Car vs Airplane

Mike Schneider

Mike Schneider

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Gone West
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How far do you have to fly in your airplane to get there before you could have gotten there in your car? Figure in (1) starting at your home with the car packed, (2) driving to the airport, (3) transferring the luggage and flight gear from the car to the plane, (4) flying the route, (5) tying down the plane, (6) getting a rental car, and (7) driving to destination which is 10 miles from the airport. Compare that with driving your car from your home to your destination. For me the "equal time distance" is 150 miles (if the trip is shorter than that, the car gets me there first). -- Mike
 
Depends on the nature of the trip and the time criticality. I am far more likely to factor in the possibility of mechanical/weather delays with the airplane than I am to factor in potential traffic/mechanical delays with the car.

In general, though, I'm willing to fly at 100 miles, despite the fact that it would cost more, because that's where the time comes close enough to break even.
 
Hmmm...

To my wife's family in Johnstown, including all drivetime, it's about 2.5 hours by plane, 5 hours by car. By plane it's 164 nm, by car 225 sm.

Gettysburg battlefield is, including all drivetime, about an hour and 45 minutes by plane, and 2 and 1/2 hours by car. It's 95 nm by plane, about 121 sm by car.

The beach at Ocean City, NJ is two hours and 95 sm away by car, with light traffic. That is bound to get longer as summer rolls around, not to mention I'll have a heck of a time parking the car. I'll probably park at the airport and walk the 1/2 mile. Add another 15 minutes, and it's 2 1/4 before our butts are on the sand. By air, I have a place to park the plane, and the walk is only a measured 1/2 mile. Worst case scenario, if I can't get direct across Philly and have to work around the Class B (I won't duck under the 1500 ft shelf), it's 71 nm, and about an hour and forty five minutes before my butt is in the sand.

Heck... I can beat the car almost everywhere I go around here. It does help that Cathy loads the plane, gets the headsets plugged in, and straps the boy down (unless he's "helping" me) while I preflight the plane. That saves me an extra 15 minutes. It also helps that I can park the car right outside the gate to the ramp where the planes are, so we aren't carting our crap across 20 miles of parking lot and ramp.

Edit: Oops... need to add 15 minutes time for pre-flight to all the above.
 
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Dave Theisen said:
You can go places by car?
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Amen.

Back when I was overhauling the Mooney's engine my sister decided to get married in Boston. I asked folks around my work site how to get onto the NJ turnpike (I've lived here ~14 years). One of them finally told me rather politely, "Ed, the Delaware Memorial Bridge is a left turn out of the plant."

Oh, yeah. Guess I have seen that thing on the horizon.
 
I tend to look at my airplane vs. commercial air travel more than car vs. airplane. My rule of thumb is I can beat Delta Airlines up to 600 nm. I live 45 sm from ATL and 6 sm from my home airport (9A1). This is a time comparison not a price one. At the suicide fare levels the airlines are using today, it's almost never cheaper to fly yourself. However, with those fares Deltas is losing ~$1.5 BILLION a quarter. Sorry for the rant, but I just don't see how this can be. Oh, and one more thing...when I fly myself I don't have to take my shoes off at the airport, and I can bring my Swiss army knife.
 
From Dubuque to Kansas City I could beat airlines in my car. 7 hours to drive. A bit more by airline.

My folks live 112 miles from me and it is about even, door to door, flying vs driving.
 
For me, if I can drive in 2 hrs, I do, if I can drive in 3, its a toss up. Over 3, fly.

But, regardless of the drive time, its SOOOO much nicer to fly above all the nonsense on the interstates.
 
Mike Schneider said:
How far do you have to fly in your airplane to get there before you could have gotten there in your car? Figure in (1) starting at your home with the car packed, (2) driving to the airport, (3) transferring the luggage and flight gear from the car to the plane, (4) flying the route, (5) tying down the plane, (6) getting a rental car, and (7) driving to destination which is 10 miles from the airport. Compare that with driving your car from your home to your destination. For me the "equal time distance" is 150 miles (if the trip is shorter than that, the car gets me there first). -- Mike
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Several factors involved obviously.

1) How far are you from the airport, and is that in the direction of your travel.
2) How far is the other airport from you and your final destination, and are you backtracking distance to get there.
3) Total distance,
4) average speed of road, and obviously of the plane
5) How much time off of your life will the agravation of the traffic cost you
6) How will you be transported at the other end.
7) How long does it take you from the time you arrive at the plane till you are wheels up.

