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 ;-)

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.

Welcome to IWETHEY!