"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
If I compare a 4 hr drive I need a least about 3 hrs to do the same
journey by plane

Right. The additional overhead of flight not withstanding, if one
were to average 60 mph on the road for four hours, s/he'd have to make
160 mph to cover the same distance by air in 1-1/2 hours. Of course,
that analysis doesn't take into account commuter congestion on the
highway that may reduce the 60 mph average speed significantly.

Look at a map. The route he's talking about, there's no way you can even
max out at 60 mph for most of the route, never mind *average* that speed.

This is, in fact, quite common in the western states. There are a handful
of routes served by the interstate highways, but many trips involve crossing
mountain passes, and/or either a relatively direct but winding road, or
going way out of your way to stay on fast highways. Either way, the driving
time winds up significantly higher than flying time.

That said, there's certainly some truth to the post you quoted (as opposed
to your own). The original poster gave the specific numbers, but at 1.5
hours might have left out the elements you describe in a different post:
driving to the airport, preflighting the airplane, flight planning,
transportation at the other end. Even allowing for the different in route
length for driving versus flying, a 1.5 hour flight could easily include
another 1.5 hours for overhead.

Or, it might not. It really depends on the situation. Flight planning is
minimized where the route is frequently flown. It's not outside the realm
of possibility that the original poster not only lives close to his airport
base, but that his client is willing to meet him at the destination airport,
or that that airport is close to his client (or both).

All of that overhead could easily have been included in the original post.
The distance between Vancouver and Yakima is only about 100 miles, a 1 hour
flight in a 150. Since the original post specified a 1.5 hour trip time, if
the other elements were abbreviated, it could well be a reasonably close
estimate of the door-to-door time.

Personally, as I am based at an airport 30 minutes from my home, and as my
preflight usually takes at least 20-30 minutes (from the time I arrive at
the airport, to the time I'm ready to start up the airplane), I have found
that 3 hours is about the break-even point. For locations served by the
same highways that go past my home, this can be roughly estimated using a
60mph average driving time. For the many locations around here that aren't
so convenient, a shorter straight-line distance and flying time can result
in breaking even or better.

All this, of course, ignores the question of whether one would be spending
that time flying anyway. For someone for whom this sort of flying is
additional, not included in one's additional flying budget, that's probably
not an appropriate factor to include (eg one is charging the transportation
costs to a client). For many of us however, there is a ballpark number of
hours we'll fly each year; if some of that time is spent getting from one
place to another, all the better, but in that case the time spent actually
flying, and even getting to and one's home airport, may not be counted
toward the total trip time, since that's recreational time you'd have spent
anyway.

In any case, I think it's silly to take the original post to task for the
details. The poster is well-known for glossing over specific details
anyway, and the basic gist of his post is plenty to the point and accurate:
an airplane can be quite a convenience.

Pete