Common instruments on small aircraft

Thomas Borchert wrote:
Mxsmanic,

I'm opinionated, but I'm polite,


No, you're not. Quite the opposite, in fact. Being opinionated about
subjects you know nothing or very little about is not polite.


From what I've seen, Mxsmanic seems to know alot more than he is being
given credit for. In fact, I've been impressed with how much knowledge
he has on aviation considering he apparently uses sims rather than
doing the real thing.

As for this particular thread, he has an opinion that GA is in general,
not practical for tranportation purposes. He has a level of knowledge
on the subject and he has also made some reasonable assumptions to come
to this conclusion.

Therefore, I believe your assertion that he is impolite is wrong. He
has an opinion on a subject that he is at least somewhat familiar with
and he is discussing it. He has not been impolite or made personal
attacks on anyone. (Which is more than I can say for other's in this
group).

And in the opinion of *this* licensed pilot, he is correct. In general,
GA is NOT practical for transportation. Of course there are exceptions
to the rule, but most families aren't keen on being restricted to going
to aviation museums that are on airport properties for their vacations.

The fact that weather is a major factor on GA travel, the fact that
once you get to your destination you STILL most likely have to rent a
car, the fact that it's still going to cost more to fly yourself to
your destination than drive or fly commercially.... makes GA
impractical.

Sure, you can create a scenario that will contradict this (if you live
in a place where the weather is VFR most of the time, if you plan to go
to the aviation museum at an airport or if you fly to an airport where
courtesy cars are available for use for as long and when you need them,
etc). BUT, if you were to work up a scenario for a *typical* trip, GA
flying is NOT practical.

You guys that have the equipment, money, resources and the situation to
make your GA flying practical for transportation - that's great. But
don't fool yourselves into thinking that it's par for the course.

Bart wrote:

Much snippage....

You guys that have the equipment, money, resources and the situation to
make your GA flying practical for transportation - that's great. But
don't fool yourselves into thinking that it's par for the course.

That's really the point.

Many of us have had times in our lives where car
ownership was not practical. OTOH, most of us
would now not find a bicycle to be practical for
a day-to-day means of transportation.

"Practical" is absolutely relative to a person's
financial resources, time, geographical location
and other individual issues.

Recently, Bart posted:

The fact that weather is a major factor on GA travel, the fact that
once you get to your destination you STILL most likely have to rent a
car, the fact that it's still going to cost more to fly yourself to
your destination than drive or fly commercially.... makes GA
impractical.

A lot of this depends on the individual. I doubt that Jay's family would
agree with you that their aircraft is impractical as transportation. I
don't understand the notion that it is a problem that one is "still most
likely to have to rent a car"; so what? Your notion that it will cost more
to fly oneself to the destination is quite often untrue, unless one's time
is worth little, or if the alternative of flying commercially is
considered (in which case one would still rent a car... so, once again I
don't understand that as a criticism of GA usage).

Weather limitations are greatly over-rated. As others have pointed out,
the inconvenience of waiting out weather can be less than an hour, and
most of the time less than a day. That is not much to be concerned about
if you compare that to having to make connecting flights to take the same
trip commercially. On a recent return from a vacation, we were delayed by
over a day because of this, and we were the lucky ones... others were
delayed for almost a week because all the flights to their destination
were overbooked.

You guys that have the equipment, money, resources and the situation
to make your GA flying practical for transportation - that's great.
But don't fool yourselves into thinking that it's par for the course.

It may not be practical for you, and I certainly wouldn't cite
transportation as the primary reason for GA. I fly more hours in the
vicinity than I do going someplace. OTOH, there are places I wouldn't go
very often if I had to drive because drive time is 5+ hours and I can fly
there in 1.5 hours. So, I can easily make a 1/2 day trip out of something
that would be a 2-day affair.

Neil

Jim Stewart writes:

Many of us have had times in our lives where car
ownership was not practical. OTOH, most of us
would now not find a bicycle to be practical for
a day-to-day means of transportation.

"Practical" is absolutely relative to a person's
financial resources, time, geographical location
and other individual issues.

And practicality in a broad sense must be determined with respect to
financial resources of typical people in the majority. Most people
simply cannot afford to fly from place to place, and so GA is not
practical for their transportation at all. People who fly as pilots
find excuses to fly, but as a general rule, their flying is impossible
to justify in any practical way--they fly because they want to fly,
period, even though they fly at a tremendous loss. It's interesting
that some seem to feel they must deny this and defend their flying as
some sort of practical solution to a practical problem. GA is almost
never in that category.

