Commuting to work by small GA airplane?

N918KT

N918KT

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Is it possible that in the near future some private pilots (and hopefully sport pilots as well) can commute to work by a small GA airplane that we own?

If most people can commute to work in the future by small airplanes, maybe we should build a small GA airport somewhere near the downtown areas of a major city. But not just any kind of GA airport. It should be an airport that has no aircraft based there, and a lot of tie downs and hangar space. Think of this hypothetical airport like a big parking garage near the downtown area of the city. You pay for aircraft parking by the hour (or per day if you want your plane to stay there longer).

Imagine that in the future for GA. Private pilots (and hopefully sport pilots) commuting to work in cities like New York and L.A. everyday by their own small GA airplanes with GA airports close to downtown that operates just like a city parking garage.
 
I'm not too sure that ADDING airports to metropolitan area is likely to happen. As you probably know, lots of people want to close the airports we already have.
 
I'm absolutely positive that in the long term future, most transportation will take place in the air. However, I also realise that's a long time ahead. They dreamed about it in the 20's for our times, but it didn't happen. Instead, the futurism of the first half of the century was replaced with the dwindling numbers of aviation we face today. It will come back, but we just need to make sure GA doesn't die completely until it does. They're actively trying to kill us.

As for commuting - there used to be a couple of guys in SoCal that flew to work. There used to be a C152 that flew into LAX every day from Santa Barbara or somewhere with a guy who worked close to the airport. I think he had to give it up when the landing fees became prohibitive. There were a couple of other I remember reading that commuted from Corona to Hawthorne daily. So it can be done. Depending on where you are, and what airplane you have, you can get good dispatch. In SoCal, I couldn't think of many days a year you can't make a trip. In Alaska - a little trickier unless you have complete FIKI and good capability.
 
Used to be a guy who lived over on the eastern shore who would commute to the NIH by flying from Bay Bridge to College Park every day (in the pre 9/11 era).

I had a friend who flew from the central valley into silicon valley every day.
 
And wake up on weekends with the desire to fly equal to the desire to sit in traffic. Gotta be careful folks you can ruin all that is fun in this world without much effort.
 
There are several that live in Oak Harbor and fly into BFI every work day.

Seattle being one of the few cities that have a down town airport.
 
flyingron said:
Used to be a guy who lived over on the eastern shore who would commute to the NIH by flying from Bay Bridge to College Park every day (in the pre 9/11 era).

I had a friend who flew from the central valley into silicon valley every day.
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Don't know about that, but there was my friend John who did Bay Bridge to Frederick every day, and then there was I think Dan who did the Hagerstown to College Park flight on a regular basis in the best IFR 150 I ever heard of?

And there may soon be an RV commuter going from Bay Bridge to St. Mary's on a semi-regular schedule, I'll keep you posted. :D
 
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N918KT said:
Is it possible that in the near future some private pilots (and hopefully sport pilots as well) can commute to work by a small GA airplane that we own?
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I've been doing it for 7 years. I do engineering consulting (6-12 month duration) and the job is often out of town... often 100-400 miles away. Owning an airplane has made this possible as well as for me to live out in the county. Total game changer.

The hardest part is the last few miles. I either bring a moped with me (Honda Elite) or drive a car to the local airport and leave it. I rarely commute every day however... most of the jobs are hourly and an extra hour of work a day will pay for a motel room, but I'm able to pop home for school events in the middle of the week. I've even set up a cot in the hanger depending on the weather (I also rent a hanger at the remote airport).

ClimbnSink said:
And wake up on weekends with the desire to fly equal to the desire to sit in traffic. Gotta be careful folks you can ruin all that is fun in this world without much effort.
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Naw... absolutely not. The commute was the high point.
 
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I can do it now in my 172 - but the speed versus the miles and the fact that there is a 4-mile drive in traffic between the airport and my office means that it will only be about 7 minutes faster than driving, on average.

Now, once I've got my 9A flying, it will be several minutes faster than the 172 (40 knots faster cruise), and a whole lot more fun, and I'll be doing it quite a bit just on general principle.
 
Did it for about a year, 93 mile drive vs. flight in a Cherokee 140. Not much time saved, but I allways had the trip home to look forward to. Had a hangar and a car at the work location.
 
Neighbor across the street flew a PA-18 from KPOU to 4B0 almost every day for 30 years.
 
If you look at the number of operations such an airport could support, you'll find the number of pilots that this airport could service is very small. Then, when you consider the cost of land near any city's central business district, you'd also find the number of people who could afford to park at that airport is similarly small. So, if your goal is to give a handful of very wealthy individuals the opportunity to air commute, then this is worth pursuing. If it was the average pilot you were thinking of, then not so much.
 
I commuted, for a very brief period of time, in a GA airplane to go fly at an airline. 45-minute flight vs. 2.5 hour drive. When you're "on reserve" with a minimum call-out time of 2 hours to get to work it meant the difference between a great lifestyle and an absolutely wretched one. It bought me a lot of nights in my own bed at home and saved an awful lot of driving.... but it was not a good long-term viable option. When the weather goes south and you still need to be there.. no bueno. For a couple of glorious weeks of nice fall weather though, it was pretty nice "sitting reserve" at home or my local airport, ready to hop in the plane when the call came..
 
People have been doing it as long as I've been flying. Other people were doing it off our ramp in Long Beach when I was training, in fact I even commuted while I was training as coinciding with my lessons since I lived on Catalina, and used my plane to commute between my jobs there and at LGB the day I bought it and continued to do so.
 
I commuted in a Glasair for almost two years. It was a lot more pain than I thought it would be. In the end still worth it, but many times that sucked.
 
