USFlyer wrote:
You can’t take a boat from Nevada to any other state or country. Dependent on your ‘hassle factor’ just about any aircraft can be taken long distances and be used pretty much any way desired
Well actually you can. Put it on a trailer and you can even motor it up onto Mt Ararat or is that Mt Arafat?
Ok it finally dawned on me why the mentality of using GA in a practical way escapes most older European pilots (before the EU invented open borders).
Here is my take. If I had to go through Passport and custom control every time I used my airplane for my personal transportation to travel to another state in the US, I would never have gotten the license. As it was my family was able to visit relatives for Holidays which were most often 1-2 hrs away by air. Yet 7-8 hrs by car. Forget about the airlines especially family of 4 it was definitely not only more expensive but also impractical. Yes no utility. My dispatch rate was over 90% winter and summer. I might have been late but only by a few hrs. That with living on an island with the airport 2 miles from the ocean.
But getting back to the revelation. With European distances so short if you have border controls it makes GA impractical. Yes I admit it there is very little utility with those restrictions. Thats one reason I dont fly to Romania. A one hr flight requires I clear customs in Hungary 100Euros then land at an airport of entry and if that isnt my destination fly onward. On return trip same procedure. Very costly BS for no practical gain. So if that has been your experience no wonder you consider GA as an expensive toy.
Lucky for me by the time I flew here most borders were down. Now there is talk of bring back passport controls.
Flyer59 wrote:
d, really, for the long flights almost all of our planes are two seaters.
Well then you should get checked out in a C210. Full fuel, 4 adults and baggage KHTO to Panama and back. 1000nm trip longest leg. Yep impractical alright.
Ive had 6 adults and have flown 3 hrs. The last 2 seats are not for adult males unless of small stature and weight like most young women.However Ive sat back there in someone elses 210 and it was not torture just tight with head and legroom.
Looks like the 210 is one of the few. What?s the payload with full fuel? 90 gallons, right?
About 900 lbs. Just depends on what you have in it to give as an empty wgt. There is also an upgrade that adds 200 extra Lbs. to MTOW The flints allow for that.
As well as the cherokee 6, the Bonanza albeit with less capability, then there is the venerable 182. Hell even a 172 carries 4 people and full fuel as long as they are around the FAA avg wt passenger.
Cessna 172S: full fuel payload 577 lbs, which means 65 kg per person, no baggage. 65 kg is not a very typical weight for an adult person.
Sure, if you calculate like that then there’s many fourseaters.
Any GA plane which can fill all seats with full fuel has fuel tanks which are too small, and is a bad design, not a virtue!
The whole point of not being able to do that is to offer the pilot the choice of trading load for range, etc.
I too almost never do flights where customs/immigration require an extra stop just for that purpose. I think the last time I did that was to visit a couple of people in France in 2013; I stopped at Caen, which is incredibly cheap (€4.50) but it’s still a big hassle and due to the flight plan timing you have to allow for an hour to be wasted. Some people think this is fine and everybody should be doing it but IMHO the reality is that almost everybody will (silently) not bother. If you do a fly-in where everybody has to do an extra stop, your turnout will drop to maybe 10%. This is why France’s removal of customs from so many airports (c. 2012) was such a stupid move; their police almost never turn up anyway, and some reported losing a lot of business.
but it’s still a big hassle and due to the flight plan timing you have to allow for an hour to be wasted.
I don’t get that. Just time the outbound flightplan tightly, then, on approach or just after landing, adjust EOBT as required (either through TWR/AFIS) or through your flightplan tool.
There is no reason whatsoever to “waste” time on a stop for flightplan reasons.
C210 I’m with you….I am a firm believer in AOPA being a member of UK, Australia and US AOPA at various times….but have always maintained my US AOPA membership since the early 90s…primarily because 400,000 odd members have a lot of sway in the US combined with a great number of US Senators and Congressmen who are active pilots and aircraft owners means that regulation has some chance of being reasonable and proportionate….and US regulations and policy have a great deal of influence all over the world…even on EASA.
