If there were no speed limits on the roads...

N918KT

N918KT

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KT
Hey guys, here is an interesting thought.

Do you think travel time from any place to another destination with GA versus driving would be similar if there were no speed limits on the roads, at least if there were no speed limits on highways?

If we pedal to the metal on highways would it even be possible that traveling by car be faster than traveling by GA aircraft?
 
In Jersey, No Speed Limits? Yikes everyone would be in the hospital!
 
Doubt it. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
 
My Champ only does 85 mph but even at that and with normal winds if you keep it pointed in the same direction long enough you can cover some territory. If you were talking about a dead straight open road with no traffic from nowhere to nowhere (because the middle of nowhere is the only place such highway exists) then a car might have a chance but factor in traffic, urban areas, mountains and such - no way.
 
For me, destin is a prime example. No direct routes from central Georgia. Flight distance is significantly shorter than driving.
 
Forget the travel time angle, think about the relative safety angle.
 
From Galveston Texas to Naples Florida 14 hrs on the car night time driving, on the plane 8 hrs pipi and fuel stop included.
Rather flight than drive any day of the week.
 
Comanche flyer said:
From Galveston Texas to Naples Florida 14 hrs on the car night time driving, on the plane 8 hrs pipi and fuel stop included.
Rather flight than drive any day of the week.
Click to expand...


Even if the times were equal, I'd still rather fly. Driving wears me out much more than flying.
 
For me just getting off of long island, speed limits don't matter. I can drive to Bridgeport CT in over an hour going theough queens, over bridges, and traffic nightmare. I can fly there in 20 minutes.
 
Ah, memories of Montana in the 90s . . . I'd still rather fly. It's faster, usually smoother, and no "Speed Zone Ahead" signs when you approach a tiny settlement at 110 and have to stand on the brakes to get under 60 before blowing by that Speed Limit 35 sign. No cops, flying is straighter, and somehow much less tiring even when conducted for the same amount of time.
 
My regular XC family visit is 1.75-2hrs; it is 6hrs by car...and we can go 85mph.
 
I have spent plenty of time driving at triple-digit speeds.

(Closed course, competition license, kids, do not try this at home)

The big difference- Driving at 150 mph requires immense concentration. One little brain fade, and the car is sliding off the track and into the weeds.

Flying at 150 mph is...... Relaxing.
 
Mason said:
If there were no speed limits on the roads...

More people would die on the way to the airport.
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I disagree. The faster I go, the more I concentrate.

It's the slow drivers that kill.
 
No. Lived in Germany and drove a BMW 732i on the Autobahn regularly at 100+. Faster than US driving but still not faster than flying. As others mentioned, driving that fast will wear you out.


Jim R
Collierville, TN

N7155H--1946 Piper J-3 Cub
N3368K--1946 Globe GC-1B Swift
N4WJ--1994 Van's RV-4
 
Nobody would speed even if legal to hard to text and drive over 75 or so
 
There was a NTSB thing on the "natural speed limit" or something like that, how you can change the speed people drive by how much open space beside the road there is, bunch of other stuff.


I'd wager most folks would be fine, you'd have a few speeders and a few slow pokes who are actually the most dangerious to other traffic
 
If a driver in front of me smashes up sufficiently bad then I'm probably going to be doing 0mph regardless of the speed limit. If a pilot in front of me goes down then I'll snapshot the lat/long from the GPS and relay it to approach/center/FSS as I go on my merry way (OK, maybe I'll also draw a circle on radar if I have radar coverage but there's not much else I can do to help the poor guy).
 
Go look at the autobahn and draw your own conclusions. Personally I favor that system. Mainly because fundamentally I'd prefer to see police officers less tied to revenue generation.
 
Can we test to European standards or will the driving test still be a joke? US drivers are so bad, that it's criminal to not retest with simulators and force people to learn to drive. Members of the "Owners of the left lane society" would set the speed limit.
 
Back in college my Jaguar XJS V12 was outfitted for Cannonball Run competition. Of course, I was born about 20-30 years too late, but I could try. Regular triple digit speeds only resulted in speeding tickets, never a safety issue. The best I averaged was about 80 with stops on a long trip, though, and my stops were very efficient. I also would've gone faster if there really were no speed limits, but keep in mind in the days of the real Cannonball Run, 85 MPH was the best average speed ever achieved.

You have to look at door to door time, and it depends on what you fly. The 310 does over 200 MPH, so there's no way I can safely pilot a car at those speeds for extended periods on public roads. But you add time to get to the airport, preflight the plane, take off, land, check into the new FBO, get your rental car or taxi, and get to where you're going.

So, it depends. When I was in PA I never flew to NYC (well, I did once and that was enough) because there was 0 time savings, even driving 70 MPH, but a huge cost penalty.
 