That said, when I lived in the SoCal basin, and had to travel more than 10 miles, I took my plane. I could get from the boat(home) in Wilmington CA to Big Bear CA in 40 minutes. Time to drive would vary from 2 1/2 to 5 hrs depending on traffic. If I had to go to Van Nuys from Long Beach during the day on a parts run, FBO-FBO, what would take me at least 5 hrs to drive would take me less than 45 min in my plane. My boss figured it was worth buying my fuel (he already heavily subsidized my maint costs) to send me after parts in my plane if we needed it faster than it could be shipped (we supported several small 135 operations, so this was semi frequent).
 
I don't like to run my engines for less than 1 hour as I've heard that is bad (no time for temps to boil off condensation); so I use that as a guide. That ends up being about 250sm or so by road.

I am for grins...collecting information on GA vs Commercial for different trips. I'll write a short case study below. :)



Case Study:

Date: yesterday
Function: Business (sales) meeting
Time: 1pm
Place: Grand Rapids, MI
CRC Employees: 2 -- myself, and a salesman who is not 'allowed' to fly GA per his wife
Trip: Atlanta to KGRR and back to Atlanta in one day
Distance: About 540nm

Ready, Set, Go!

Me: I go about my normal morning routine and leave my house at the normal time

Him: He gets up at 5:30 to leave his house by 6am to beat the traffic to KATL to catch a 7:30am flight -- the only one available to make the meeting and not have to go in the night before.

Me: I get there at 12:30...the meeting is 15 minutes away
Him: He gets there about 10:30 and has to wait, and drool for the meeting time to arrive

Me: When the meeting is over, I hop in my airplane and take off for the 3 hour ride home.
Him: Worried and frantic, he panics because if he can't make the 4:40 flight he has to wait until 7pm-ish to take off. He asks if I can carry his projector so he doesn't have to open TWO bags at security. I grin and say, "Sure!"

Me: I land at LZU at 7:15pm...wondering which flight he got on. I am eating dinner with my family at 8.
Him: He lands at 8...he got on the 4:40 flight...which was late...and even then sat on the runway...in the middle row between two large people (standby). He gets home at 9.

We talked and laughed about it today and he said, "Yes, but if my flight wasn't delayed I would have beat you home." And that is true.

But I also said...if we had another meeting in Chicago he would have never been able to get there and I would.

This is the third such trip we have flown separately...and I beat him home from the other two (Bentonville, Arkansas), and yes, even Tuscon. Beating him home from Tuscon was an anomoly of airline 'equipment' problems and him having to drive to Phoenix because the travel agent screwed up his tickets.

He beat me to Tuscon however...but only because I had the luxury of leaving a few hours later than I had planned (which was about the time he left). I would have had about twice the flight time as he did. Come to think of it, Tuscon was a stretch. Nobody throw rocks, but I have to go to California in a week or two, and I'm going commercial...sigh...

Final thought:

His trip was on all the comfort of the CRJ (which is code-talk for metal-bar seats with 2mm thick leather covering them...in an even smaller and tighter layout than a 737). He sat next to guy in a suit who was talking to his wife, and overheard, "Sigh. Yes, another $1,000 ticket to ride in a CRJ).
 
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BTW,

I really don't know why I posted this in this thread. Sorry about the thread creep. :(
 
From front door to front door going from here to my parents in Pittsburgh we save about an hour travel time.

But from engine start to engine stop we save 2.5 hours. And we're flying. And we're not in turnpike traffic. And the view rocks.

:)
 
I will have to agree with Bill, if its less than two hrs I most likely will drive, but now and then if we are taking the step-son to spend the weekend with his dad, we fly. Long trips with a good weather forecast, FLY!!! Thats why I spent the time and money to get my license and buy the plane.
 
RobertGerace said:
This is the third such trip we have flown separately...and I beat him home from the other two (Bentonville, Arkansas), and yes, even Tuscon.
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Bob,
Next time you come to VBT give me a shout. I'd like to meet you and can probably have a car here for you to drive.
 
Greebo said:
From front door to front door going from here to my parents in Pittsburgh :)
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Where in the 'burgh? I grew up in Moon Twp/Coraopolis, but the 'rents live in Bridgeville, now.
 
