept across ...

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#245

Post by bdunbar »

freerobby wrote: post #97
bdunbar wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> except you die if you screw up. That happens with boats, too. Perhaps not as often - boats don't fall out of the sky when they stop working - but it happens.

Planes don't really fall out of the sky either, especially modern commercial jets with high L/D ratios. There are some exceptions, e.g. fighter jets, but generally planes can glide down safely upon engine failure provided there is a nearby spot to land. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift-to-drag_ratio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift-to-drag_ratio

> Planes don't really fall out of the sky either

I did not intend that metaphor to be literal.

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#246

Post by sokoloff »

lutorm wrote: post #179
manifesto wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its because you can not go significantly faster by adding another turbine and if you got a jet plane, you probably don't care about fuel efficiency.

But as you say, you don't go significantly faster by adding another piston engine, either. Aerodynamic resistance at high speed goes as v^2, so adding twice the power increases your speed at most 70%. In practice, it will be less due to increased drag from engines in the wings, more weight, etc. I pulled a comparison from Wikipedia: Cessna 310 (twin): 2x240hp, max speed 220mph, range 1000mi. Cessna 182 (single): 230h…

Aerodynamic drag (the force required) goes as the square of the velocity.

Power required is force times velocity, so power required goes as the cube of velocity. Twice the power adds only 26% to speed.

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#247

Post by sokoloff »

logfromblammo wrote: post #243
sokoloff wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Aviation diesels typically burn Jet-A (widely available at airports, obviously) which is similar in energy content to #2 (and about 50x the energy content of Li-ion batteries on a J/g basis).

As far as I know, the major difference between Jet-A and #2 is that is has a much lower gel point than even the northern winter diesel fuels, because higher = colder. If you already have electric motors, wouldn't electrically heated fuel tanks suddenly be more possible than trying to divert waste heat out of fuel-burning engines? You could save a LOT of money on fuel if you could use off-road #2 oil instead of Jet-A.

Dry adiabatic lapse rate is approximately 3C per 1000'. I regularly fly at high VFR altitudes or low flight levels in my private (gas, piston IC) airplane.

Even confining yourself to 15K feet, you'd be ~45C or 81F lower than the sea-level temp (assuming the air was totally dry, so maybe call it 35C or 63*F). The wings are extremely effective radiators, and wet wing tanks have fuel right against the outer wing surface.

So, you're going to need to dump an enormous amount of energy into the fuel to keep it heated and non-gelled, which is why we have Jet-A, and in fact many jets need to add Prist anti-icing agent, and even some high-flying piston engine airplanes run their avgas through oil-to-fuel heat exchangers.

So, even if you're going to fly your diesel engine (or diesel generator) airplane in the mid-teens, you're probably still going to want to use Jet-A, both for its superior anti-gel properties but also because of the supply chain dedicated to getting Jet-A to a great many airports where you'd want to operate from.

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#248

Post by sokoloff »

mcdougle wrote: post #242
lutorm wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think renting such a plane would be difficult, but there are home-built airplanes with ranges over 1000 miles. You need a big bladder to go that far, though...

Really? I've heard it should be pretty easy, and that unless you're planning to fly often, renting is by far the best way to go (aside from just taking the airlines). Then again, my sources might not be all that knowledgable!

Renting is tough to use airplanes to take purposeful trips.

Flight schools (the overwhelming source of rental airplanes) don't want you taking their plane for 9 days (two weekends and the week in-between) and flying it 3-hours each way, or 6 total hours of rental for 9 days where they can't rent it to anyone else.

The typical minimum is 3 hours per day away from base.

Before I bought my twin-engine airplane, I wanted to have 50 hours of multi-engine time (to make insurance more affordable), and I rented a flight school twin to build that time, including some trips.

Because it was a twin (and therefore not in as high-demand), I was able to negotiate a 2-hour daily minimum, but that meant for long trips like Thanksgiving and Christmas, I had a lot of "extra hours" that I was going to have to pay for anyway, so I'd take side trips to fly off those hours (and to go visit used airplanes that I was considering purchasing).

It is also virtually impossible to decide "Hey, the weather looks good this weekend; I'd like to rent a plane all weekend and go to XYZ." The plane will be booked at some point during that weekend.

If you want to use an (non-airline, non-owned) airplane for travel, you want to join a partnership or a small club, not rent from flight schools. (This will be vastly cheaper than sole ownership, as you could imagine.)

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#249

Post by lake_rogue »

retroafroman wrote: post #140
jrs235 wrote: post #108

For those wondering how much it costs to get your private pilot's license... You'll need to study and pass a written examine so you'll have to either purchase self-study books or take a ground school class. (This is relatively cheap, a few hundred dollars.) You need to log 40 hours of flight training time. Depending on locale, anticipate paying $100-$150 per hour for a flight instructor and $100-$150 per hour for pla…

The FAA also created a new license class called 'Sport Pilot' about 10 years ago that only takes 20 hours of flight training, which makes it much easier and cheaper to get into flying [1]. However, this comes with limitations like only able to take one passenger, only able to fly during the day, in good weather, only in a small aircraft, etc. [1] http://www.aopa.org/Advocacy/Regulatory-,-a-,-Certification-...

When I decided I was going to get my pilot license I planned to do so efficiently, without burning cash unnecessarily (yeah, right) -- I was prepared with my own plan for every flight... I'd heard numbers in the $8k to $10k ballpark and thought "I'll target that".

It still cost me $15k (in 2012 -- airplane $11k, instructor $4k) to get my Private Pilot License -- plus another $2k in optional expenses like a good home simulator set-up, iPad software, books etc. -- some of which arguably should have made my training more efficient.

While I don't know the costs of getting a Sport Pilot license, I have wondered if it would have been the better route for me.

The difference between the times I fly with a VFR Private Pilot license is virtually no different than I would with a Sport Pilot license. I rarely have more than one passenger (one is limit for Sport Pilot license), and I rarely fly at night ('engine out' at night is beyond the risk I'm willing to take), I've never been above 10k feet.

Re: Questions People Ask When I Tell Them I Own an Airplane

#250

Post by joshAg »

nathanstitt wrote: post #236
joshAg wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the air force is paying out the ass to get high-TiG o-3s/ low-TiG o-4s to reenlist. Like, a $20k to $30k reenlistment bonus (that's tax free and on top of their salary of roughly $70k, not counting their BAH, which can be another $10k to more than $40k (it's $2500/month if you're an o-3 getting a master's at the naval post graduate school in monterey), also tax free). The reason they're not able to keep tho…

Really, I hadn't heard that. I was going off all the information that came out after the Colgate Air 3407 crash in regards to how feeder airlines treat their pilots. I've talked to several CFI's who are moving into regional carriers and they report the same environments, i.e. high hours/low pay. It sounds like maybe you're set if you can clear that hurdle and move directly to a "real" airline?

Basically. It's kind of like how if you go to the right college for CS you can go directly to software engineer without having to spend years in IT or QA or working on your own side projects for fun, before finding someone who will pay you to be a software engineer, let alone someone like google or apple.

The major airlines love, love, love military pilots, especially ones that muster out around o-3, o-4 because they are in their late 20s/early 30s (lots of years left before mandatory retirement), they are already completely trained, have tons of time flying planes (compared to civilian pilots of the same age), and they are almost overqualified for ferrying passengers in terms of abilities/skills.

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