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.

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.

--
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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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"Jim Stewart" wrote in message
.. .
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.

Agreed... There was a time in my life where a bicycle was a practical means
of transportation... As my economic situation improved, it progressed to a
motorcycle... Then to various cars, SUVs, trucks, etc... At one point it was
sports cars -- perhaps we shouldn't use the term 'practical' with respect to
some of them... grin These days, my economic situation allows me the
option to choose whichever means of transportation is more suitable for the
moment or perhaps whatever I'm in the mood for... I can throw two bikes in
the back of my plane, fly down to Galveston and bike along the sea wall...
Hmmm... I wonder if those simmers can do *that*...

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

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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Recently, Mxsmanic posted:

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.

Again, I say, "so what?" It's a non-issue, because if you fly
commercially, you *still* have to rent a car to get around.

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.

People who "must be there" at a particular time miss a lot of meetings,
regardless of their mode of transportation.

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.

That is not my experience at all. Within the last 5 months, my wife and I
have missed connecting flights due to airline issues 2 out of 2 times. I
have yet to miss my arrival times flying GA.

Neil

Neil Gould wrote:
Recently, Mxsmanic posted:

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.

Again, I say, "so what?" It's a non-issue, because if you fly
commercially, you *still* have to rent a car to get around.

But in cases where you *would* take a car, you wouldn't need one.


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.

People who "must be there" at a particular time miss a lot of meetings,
regardless of their mode of transportation.

But you're much more likely to miss it if you're depending on GA.



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.

That is not my experience at all. Within the last 5 months, my wife and I
have missed connecting flights due to airline issues 2 out of 2 times. I
have yet to miss my arrival times flying GA.

I haven't missed a connecting flight for about the last 20 times I've
flown commercially. On average, many more people make their connecting
flights than not.

As for GA, I've been trying to make a trip for two weeks now, but
haven't been able due to weather. If I had needed to, I could have made
the trip in a car and been back home the same day two weeks ago. I put
it off because I'm using it as an excuse to fly - which I believe is
what most GA pilots probably do.