I commuted by plane for about nine years but the flights were weekly and to cities two, three, four states away. I agree with whoever said be careful what you wish for. It turned flying into something more utilitarian and took away a lot of the hobby/passion.

That said, if the US had a high speed rail network like other (more advanced) countries I would have rarely flown.
 
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I used to commute pretty regularly from the Bay Area to the Central Valley and back 2-4 days a week. The key is having your work close to an airport.
 
Not regularly but I have been known to commute by air when the opportunity presented itself.
 
FormerHangie said:
If you look at the number of operations such an airport could support, you'll find the number of pilots that this airport could service is very small. Then, when you consider the cost of land near any city's central business district, you'd also find the number of people who could afford to park at that airport is similarly small. So, if your goal is to give a handful of very wealthy individuals the opportunity to air commute, then this is worth pursuing. If it was the average pilot you were thinking of, then not so much.
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Thing is the people who can afford it already have helicopters that pick them up on the roof.
 
Brad Z said:
Umm dude, check out the site... even the environmentalists support it...
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Lol, how many signatures do they have from the Park and Fifth Ave residents, you know, the millionaires and billionaires that own the politicians?
 
Brad Z said:
Umm dude, check out the site... even the environmentalists support it...
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The "Triborough Association for Fair Treatment" ain't exactly the Sierra Club.

Google that name and look for that organization's web site.
 
Brad Z said:
Hopefully this proposed airport will make getting to NYC a lot easier...

http://manhattanairport.org
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... really? That's a parody website... it's total satire. There's no possible way you could use the airport as drawn with commercial jets. The "headlines" are pretty funny too, starting with the one about how their website crashing is a vote of confidence in the idea. Also, if you Google it, you get a bunch of news stories about how it's a hoax/parody: http://www.fastcompany.com/1316789/central-park-international-airport-hoax-explained or http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/permalink/the_manhattan_airport_foundation/
 
It will be built right after they finish the airport on the National Mall.
 
Brad Z said:
Hopefully this proposed airport will make getting to NYC a lot easier...

http://manhattanairport.org
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If you have a seaplane with a 3-bladed prop you can already use 6N7 to drop someone off.

A relative of mine used to fly some banker to work from the Hamptons in a Caravan Amphib (that or his S76, depending on the weather or other pax).
 
Denny Cunningham (contributor to IFR magazine and tower controller at O'Hare for many years) used to commute to O'Hare in a Cessna 140 or something.
 
When I was living in Harrison, AR, there was a bank president who commuted back and forth from his private strip on Beaver Lake to Harrison almost daily. He, at various times, had an Aztec, Lake, Twin Commander, etc.

He met his demise when he tried to land his Aztec on his private <2,000' grass strip during a storm:

http://www.ntsb.gov/AviationQuery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20050121X00091&key=1

And he was no stranger to mishaps:

http://www.ntsb.gov/AviationQuery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20031017X01767&key=1

I knew him pretty well, he was a great guy. He had a tendency to not make good decisions though.
 
timwinters said:
When I was living in Harrison, AR, there was a bank president who commuted back and forth from his private strip on Beaver Lake to Harrison almost daily. He, at various times, had an Aztec, Lake, Twin Commander, etc.

He met his demise when he tried to land his Aztec on his private <2,000' grass strip during a storm:

http://www.ntsb.gov/AviationQuery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20050121X00091&key=1

And he was no stranger to mishaps:

http://www.ntsb.gov/AviationQuery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20031017X01767&key=1

I knew him pretty well, he was a great guy. He had a tendency to not make good decisions though.
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I kept my plane at Harrison the summer I taught sailing on Table Rock and lived in Lampe.
 
dukeblue219 said:
... really? That's a parody website... it's total satire. There's no possible way you could use the airport as drawn with commercial jets. The "headlines" are pretty funny too, starting with the one about how their website crashing is a vote of confidence in the idea. Also, if you Google it, you get a bunch of news stories about how it's a hoax/parody: http://www.fastcompany.com/1316789/central-park-international-airport-hoax-explained or http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/permalink/the_manhattan_airport_foundation/
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Thanks Ted...I'm glad someone figured that out. If anyone read the proposal for more than 30 seconds and thought it was legit, they need to get their BS detector recalibrate! :)
 
WhiskeyPapa said:
One of the funniest things I have seen in ages!!!
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What makes it so funny is the skilled use of all the buzzwords that come with that kind of proposal.

'Land use constituency'
'Vision'
'Mission'
'Carbon-negative'
'boldly re-imagined'
 
Someone should make a Web page like that featuring Northerly Island. :devil:
 
flyingron said:
Denny Cunningham (contributor to IFR magazine and tower controller at O'Hare for many years) used to commute to O'Hare in a Cessna 140 or something.
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Good memory, Ron. I did that two or three days a week, for eighteen years, in three different airplanes (Cessna 140, then a Warrior, then a Bonanza). We had one other controller (Scott Hartwig) that did the same thing on a regular basis back then (Cessna 140, then a 170, then a 195). We often rendezvoused in the air, then flew in together.

One favorite memory: early morning, the sun is just coming up over the city, airline traffic is landing 14R (noise abatement runway), Scott and I are on final for 14L in a tight flight of two. As a Delta L1011 comes up behind us on final for the right side, tower issues traffic:

Tower: "Delta 1234, traffic eleven o'clock, two miles, on final for the left side, a twin Cessna-- won't be a factor for ya."

We're perfectly positioned for Delta to see us silhouetted against the sunrise, and he does:

"Okay, we're looking..... holy crap, tower, that's not a twin Cessna-- that's two Cessna 140's in formation!"

Tower: "Yeah, I knew that. i just didn't figure you'd believe it."
 
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