In fact, the impracticality of GA is what has driven the development
of commercial aviation. Commercial aviation has spent decades
developing methods to fly reliably from place to place under all
weather conditions, with minimum cancellations and diversions, and at
an affordable cost. Commercial aviation has tried to make flying
something akin to taking a train or bus, and it has largely succeeded.
This is something that GA has never done and never will do.

I'm amused by the perpetual predictions of misinformed or
overenthusiastic futurists who seem to think that at some point in the
future everyone will be flying a personal flying machine instead of
driving a car. I don't see that ever happening, for a great many
reasons. Certainly there has been no movement whatsoever in that
direction. In fact, over time, GA has steadily become more and more
of a rich man's hobby, rather than a form of practical transportation.

And, if the truth be told, I think that GA that worked like automobile
transportation does today would be a total disaster for society. The
unforgiving nature of flying tends to ensure that this will never
happen.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Neil Gould writes:

A lot of this depends on the individual. I doubt that Jay's family would
agree with you that their aircraft is impractical as transportation. I
don't understand the notion that it is a problem that one is "still most
likely to have to rent a car"; so what?

Because if you take a car somewhere, you don't have to rent a plane to
finish the trip.

Weather limitations are greatly over-rated. As others have pointed out,
the inconvenience of waiting out weather can be less than an hour, and
most of the time less than a day.

When the meeting is at 10 AM, that's a show-stopper.

That is not much to be concerned about
if you compare that to having to make connecting flights to take the same
trip commercially.

The commercial flight can generally be relied upon; the GA flight
cannot. Commercial aviation has spent decades and billions of dollars
to ensure that airliners can fly in all but the worst weather.

--
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Mxsmanic wrote:
In fact, over time, GA has steadily become more and more
of a rich man's hobby, rather than a form of practical transportation.

In Alaska, GA is often the only form of practical transportation. In May of
1999, there was one aircraft and one pilot for every 61 Alaskans [1]. Small
planes are a common sight and links [2] and [3] are examples of what one
might see at any sizeable lake with houses on its shores.

[1] http://sled.alaska.edu/akfaq/aksuper.html
[2] http://trips.lugojweb.com/trips2005/alaska/day14.html
(Advance to photo 10.)
[3] http://trips.lugojweb.com/trips2005/alaska/day20.html
(Advance to photos 2 and 3.)

Jim Logajan writes:

In Alaska, GA is often the only form of practical transportation.

So I've heard ... but you have to admit that Alaska is kind of a
special case (for one thing, it's almost as big as the CONUS). It
must be a nice place for people who like to fly.

Looks like Hawaii is also fertile ground for GA, but for somewhat
different reasons.

--
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Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Judah writes:

It's a simple cost benefit factor. I believe for a certain period of
time in the 70s, most Piper trainer aircraft came stock with only one
radio. It was adequate. In fact, it was an improvement over the light
beacons of the early flying days. But believe it or not, people were
able to navigate successfully by air even before there were Radio
Navaids... And if they made a wrong turn, much as in a car, they turned
around and found their way, or stopped at an airport and asked for
directions.

Them's the good old days. Technically it's still perfectly possible
today, but it's a lot more difficult procedurally. After all, you
used to be able to fly without a license, too. Today you can still
fly without a license in theory, but it won't be legal.

I'm not sure, but I believe the first pilot's license was actually issued
by the Wright Brothers...

The very first link offerred by a google of "free Sectionals" produces
a link that will satisfy your need. Took me all of about 2 minutes to
find.

I get "AHS Roundup: Three teams line up MIAA Tourney spots" as the
first link, and nothing on the page that references aviation.


I meant Google Groups, sorry.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
&sa=N&tab=wg

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Judah writes:

Probably wherever you last showed up on their radar, especially if you
have a transponder, were receiving flight following, and/or called for
help on the emergency frequency.

Yup. But that could be a long way from where you actually went down.

From a safety standpoint, the more visible you are to others,
including ATC, the better off you are if something goes wrong.

A VFR Flight plan doesn't do more to improve your visibility with ACT except
to inlude a name, contact phone number, and aircraft color.

They will certainly know where to look if you crash.

If I crash, the game is over.

This is different than in real life.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Judah writes:

But what if the weather is bad or there is low visibility?

I walk IFR.

How do you maintain separation from other ground-craft? GCT?

Just because it doesn't present value for you doesn't mean it has no
value. Evidence would suggest that GA presents value to some number of
people in the world, because there are many people, both pilots and
otherwise, that use General Aviation as a form of transportation. If
there is no value in it, they wouldn't use it.

I think it more likely that many private pilots use the pretext of
transportation as an excuse to fly. Not that there's any harm in
that, but they should just admit it and not try to pretend that
aircraft are actually practical transportation for general purposes.

Why do you think that? Why would people fly if it did not provide some
benefit?