Post #135,118
1/12/04 5:53:31 PM
1/12/04 6:48:43 PM
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Chill
The 172, the most popular aircraft every built is what's wrong with GA?
Dude - they call them "trainers" for a reason. They're OK trainers, floaty and forgiving. As transportation they blow.
They are a delight to fly
Sez you - I've got plenty of hours in them and don't care if I never fly another one.
you can find a plane that will cruise at 115 and get you and your family to your destination in about 1/3 the time (okay - 1/2 the time if you've got a strong headwind, 1/4 the time if you got even a slight tailwind).
At about 5 times the cost of commercial aviation. Lets say I want to go to San Francisco. I live in Denver (not the Alps). I want to go WEST. The 172 won't make it without a lot of threading through the canyons. I can do that drive in a day an a half.
I can buy a round trip ticket for $300 or less - so lets say $150 one way. Figure its about 1200 nm - which is gonna be about 10 hours at 120 kts. You'll need 2 stops for fuel - add another 2 hours for approach, landing, fuel, runup, takeoff, and climb back to altitude. You need an inspection every 100 hours - so just pending annual inspection time is $60, fuel $200 (7 gal ph * 10 hours * $2.30 per hour). Your engine needs major overhaul every 2000 hours at a cost of $4000-ish. So engine wear burned another $20. Cost so far - $280. Insurance, cost of owning, hanger fees, none of this is figured in - I'd guess, depending on how often you use the plane, that this adds at least an extra $20 bringing us to over a factor of 2 for this little excursion.
So for your one way flight to SFO, you've taken six times as long and spend more than twice as much as a commercial flight. Or you've saved about 4 hours of driving and paid three times as much in fuel.
"Ever heard of a "SuperHawk" or a 180 upgrade? Or a 200 upgrade? Quit your whinin'..."
Yeah - N79036 has one - its based in Pontiac Michigan. I learned to fly in it. Bigger engine which gets you - more speed? Not really. Dirty airframe eats it all. Better climb is all. And at siginifanctly higher cost of operation.
As for local altitude - you might note that we lean the mixture during runup rather than during climbout. Airport pattern altitude is 6000 ft.
"I believe that many of the systems we build today in Java would be better built in Smalltalk and Gemstone."
-- Martin Fowler, JAOO 2003
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Post #135,120
1/12/04 6:00:14 PM
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Cessna 172
is very popular in the Far North of Canada... because it's so forgiving. Weather can turn on a dime up there, and having a forgiving plane means that one's less likely to pack it in when the conditions go from nice sunny day to whiteout in under half an hour.
IOW- there are still bush planes, and they still do a lot of of the grunt work in transportation in NWT, Yukon, Norther Ontario, and le Grand Nord de Québec.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #135,128
1/12/04 6:37:56 PM
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That's a pretty poor bush plane
Underpowered.
But the C182 is probably one of the greats. Practically the same airframe with a decent powerplant.
If you like that sort of thing - [link|http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312853378/qid=1073950431/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-0837382-8027825?v=glance&s=books|Wager with the Wind - the Don Sheldon Story] is a great read. This guy was a an Alaska bush pilot and he exemplifies the trade. His exploits include landings on Mt McKinley and rescues involving running white water rivers on pontoons. Nutty stuff.
"I believe that many of the systems we build today in Java would be better built in Smalltalk and Gemstone."
-- Martin Fowler, JAOO 2003
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Post #135,135
1/12/04 6:58:39 PM
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I prolly misremembered the number
Knew it was one SOMETHING two, anyway... ;)
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #135,138
1/12/04 7:05:43 PM
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Just pop in an Allison with a supercharger :)
-drl
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Post #135,137
1/12/04 7:01:54 PM
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also Popular in Alaska
same old crap, con artists ripping off fools. Ah, hell, Catholic Church it start off that way. They All do. Jesus probably had three walnut shells one pea, then he's dead and can't be questioned,
Gabriel Dupre
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
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Post #135,149
1/12/04 7:29:01 PM
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You know, some of us actually enjoy the trip.
Where did I say that the 172 was a good long XC aircraft? For short hops, absolutely. That's what mine is used for, <= 500 nm trips, and way more in the 100-200nm range. Take a jaunt to my mom's house, for instance: 680 sm in the car (roughly 13 hours) or 401nm in the airplane (4 hours and one pee/gas stop). And guess what? Everyone in my family would much rather look around from 7500 than see the "freeway" for 3 times as long.
Is it cheaper to fly commercial? Big surprise. It is. And guess what? you know that flying a $500,000 Mooney (your retractable 200kt cruiser) is a hell of a lot more expensive than flying a 172.
The truth is, and you know this, it all depends on the kind of flying you intend to do. I just read a flyer the other day from some travel outfit that says if your trip is less than 240 miles, you save time by *driving* instead of taking a commercial flight. And its only going to get worse - now that they're going to color-code and number all passengers wrt the "risk to the aircraft" the passenger poses. Sounds like a lot of fun to me.
An old Skyhawk is not a mountain aircraft clearly. A commercial pilot at our field has a 1963 Skyhawk that he put a 180 Lycoming in and flies to Denver in it at least twice a year - he says a 180 makes the Skyhawk a true 4 place aircraft. Never having flown out west, I still think I wouldn't attempt it without a 182 at the least.
I enjoy the hell out of my little airplane. I'm just barely able to keep it and I'm not out of the woods on that front yet. For me, the journey is the joy - not the arrival.
But that's not what my rant was about. My rant was about your comment that the 172 was what was wrong with GA. That's b.s. and you know it.
Take away the 172 and you damned near eliminate GA. Glad you got to train in one - I didn't. I trained in (what you'd call a kite) a 1960 150.
You know all this, of course. You probably also know that cruise speed does go up about 15-20kts with a 180. Dunno how things are in Denver, but around here most folks won't land where there are landing fees. But if you seriously know where I can get a major overhaul for $4,000, please let me know! That'd be a hell of a deal, if the work was good ;-)
bcnu,
Mikem
I don't do third world languages. So no, I don't do Java.
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Post #135,229
1/12/04 10:28:59 PM
8/21/07 5:40:34 AM
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That's cool
There's a lot more places to fly in small planes back east. Yes I took a nice day trip with my dad from Detroit to Mackinac Island. But more often than not flights were simply about "boring holes in the sky" as dad called it.
But my point is more along the lines that the C-172 is a design developed over 60 years ago and its still all we've got? I think that's criminal. Check the roles of the AOPA - the vast majority of its members are near retirement age. No young blood. Why?
The planes are too expensive and unexciting. The 172 burns too much gas and has too limited of a performance envelope. We can do better. The kit airplane people are doing great designs - but I don't have time to build my own plane. I want to buy one and I want one that takes into account the enormous hike in the price of gas. The 172 is emblematic of the inertia in GA today and its going to die out in another generation.
"I believe that many of the systems we build today in Java would be better built in Smalltalk and Gemstone."
-- Martin Fowler, JAOO 2003
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