The price of private air travel

There are only two types of pilots…those who own an airplane, and those who don’t. And trust me when I tell you, it’s a bitch being on the losing end of that one.

Long-time readers of World of Flying know I owned Skyhawk 2948U for a couple of years recently, and now that I have serious airplane fever again, I’m regretting the day I sold Peggy’s keys back to Walt, my partner in that deal.

And flying the Cirrus SR22 GTS last Sunday didn’t help my case of airplane fever one bit. Truth be told, it was like pouring AvGas on a campfire...it ignited my inner passion for another set of airplane keys like the white hot explosion of ten thousand suns.

So in debating (yet again) how I can justify buying another plane, I went searching the web for help, as I always do. Nothing you can’t find on the web, both good and bad, so it seems.

There are numerous calculators out there to help you dial in the estimated operation costs of owning a plane by yourself, or with a partner or three. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. If you are an AOPA member, their Interactive Operating Cost Calculator found here in their “members Only” section is wonderful. And if you are not an AOPA member, reach back there and spank yourself.

2. Planequest.com has a comprehensive list of airplane operating costs found here. Missing however were two I wanted data on, the SR22 and the AA5B Tiger. You can find data on the Cirrus at cirrusdesign.com, both online and downloadable as an .xls file.

3. Two great calculators are available to estimate how much it will cost you to learn to fly. Try this one at aeroatlanta.com or this one at firstflight.com.

4. If a partnership seems like a good thing (and it can be a great way to soften the financial blow of airplane ownership), visit aircraftpartnership.com for their partnership calculator.

Money…the root of all evil, some people say. But it is also the one thing that fuels ALL airplanes, turbojet and prop-driven alike. And I promise you…these numbers do not lie. Ask anyone who has owned anything that flies and they will tell you tomorrow will never be cheaper then today. The one thing that is never debatable however...is bang for your buck.

And when those bucks are paying for an airplane of your very own, now THAT is some serious bang.

Fat, Dumb
and Happy.

There you are, plowing along through the sky, happily converting dollars into altitude. You’ve decided to pass on Flight Following today, choosing to fly SOTP (seat of the pants) up the eastern seaboard to lunch on Martha’s Vineyard. Everything is going along peachy, until your pax in the left seat says this:

“Damn, that F-16 is sure close to us!” What’s UP with that? Hey, look, he’s rocking his wings…”

You scramble for the sectional chart and guess what, that area of ground you’re flying over carries a “P” designation, and believe me, it’s not because the guys that live down there are Portuguese. You’ve just busted a Prohibited Area, and Uncle Sam’s Air Force wants to have a word with you…NOW.

This is what an “intercept” looks like.

So now you’ve got the F–16 TIGHT at your three o’clock, what to do next? Well, if you think you know, then you ought to ACE the newest AOPA/Sporty’s Safety Quiz, found here.

Flying…it’s not for idiots anymore.

Anything that flies.

That’s my stock answer to this question: What IS the most beautiful airplane in the world?

I just got back from EUG where we attended a Luau dinner party for the vendors at the Norwest Fly Fest to be held at Eugene’s Airport this weekend. As I strolled around the mostly deserted display and parking areas, I found myself equally drawn to the Columbia 400 and SR22 GTS as I was to a Cessna 152 with custom paint and a “Plain Jane” Tri-Pacer.

This has got to be the deciding factor in determining if one is a true aviator, or just a person with a pilot’s license who converts dollars into altitude in an expensive toy. Aviators gawk at anything that flies – and are blown away each time we see an airplane break ground and FLY. We make pilgrimages to the middle of Wis-chan-sin to eat Brats and stumble around for days, walking sort of in a daze with jaws dropped as a new and even more exciting flying machine demands our attention with each new step.

We give our planes names. Peggy was my last plane, Skyhawk two-niner-four-eight Uniform. Not sure why she was called Peggy, my wife just said so, and that, um, settled it.