Mike Schneider said:
How far do you have to fly in your airplane to get there before you could have gotten there in your car? Figure in (1) starting at your home with the car packed, (2) driving to the airport, (3) transferring the luggage and flight gear from the car to the plane, (4) flying the route, (5) tying down the plane, (6) getting a rental car, and (7) driving to destination which is 10 miles from the airport. Compare that with driving your car from your home to your destination. For me the "equal time distance" is 150 miles (if the trip is shorter than that, the car gets me there first). -- Mike
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I'm 15 minutes from the airport (light traffic) and it usually takes me about 30-40 minutes to preflight and load the plane, taxi, and takeoff. I have managed all that in as little as 15 minutes but that's only when I have little or nothing to load and I don't get held up by ATC. At the destination, it's 30-45 minutes before I'm driving out of the airport parking lot. Ten miles is about the distance from the airport I go to in northern Michigan to the house I have there and that's ususally another 15 minutes.

I guess you could say the trip time flying is about 2 hours plus the time spent in the air. Ignoring winds I cover about 200 statute miles per hour in the air vs something like 40-60 on the ground, including a factor for the road miles being greater than the air miles. So for me the break even distance would be 100 - 170 statute miles, depending on the ground speed
 
Greg Bockelman said:
From Dubuque to Kansas City I could beat airlines in my car. 7 hours to drive. A bit more by airline.

My folks live 112 miles from me and it is about even, door to door, flying vs driving.
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I find I can beat or else come real close to the airline trip time anywhere I can go with a single stop for fuel unless the airline happens to have nonstop service to a place that's close to my actual destination. That includes trips of up to 1400 nm in some cases. When I fly from here to Venice FL, the whole trip takes a bit over 8 hours door to door. By airline it's 7.5 -8.5 when you include the extra time to the MSP airport (it's 30-45 minutes from home vs 15-20 to my GA airport), and the two hour drive from TPA to Venice for the typical NWA flight with a stop/layover somewhere. If you factor in the time spent chasing down lost luggage and packing extra carefully to thwart the baggage destroyers it's even a better deal timewise.

On the trip I'm taking today (Mpls to Bellaire MI), we will spend two hours in the air for a door to door time of four hours. Driving the same trip takes at least 12 (more if you stop for dinner or sleep) partly because it's easier to get past Lake Michigan in a plane than a car. Sometimes there's direct (turboprop) service to an airport about an hour from my Michigan destination and then I could make the trip commercially in about 4.5 hours. When direct service isn't available it takes between 6 and 8 hours on Northwest.
 
This has always frustrated me. Drive down to my parents' house on Cape Cod is about 2.5 hours. Drive to the airport, load the plane, preflight, fly (40 mins by Skyhawk), land, taxi, tiedown, unload, get picked up, drive to my parents house is about 2.5 hours! Should be faster to fly, especially given that you can cut right across Cape Cod Bay instead of driving all the way around it. With the Tiger it will be faster of course, but not by much. I used to have to go visit my in-laws in NJ (divorced now, thank goodness!). About a 4.5 hour drive. Same steps as above to fly and I end up about.... yep, 4-4.5 hours. What the heck...? Still, flying is so much more fun than driving I'll do it anyway, and even though it's about the same amount of time the trip is broken up, not just hours of droning along the highway.
 
Of course it all depends...

Its 80 miles direct from KRHV to E45, but 120 on the ground. 1 hr total time door to door vs 3:30 driving. Even longer if you're leaving on a Friday night. :)

But I can make a 500 mile trip in a shorter amount of time in the Bonanza than flying there commercial even. I'll beat Southwest from San Jose to Reno. :)

The car is now just a means for getting me TO the airport and home FROM it. :)
 
I'm sitting on the ground In Vermont, having turned an 8 hour drive into 3.5 on the Hobbes. It was a slow trip up because we stopped in POU to switch seats, and get the IR person in the left. But, in terms of fly vs. drive. A few considerations.

We saw maybe 5 airplanes enroute. On I81, we would have seen, what, a bazillion cars, some of which might actually NOT have been trying to kill me?