Speed limits have nothing to do with it. You should have titled this...If there was no traffic or pedestrians, animals or anything else on the roads....

Its not the limiting speed of the road that holds one back. Nor is it that roads are not straight. In my neck of the woods we have straight roads for 10's of miles. In the winter you can see a long way.

I built a car to travel these roads and travel them at a very high rate of speed but that is another story.
The limiting factory for me was animals in the winter when the crops were down. On the open road meaning highways it was traffic. But if you took traffic out of the equation it would be animals.

One night I was just cruising along at around 130 mph and something came over me to slow down for a deer was in my future. At 130 I was barely touching the gas peddle. I slowed to around 60 and a deer jumps right out in front of me. We slam the deer and total my hotrod or should I say my sleeper, that was the end of my car.
The engine came out and went into a 67 Camaro. But it was never the car that I had before. It was quick, but not fast. Another story.
My son became ill. I needed to get him to the hospital. It was a 50 mile trip. We did it in 15 mins. I called for an ambulance and told the dispatcher I could make better time in my car. They gave me an ETA from 45 mins to an hr.

The local police would contact the local helicopter pilot to come catch me. He said he could not catch me. I met him the first time I flew into Havana IL for the yearly fly-in, this was 2010. He is still today a crop duster in the Havana IL area I am sure. He has a hangar at his house outside of Bath IL.

But my point.

I would say if both people are standing and someone says..GO. The pilot must climb in his airplane and the driver climb in his car. The car will when in a short 50 to 100 mile race. But stretch this race out to say 700 miles. the plane will win for the car needs to stop and fuel and then has to deal with animals and every other thing besides other traffic.

Tony Sweet.
 
I loooove driving fast. This has been one of the hardest adjustments for me moving from Jersey to NC, where apparently no one has to get anywhere any time soon.

I drive up to a casino in WV now and then. It's a straight shot up 77 the entire way, in the middle of nowhere. Yes, I drove fast, and yes I got freakin speeding tickets. Now it's 8 mph over the speed limit, then cruise control. The whole. Boring. Way. It changed my drive time from 3.5 door to door to over 4 hours with a peet stop.
So of course the plan is to start flying, I figure if you factor in the cost of speeding tickets it's really not much more to fly lol. I'll fly into Yaeger (CRW) but I do have the 'mountains' to deal with.

I need my own highway.
 
Hold drivers to a high standard? That would be unfair, if people failed the test we couldn't sell them cars and car related necessities. Plus some like it that your civil liberties are on hold when you drive a car. Easy squeezins.
 
Over 500 miles from my house to the cabin taking the road. 279nm direct. What car is out there - that even with NO other cars on the road and no speed limits where I can make it there in under 2 hours? That's AVERAGING 268 mph. Use your brain people.

There are do dumb questions, just people who ask them.
 
1600vw said:
Speed limits have nothing to do with it. You should have titled this...If there was no traffic or pedestrians, animals or anything else on the roads....

Its not the limiting speed of the road that holds one back. Nor is it that roads are not straight. In my neck of the woods we have straight roads for 10's of miles. In the winter you can see a long way.

I built a car to travel these roads and travel them at a very high rate of speed but that is another story.
The limiting factory for me was animals in the winter when the crops were down. On the open road meaning highways it was traffic. But if you took traffic out of the equation it would be animals.

One night I was just cruising along at around 130 mph and something came over me to slow down for a deer was in my future. At 130 I was barely touching the gas peddle. I slowed to around 60 and a deer jumps right out in front of me. We slam the deer and total my hotrod or should I say my sleeper, that was the end of my car.
The engine came out and went into a 67 Camaro. But it was never the car that I had before. It was quick, but not fast. Another story.
My son became ill. I needed to get him to the hospital. It was a 50 mile trip. We did it in 15 mins. I called for an ambulance and told the dispatcher I could make better time in my car. They gave me an ETA from 45 mins to an hr.

The local police would contact the local helicopter pilot to come catch me. He said he could not catch me. I met him the first time I flew into Havana IL for the yearly fly-in, this was 2010. He is still today a crop duster in the Havana IL area I am sure. He has a hangar at his house outside of Bath IL.

But my point.

I would say if both people are standing and someone says..GO. The pilot must climb in his airplane and the driver climb in his car. The car will when in a short 50 to 100 mile race. But stretch this race out to say 700 miles. the plane will win for the car needs to stop and fuel and then has to deal with animals and every other thing besides other traffic.

Tony Sweet.
Click to expand...

It was the helicopter pilot who told me the story about the police contacting him.
 
EdFred said:
Over 500 miles from my house to the cabin taking the road. 279nm direct. What car is out there - that even with NO other cars on the road and no speed limits where I can make it there in under 2 hours? That's AVERAGING 268 mph. Use your brain people.

