On Jun 19, 7:45 am, "Peter R." wrote:
On 6/19/2007 12:13:40 AM, Jay Honeck wrote:

Which is the reason you'll hear so many of us bitching about the
increased cost of fuel so loudly. It's the only expense we really
"see" anymore.

Really? Cracked exhaust pipes, cracked spinners, recurring ADs for
dye-penetrant spar inspections, engine overhauls, prop overhauls, etc., etc,
etc. are also pretty visual and recurring expenses.

--
Peter

I've been flying the same 35 year old spamcan for over half a decade
now, and haven't had to deal with any of those such maintenance
nightmares. In fact, I've only had to replace the exhaust muffler once
as the biggest repair expense since purchaing the plane and that was
only about $800 above what usually amounts to be about a $500 annual
each year. If you buy the *right* vintage spamcan and get a very
thorough pre-purchase inspection to weed out buying a possible lemon
or junkheap aircraft that'll eat your lunch in repairs, you can avoid
the nightmares. Right now, it's a buyer's market too, and if you're
shopping for a used spamcan, you can pick the cream of the crop.

The thing that has curtailed the my pleasure flying the most is indeed
fuel costs. And not just the price of avgas, but the price of gas for
my car too. I have a fixed income and have only X dollars to spend on
any kind of gasoline each week, whether for the road or the air. Both
kinds of gasoline have virtually almost doubled in price over the past
couple years or so, and I still need the same number of gallons to
drive to and from work, so my gas money that was once used for
pleasure flying is now necessary to put into my vehicle to get me to
my job each day. My flying has been literally cut in half because of
this higher operating cost for any fuel-burning vehicles.