We got IR training for both of us, we got to fly into clouds, we got to fly VFR too and play see and avoid. We got to see the Hudson River, Albany, Poughkeepsie, Allentown. We got to see some really pretty rural countryside from above. In the car, we would have seen I80 for two hours across a part of NY State that I swear has nothing in it.

We are relaxed, on the ground, not particularly tired, and with the feeling of accomplishment at having used my IR, having gotten my wife more than an hour of practice time on VOR tracking under the hood.

Sure, you can get there in a car. Barring ice or thunderstorms, WHY would you want to? :D

JIm G
 
grattonja said:
I'm sitting on the ground In Vermont, having turned an 8 hour drive into 3.5 on the Hobbes. It was a slow trip up because we stopped in POU to switch seats, and get the IR person in the left. But, in terms of fly vs. drive. A few considerations.

We saw maybe 5 airplanes enroute. On I81, we would have seen, what, a bazillion cars, some of which might actually NOT have been trying to kill me?

We got IR training for both of us, we got to fly into clouds, we got to fly VFR too and play see and avoid. We got to see the Hudson River, Albany, Poughkeepsie, Allentown. We got to see some really pretty rural countryside from above. In the car, we would have seen I80 for two hours across a part of NY State that I swear has nothing in it.

We are relaxed, on the ground, not particularly tired, and with the feeling of accomplishment at having used my IR, having gotten my wife more than an hour of practice time on VOR tracking under the hood.

Sure, you can get there in a car. Barring ice or thunderstorms, WHY would you want to? :D

JIm G
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That's the way to do it !
 
RobertGerace said:
BTW,

I really don't know why I posted this in this thread. Sorry about the thread creep. :(
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No sweat, it was at least marginally relative:D . Mentioning Bentonville reminded me of when I met Sam Walton in Harrison Arkansas. He was flying an old but very nice 182. Since I saw him on the cover of Newsweek a couple weeks earlier I recognized as I fueled his plane. I asked him why he had a 182 instead of a G-VI. He told me "I've got one, but it doesn't do for me what this plane does. Since I've been in business I've personnally scouted the location for every store by flying over the general area and watching the traffic pattern, you just can't do that in the G-IV." Can't fault that reasoning.
 
Werll, I don't own, I rent, but here's my story. If I'm heading eastward, it takes a while to make it faster, since it takes me 45 minutes, driving to the west to get to the airport. Then I fly about 10 minutes across the city to my original starting point.

But if given the option, I'll fly every chance I get, even if I was flying to Moriarty (a 15 minute drive, vs about 30-45 in the air + the 45 to drive to the airport)
 
You know you really have it bad when you drive past your destination to get to the airport.
 
RobertGerace said:
I don't like to run my engines for less than 1 hour as I've heard that is bad (no time for temps to boil off condensation); so I use that as a guide. That ends up being about 250sm or so by road.
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Oh Robert, BTW, as much as you fly that plane, you don't have to worry about that. First off, it's not true, 10 minutes at power and you are there, the oil is hot unless you are operating in extreme environments. Secondly, if you fly several times a week and/or change your oil every month or more frequently, you aren't at risk of condensation damage. That's mostly something for the hangar and ramp queens who's owners come down every few weeks to start the engines and change oil maybe twice a year. They are the ones who need an hour to get the oil up to full temp and that would be idling. 15-20 min at 1200rpm. Usually if I'm taking care of them and can't fly them I'll still taxi them around once a week and give em a good runup.
 
From PIA, I beat the airlines to DEN and to BOS. No question about it.
 
Henning said:
5) How much time off of your life will the agravation of the traffic cost you
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That's a good enough reason for me to drive I-94 to the airport, then fly to visit friends at FNT or 3DA, instead of driving I-696 and I-75 in the worst of the construction season... even though flying probably takes about as long from door to door even considering the gridlock.

Liz
 
It is never a question of car vs airplane for me. I use the trips as an excuse to fly like a lot of you I bet. I do make several trips a year to Wichita Kansas from Austin which is 550 miles. It takes me 8.5 hours to drive but only 4.5 to fly. My wife and I have a "date" as she likes to call it every Sunday to fly somewhere to get lunch. If wx is bad we travel only to the local restaurants. LOL
 
When you live on an Island and are required to go 1-1.5 hours to a shopping mall or Cosco, it becomes handy to place a car at one of the mainland airports and fly off Whidby, do your errands, and fly home.

