How close is to short to fly?

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Monpilot

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Monpilot
My wife and I decided to fly from tme (Houston) to Waco today and did 1.7 there and 1.7 back for a total of 3.4 Hobbes hours.

Getting to tme took 15-20 minutes so add .25 in time. Plus another 5 minutes to preflight. Dunno the decimal there.

But for fun call it 4 hours to get there and home.

According to google maps round trip would take.roughly 6 hours.

We in effect saved 2 hours of driving.

If we had flown to Conroe or woodville or even Galveston the time savings is much less.

On of my instructors said he flies anywhere he can but I can't justify driving 20 minutes west when I want to fly someplace I could have driven 40 minutes to east.

And I do love flying.

What flights are too short for you to get into the plane?
 
I've flown to airports that are 4nm and 8 nm away . . . I could have driven a half hour to the 4 miler or twenty minutes to the 8 miler. Flying is always better.
 
Since I've flown to an airport 6nm away multiple times, I guess the answer for me is less than that. I could drive there in 20 mins, but why would I when I could drive to the airport in 10, preflight for 15, taxi for 5 and then fly for 5... for a total of 30 minutes? 30 is greater than 20, so flying is greater than driving, right? ;-) Can someone check my math?
 
The break even point depends on terrain and local roads, but it's about 50 miles if the two airports are connected directly by high speed highways.

But that's an entirely different question from "how short is too short." For a sightseeing trip, the distance is often ZERO, but that doesn't mean it's not worth doing.
 
Every couple of months we take a 45 minute flight to see relatives; it's about a 2:30 drive. I save no time at all, but if the weather's good we pretty much fly. I enjoy flying for one, but the other big benefit is that it limits the time spent in a single aspect of travel, conveniently breaking up the journey into chunks. This is especially helpful when you're flying with a toddler or children in general I imagine.
 
I have been known to back taxi the length of the runway ( a mile) with the mains 6 inches off the pavement
Drive when I can (wheeee) fly?
No way Jose.
I can guarantee you that my words with my last breath will not be, 'gee, I wish I had driven my car more'
 
The time in the plane should not be included in the total trip time.. If you can fly somewhere rather than drive it doesn't matter how short the flight is.. It is always better.
 
If I can drive it in:

  1. 3hrs or less for GA
  2. or 8 hrs or less commercial
then I drive vs. fly.
 
A lot of factors in this question: drive time to airport (are you backtracking?); length of flight; weather; availability need, and cost of ground transportation at destination; and speed and traffic of driving alternate. The same trip can vary.

My folks live 69nm away, or a 95 mile drive down I95. Sometimes flying is a nobrainer, sometimes driving is a nobrainer. Sometimes we don't discover we should have taken the alternative until we already started our drive/flight.

On the other hand, my flight to Tangier yesterday was 71nm and a nobrainer. It's an island in the Chesapeake bay so driving is not an option.
 
When you own it, even the next nearest airport is fly! No-brainer.

If you're renting you need to consider "the other guy" who doesn't want you to take his awesome 172 off the schedule for 4 hours to put 45 minutes on the Hobbs while you have lunch with family.

For my co-owned planes some guys grouse about the plane being scheduled for the day and then flown 2hrs Tach. I don't mind that. An hour out, spend the day, and an hour back. That's why we're co-owners. Rental places would hit you with a minimum when that happens.

So, too short to fly? 0NM :) Economical and fair? Use your judgement.
 
It depends on whether I feel like flying, but for transportation on a door-to-door basis, the break-even distance depends on the speed limits, and on whether there's rush hour traffic involved.
 
Depends.

For a weekend overnight trip, if I'm saving less than a hour when including time to and from the airports, preflight, etc, especially if I'll also have to rent a car, I'm inclined to drive.

Short trips, who cares? It's fun to fly :)
 
I frequently take off and land at the same airport after having driven 30 miles to get there. The overriding logic is, "when you have time to spare, go by air."
 
We can drive to most places in L.A. in less time that it would take to drive to the airport, preflight load up and fly. Plus we don't have transportation issues at our destination. BUT. Too many times I've been stuck in traffic thinking to myself "We could have flown, we could have flown...."
 
Anytime I can get in the plane to fly I do. Running around the pattern just to practice crosswinds or some other excuse is the shortest.

Cheers
 
My son is in college in Athens, it's a two hour drive each way, it's 30 minutes in the 182, plus the 30 minutes getting to the airport and pre-flighting the plane, so we drive most of the time. BUT, anytime between 3:30 and 6:30 it can be a very frustrating 3 hour drive, then it's nice to fly and look down on people in their cars! :)
I fly about 25 miles to my maintenance base several times per year. But for actual trips to go somewhere, I haven't driven to the beach but once or twice in the last 3 or 4 years, it's 5 1/2 hours in good traffic, 7 on a holiday weekend, 2 hours in the 182 and 1:15 in the 425. :)
 
Some of you people are really weird.
I drive 30+ minutes to get in a plane at DXR to fly back to 44N (3 miles from my house) for breakfast. I then fly back to DXR and drive home.
I drive over an hour to get to GBR to get a J-3 so I can fly to CT24 (new Canaan, a grass strip) 9 miles away, then back to GBR then drive home. (OK, I also fly to GBR)
Who cares how long the trip is? As long as it's flying.
:D
 
Depends on what I'm doing and where I'm going. Sometimes I had 3 hour drives that I would fly because my destination was at the airport. In those scenarios, there was typically 3+ hours saved by flying, and in many cases it meant I could make a trip after work that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to. PHL was a common destination to fly to instead of drive when I was in Pennsylvania. NYC, by comparison, was virtually an "always drive" scenario. You just spent way, way more money by flying and saved no time.

