"Tom Sixkiller" wrote in message
...

In my case, it's more like two or three a month. And around here, anyway,
$80 an hour will get you a VFR equipped 172 - not something I care to take
frequent trips from the Colorado front range to SLC, PHX, GTF, etc. Even
the
flat land trips are usually 300nm or more.

In that case your flying hours and the difficulty of your typical missions
are substantially above that of most general aviation pilots. No doubt that
mission justifies owning an airplane. Given frequent trips to Colorado I
would think the minimum airplane for the mission is probably a turbocharged,
known-ice Mooney if a 4-place will do or else a known-ice Cessna T210/P210
if 6 seats or high payload is required. Renting this type of airplane is
virtually impossible except from the West Valley Flying Club in California.

I equate rental aircraft to rental cars: you pay all the maintenance costs
along with the profit margin of the rent-a-car company. Fine if your trips
are infrequent, especially if those infrequent trips are merely pleasure

Agreed... except it takes 100-150 hours per year of flying before owning an
airplane even slightly approaches being cheaper than renting and probably
200 hours before owning definitely is cheaper. Very, very few general
aviation pilots fly that much.

trips rather than business. In my case, each business trip has $100K-$250K
or more on the line.

In that case does it make sense to fly yourself in a piston single? If that
much is on the line and these are "must be there" trips, would it make more
sense to charter a twin turboprop for better weather capability?


--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com