When working, I lived 6 miles from the airport, across the town, but worked on the airport side of town. A quick and easy trip after work, and I could choose to leave any day at 15.30. Originally I could park near the hangar.
Now retired for 11+ years, I rent my house in Inverness for flying money, and live by choice 50+ miles away, looking out from the clifftop over the harbour and the Moray Firth as I type this. Airport security has gradually increased, but I’ve got plenty of time, and the road will be mainly dual carriageway by the time I’m 96.
I moved house to be close 2 years ago.
If I don’t see another car and drive fast, one minute and 20 seconds… but usually nearer 2 minutes :-)
It makes my trip to Le Touquet 30 minutes from leaving my front door :)
Buckerfan wrote:
Can leave my home office desk and be off the blocks in my Piper Cub in 5 minutes. Often just fly for 15 mins just cos I can. There is another home for sale on the strip if anyone wants.
That’s awesome! :-)
For me, it’s 25-30 minutes to be nearby bases EDLE and EDLN, which I don’t mind driving even for a short and/or local flight/after work etc. It doesn’t compare to what Buckerfan describes up there. Maybe in the future…
It’s at least 1 hour and 15 minutes, in traffic often up to two hours to EDLP, where I rent for longer trips. This is a bit of a pain – especially regarding go/no-go decisions, i.e. when you get there and you realize you can’t fly (This happens sometimes because EDLP sometimes takes more time to clear up than forecast).
Public transport is less than ideal for all three of those with multiple stop-overs – which can sometimes be a problem when my car is e.g. stuck in EDLP and I need to make an intermediate stop in e.g. EDLE.
quatrelle wrote:
They keep writing to me, this has just convinced my to stay away from the main dealer
I have a Seat Leon (for the kids) and it has been ‘corrected’ with no noticeable difference to its performance. It still does 50 mpg and it’s power is unchanged.
I am lucky. I moved to my present house 20 years ago to be close to the airfield.
EGLK (where the TB20 is based) is 3 miles and 6 minutes by car.
EGLM is 14 miles and 30 to 40 minutes by car, along country lanes and through Wokingham town (rush hour traffic is bad here). I learnt to fly at EGLM and applied for my PPL 28 years ago today.
It is not possible to get to EGLK by Public Transport. Very limited Public Transport could be used to get to EGLM and would require 2 busses and a train and take 2+ hours.
I can cycle to EGLK in 15 minutes across some fields.
I could use an Electric Car to get to the airfield, where one day I could plug it in to recharge, having just unplugged my Electric Aeroplane. I don’t think it will happen in my lifetime though.
I moved my plane from Wycombe (EGTB) to Elstree (EGTR) a year or so ago, to cut my travel time from home to my plane from 60 minutes to 30. It’s made a big change to my flying. Less effort to get to the airfield and more flights now.
Most people would think that Wycombe was a better airfield that Elstree – it has better facilities: nicer hangers, a better tarmac runway, full ATC, a bigger maintenance facility (two in fact), but it’s Elstree that is always crowded and always busy. That’s because “location location location” appears to be as true with airfields as with retail shops and Elstree is just north of London whilst Wycombe is some miles west from London along the M40. They are both good airfields, in different ways and I hope they both continue to thrive.
Depending on traffic it can be anything between 25 minutes and one hour. Don’t even think about public transport…
Depending which airfield you mean.
Coventry is 25min by car. Hassfurt in Germany is about 30 mins from my holiday flat.
Tomorrow I’m picking up my aircraft in Shoreham. 3:20 min by train + 20 min taxi
For me it’s 1h20 by car either way to LFGB. When I was doing my PPL there, I used to take the train to Basel (which allowed me to study three different PPL theory courses on the 1 hour ride), then usually continue 20 minutes with a car sharing car to and from the airfield. If you want to do it entirely by public transport, it takes 1h40 plus a 15 minutes walk from the train station to the airfield. The limiting factor are the train hours in France.
87km and about 50-55 mins by car – a sacrifice I’m willing to make whilst learning. Also it doesn’t hurt to get some practice driving on the right hand side after learning to drive on the left. (The UK driving licence was returned to where it came from last week, in favour of a shiny new Belgian one).
The 50-55 mins time is on a quiet weekend – on a weekday it’s a little more but most of my learning is on the weekends.
By public transport: It’s the country’s “second” airport for commercial aviation / international travel and despite me living just 30km from central Brussels, taking public transport would take 2-3 hrs to get to “Brussels South Airport” depending on the trains (shocking I know). Sure this could be used for study / prep time but when you add travel of 2-3 hrs to 2-3 hours of briefing/flying/debriefing that could equate to up to 6 hrs of my Saturday or Sunday!