We have a group of friends that keep cars at several different airports like Boeing Field, Bellingham, and Skagit Reagonal. Sure makes it handy when we want to go "Off Island".
 
NC19143 said:
When you live on an Island and are required to go 1-1.5 hours to a shopping mall or Cosco, it becomes handy to place a car at one of the mainland airports and fly off Whidby, do your errands, and fly home.

We have a group of friends that keep cars at several different airports like Boeing Field, Bellingham, and Skagit Reagonal. Sure makes it handy when we want to go "Off Island".
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Well yeah. That's actually when I started flying, when I lived on Catalina Island. Blow that 2 hr boat ride, and kept my car at LGB. Which remindes me, Carol, you want this old Volvo for HWO?
 
Henning said:
Well yeah. That's actually when I started flying, when I lived on Catalina Island. Blow that 2 hr boat ride, and kept my car at LGB. Which remindes me, Carol, you want this old Volvo for HWO?
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I'd better pass on that for now. Althought it does look like a good candidate for my uses.

When do you head for Belgium?
 
Carol said:
I'd better pass on that for now. Althought it does look like a good candidate for my uses.

When do you head for Belgium?
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Couple of weeks, it would be a good candidate, it runs and drives and the air works plus no one will steal it and it's cop proof. No big deal, just thought I'd give you first dibs.
 
I guess sometimes things have to work out better than the average and this weekend was one. To begin with I had a tailwind both ways so the flights were both a few minutes shy of 2 hours. In addition, we managed to load/unload in record time (it helped that we only brought one car full of stuff). A friend had pre-positioned my car at ACB and we would have gotten to the house in Bellaire in less than three hours from the time I left my office if we hadn't stopped for groceries on the way from the airport. Returning was a quick 2:45 from door to door which left plenty of time to catch a couple ski rides before the light got dim.
 
I hate driving. I love flying. Sometimes I *KNOW* it'll take longer by air, I'll still fly it.

For example. I have some friends in Austin, MN. It is about a 45 minute drive. Instead of driving there, I drive to the Rochester Airport..which is about 25 minutes. I am usually airborne within 10 minutes, and it is about a 12 minute flight to Austin. So, it takes an extra 2 minutes to do it by air. But guess what, It's a lot more fun.

Another example is the twin cities. It takes me about 1:30-1:45 to drive up there. I have only driven up there *ONCE* since I received my pilot's license. Every other time I've flown, usually about twice a month. It takes me 25 minutes to drive to the airport, 10 minutes to be airborne, and a 35 minute flight. So 1 hour 10 minutes. I save about 20 minutes.


Basically it comes down to:
1.) I love flying
2.) If I fly the money goes towards future ratings, If I drive.. It goes towards? Nothing.

It probably helps that I'm usually solo, so there really isn't any time required for loading the airplane..etc
 
For me, the sweet spot is 150-500 miles, and up to 700 miles if the airlines couldn't fly me non-stop. A trip of fewer than 150 miles means I can get there faster with a car, because I avoid my drive to the airport, and 45 minutes for weather, filing, and preflight. Over 500 miles, and the jets are faster unless there is a transfer.
 
wangmyers said:
For me, the sweet spot is 150-500 miles, and up to 700 miles if the airlines couldn't fly me non-stop. A trip of fewer than 150 miles means I can get there faster with a car, because I avoid my drive to the airport, and 45 minutes for weather, filing, and preflight. Over 500 miles, and the jets are faster unless there is a transfer.
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That's about my range too. It also depends on the roads. Raleigh to Norfolk area can't be driven anywhere close to direct. 5 hours by car, 2 hours by plane including the drive to the airport. Went to Cedar Springs, GA last week. 458 miles by plane, almost a direct straight line. 3.4 down and 2.7 back. Add 1.5 for drive time. Couldn't come close by commercial and did it for less cost. Gave my guy on site flighaware with my N number and told him to come get me when it said I was 30 minutes out. He showed up as I finished fueling the plane.
 
3 minutes by car to airport, either 2 hours or 4 1/2 hours by car to city depending on which direction I go. Much more efficient to fly, have an old Subaru Legacy parked at the airport in one direction and a FBO who lends me an old jalopy in the other.

Still have to drive about 50% of the time due to weather, or when my neighbors plane I am borrowing (until I acquire mine) isn't available.
 
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