I won't drive 40 minutes to hop in the plane and fly to the BBQ joint that's a 15 minute drive from my house, but I'm not a $100 hamburger kind of guy.

Now, we effectively always fly when traveling someplace, as we're far enough away that there's always a significant time savings. The exception is when the plane is down for maintenance.
 
If it takes me more time to do my run up and taxi then the flight it's possibly too close.

Example
My work (at a airport) is a 15-20min drive from my house, I could fly from my house to work in about 8 minutes, but I'd be about another 15-18 for preflight and taxi and run up (I run up on taxi), and if I was quick about 5 minutes if I wanted to get the plane into the hangar too.

Doesn't make good sense to fly in this case.


That said, sometimes if I'm bored I'll do it anyways, but it's not like making a 45min flight to save a 3hr drive.
 
unsafervguy said:
ive flown an airliner from MIA to FLL......

bob
Click to expand...
I remember being in SoCal for some work and took the commercial flight home. Flight originated at KSNA, and had an intermediate stop in... Burbank, KBUR. Actually had a few folks who boarded at KSNA deplane at Burbank. I guess that was simpler than fighting the highway traffic.

As memorable as that was the first time for a short field, Vx and then some takeoff in a commercial jet. Had something to do with the noise abatement procedures. Pilots had the wheels just barely on the runway tarmac, brakes on, 100% thrust, and then rotated as soon as safe and max climbed. Got some negative G's at the top. I don't know if that's done now, but it was hella fun that time.
 
unsafervguy said:
ive flown an airliner from MIA to FLL......

bob
Click to expand...

We used to do MQY to BNA, but it was always a repo flight from a MX base to pick up pax.


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I just checked. My shortest (and fairly routine) is T67 to KFTW. 7NM! When I happen to be home on club meeting nights I'll drive to Hicks and fly all the way to the meeting at Meacham. Probably more taxiing than flying, but it looks the same in the logbook.
 
rolivi said:
I just checked. My shortest (and fairly routine) is T67 to KFTW. 7NM! When I happen to be home on club meeting nights I'll drive to Hicks and fly all the way to the meeting at Meacham. Probably more taxiing than flying, but it looks the same in the logbook.
Click to expand...
One of my shortest is DTO to Hicks. But the food at The Beacon is totally worth it.
 
I could have flown commercially to Juneau in about 8 hours, bout 12 hours total time. Instead I decided to have a little adventure and drive, then ferry here. Only 7 days. I am going to try to make it back to New Mexico in 6.5 days. I do love driving through British Columbia.
 
rolivi said:
I just checked. My shortest (and fairly routine) is T67 to KFTW. 7NM! When I happen to be home on club meeting nights I'll drive to Hicks and fly all the way to the meeting at Meacham. Probably more taxiing than flying, but it looks the same in the logbook.
Click to expand...
Have you counted takeoff and landing practice? :D
 
I think 1 hr driving or less is where I lose the argument with my wife. I'd fly across my neighborhood if I could, but my wife thinks it doesn't make sense to fly unless it's >1hr away by car.
 
I have driven 18 miles (GHG) to fly to an airport fly in breakfast 3 miles from my house (28M). In fact, the next fly in there, I plan to fly the new plane (@ 1B9) to there. As I got to say a few times this week with feeling, it ain't always the destination; it's the trip.
 
I haven't done it, but I have every intention of flying to work once I finish my Pietenpol build. Work is .9 nm from my backyard strip, so wheels up to wheels down should be about 75 seconds even in a very slow plane. Absolutely no logical reason to do so, but no logical reason to own a 60 mph open cockpit airplane in the first place.

Patrick
 
Once I get all squared away, I plan on flying to work on the days I work at my farthest office.

I figured it would take 10 minutes to get to my home airport from my house and about 15 minutes to the office from the other airport. Airport to airport is 35nm.


By truck it's a little over and hour and a curvy and dangerous road with at least 1 serious wreck a week.

So to me it seems like flying would take about the same time total but I don't have to deal with the other people on the highway.
 
Careful on the commuting. It's easy to take excessive risk such as marginal weather or a questionable preflight result. You have to be really willing to cancel the flight if the engine is a wee bit rough during run up.

I also think you're underestimating overheads if you think you can get a complete flight in 35 minutes, including securing the aircraft.
 
We were arguing as to whether to fly from IAD to HEF one day for an aviation event or drive. Finally when I turned the wrong way (towards the airport) we decided to fly. Our plane was at the (then) Hawthorne FBO and they had us taxi to 30 for departure (about two miles away). About halfway down the taxiway, Margy says "I thought we were going to fly to Manassas."
 
Does going around the pattern to get to the FBO at the other end of the field count?
 
Chip Sylverne said:
Does going around the pattern to get to the FBO at the other end of the field count?
Click to expand...
I've done that as well. I taxied from my tiedown at OKV and took off did one circuit and then showed up on the ramp to fly young eagles. It was a prime example of the general snottiness of the airport management towards the light GA that they gave me grief as a "non based pilot" which would be unwarranted even if I was, but I did pay them their inflated tiedown fees (I evacuated there when they finally let me move my plane from VKX after 9/11). Of coruse these were the same people who gave me grief because someone else had parked in my tiedown. (Well it wasn't my idea!).
 
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