There are do dumb questions, just people who ask them.
Click to expand...

But you're using a specific trip that's actually a great example of GA being useful. My PA to NYC example is the opposite.
 
I left Glenwood Springs Co. at 5 pm on an evening in June and we drove to the Grand Canyon. At dark we were one hr away still. So they said at the gas station.

When we found we still had an hr before getting to the grand Canyon we turned around and headed for vegas. I wanted to see Vegas at night. We made it into Vegas at 5 am.

We did this in a stock 280Z. We drove around 130 mph the complete way. I bet a plane could have done it faster.

Tony
 
If you want something fast you have to build it yourself. But then even today the car needed for this is gone. The speedster I built was a big huge boat of a car. In the hot rod world its called a Heavy Chevy. '74 monte carlo. Took a truck 454 and did all sorts of work to it. Made a 12000 RPM free reeving engine that would scream. I owned it three years and never got one ticket in it. They could not catch it. When I dropped that engine in the '67 camaro it was quick. But at anything over 130 mph the front wheels wanted to come up. Scared the He## out of me one day. I ended up slamming her onto the pavement breaking all the front suspension pieces. I thought she was going over at 130 mph.
 
Around here at most times the speedlimits are a laughable dream. My daughter loved flying low along the highway and smirking at the masses stuck in the backup when we were on our way to the beach or grandma's.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
But you're using a specific trip that's actually a great example of GA being useful. My PA to NYC example is the opposite.
Click to expand...

That is true. My trip to Wings is probably a better comparison.

I would need to average 216mph on the road in order to break even on time.
 
flyingron said:
Around here at most times the speedlimits are a laughable dream. My daughter loved flying low along the highway and smirking at the masses stuck in the backup when we were on our way to the beach or grandma's.
Click to expand...


I hear ya. What I write about and speak of happened in the early to mid '80's. Today its a totally different story. I really doubt one could do the things we did back in those times, today. To many people and the police will just shoot you.

Tony
 
1600vw said:
If you want something fast you have to build it yourself. But then even today the car needed for this is gone. The speedster I built was a big huge boat of a car. In the hot rod world its called a Heavy Chevy. '74 monte carlo. Took a truck 454 and did all sorts of work to it. Made a 12000 RPM free reeving engine that would scream. I owned it three years and never got one ticket in it. They could not catch it. When I dropped that engine in the '67 camaro it was quick. But at anything over 130 mph the front wheels wanted to come up. Scared the He## out of me one day. I ended up slamming her onto the pavement breaking all the front suspension pieces. I thought she was going over at 130 mph.
Click to expand...

My car will do over 175mph and I didn't build it myself. Came that way out of the crate.
 
1600vw said:
I hear ya. What I write about and speak of happened in the early to mid '80's. Today its a totally different story. I really doubt one could do the things we did back in those times, today. To many people and the police will just shoot you.

Tony
Click to expand...

My dad did a lot of racing/rallying in England and the Isle of Man when he was my age. Told me stories of drag racing cops in his Mustang and other shenanigans.
 
EdFred said:
My car will do over 175mph and I didn't build it myself. Came that way out of the crate.
Click to expand...

Yea, my 25 year old Alfa will do 130 all day long with no drama on completely stock 3 liter V6 and probably still get 20 mpg. It can also go around corners.
 
N3368K said:
No. Lived in Germany and drove a BMW 732i on the Autobahn regularly at 100+. Faster than US driving but still not faster than flying. As others mentioned, driving that fast will wear you out.


Jim R
Collierville, TN

N7155H--1946 Piper J-3 Cub
N3368K--1946 Globe GC-1B Swift
N4WJ--1994 Van's RV-4
Click to expand...

I never got to drive anything that fast over there, but traffic and terrain are the limitation. Sure there are stretches of the autobahn where you can open it up but as a practical matter, when you're on the secondary roads, especially in the mountains, and in town, it's just like driving anyplace else.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I never got to drive anything that fast over there, but traffic and terrain are the limitation. Sure there are stretches of the autobahn where you can open it up but as a practical matter, when you're on the secondary roads, especially in the mountains, and in town, it's just like driving anyplace else.
Click to expand...


Absolutely. Off Autobahn, it was probably slower than US secondary roads. On very early morning, I was driving the A6 headed from Kaiserslautern to Frankfurt, cruising about 120mph and was passed by a gold Porsche 928 who immediated whipped in ahead of my to let a red Ferrari Testorosa pass him. The Testorosa went by us both like sitting still.


Jim R
Collierville, TN

N7155H--1946 Piper J-3 Cub
N3368K--1946 Globe GC-1B Swift
N4WJ--1994 Van's RV-4
 
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