It was once said by Ernest K. Gann that you can tell if you’re in the presence of an aviator simply by watching his/her face when a plane flies overhead. In mid-sentence, if that person stops talking and stares in complete disbelief at how the plane stays in the air – watching it fly out of sight and sound before resuming the conversation – that my friends, is a true aviator.

Go back to the top of this post now and take a hard look at the three airplanes I found on airliners.net (with BTW is the hottest aviation photography site on this planet or any other). All three look a bit odd, and yes, maybe even a little “beauty challenged”…that is, unless you are the pilot of the unidentified jet, the bulbous superhauler 747, or the wildest Pilatus Porter in Africa.

If you really are a true aviator, then these are three beautiful planes. What’s it gonna be…ugly or beautiful? Are you a true aviator…or not?

You decide.

Airbus Confirms More
Delays for A380

For the second time in less than 90 days, Airbus has announced another delay for its new A380 superjumbo. Seems building an airplane as big as a small city isn’t as easy as first thought.

Maybe this is why:

It is being reported that wiring issues have gotten the best of the planemaker...300 miles of wiring to be exact! Airbus promised customers they could customize entertainment systems for each aircraft -- which adds to the complexity of building each plane, as different wiring has to be preinstalled in each plane.

In the sales race, Aero-News Network reports that Boeing has been giving Airbus a “sound thrashing” by almost a 4-to-1 margin. This is BEFORE Boeing even gets its Dreamliner program up to full sales speed. Between the success of the uber-beautiful 787 and the continuous problems across the pond with the A380, maybe Boeing will finally retain their position at the top of the jetliner sales heap for the foreseeable future.

Wouldn’t bother this passenger one bit. If you ask me, air travel in modern day Boeing birds is pure heaven…recent trips I’ve taken in the 737, 767 and 777 were roomy, quiet and quick. Even the tiny bag of “gourmet” pretzels and plastic cup of tepid water seemed to taste better.

Your Pre-movie checklist:

Popcorn, check.
Big honkin’ soda, check.
Bon Bons, check.
Dolby Sound system to ON, check.
Seat belt in recliner-style theater seat fastened, check.
Projection lamps to ON, check.
Cell phone of Chatty Cathy sitting directly behind you switched to SMASH, check.

This coming Friday night will be “Movie Night” for many thousands of aviators across America as Flyboys – directed by pilot Tony Bill – premieres. It will be the first time in a long, long time that aviation will be portrayed on the big screen in a way that was neither slapstick like Airplane or completely disturbing like United 93.

The media is saying this film “gets it right” from an aviation perspective, and there is good reason for that:

Director Tony Bill is a commercial-rated pilot with single and multiengine land ratings, an instrument rating, glider rating and single engine seaplane rating. So it is reasonably safe to assume that as an accomplished pilot, Bill will be able to make Flyboys as realistic as is possible. Given the recent developments in cinematography and special effects, Flyboys should be a wild ride through the skies of wartime France.

Anyone who was at Airventure Oshkosh 2006 this summer could not have missed the Flyboys booth/tent, which was one of the classiest on the field. You can download a great “behind the scenes” article from Air and Space Magazine here and view movie trailers and clips on Yahoo Movies here.

Weather Wunderland

Regular readers of this blog know I love learning about weather, especially the flood of WX information available out there on the Internets. So it will not be a surprise to find out how high I am about finding wunderground.com…AKA the Weather Underground.

Yes, I know their name sounds like a splinter ground of radicals from Bezerkley, California, but don’t let that name fool you, these people are serious about weather on the web.

There are two things they do that sets them far apart from the pack, in my humble opinion:

First, they offer aviators "one link" access to full aviation reports showing the meat and potatoes of the lengthy DUATS reports we know and love. No longer do you have to log in and sift through a ream of data to get what you need…just enter any city, airport or zip code at wunderground, and click the link to aviation information found near the bottom of the page (see red circle in image above).

Second, they have 1,000s of people all over the land with personal WX stations set up that automatically upload real-time data, something they call “Rapid Fire” weather. Last time I checked Eugene, the data was 13 seconds old.

Of course, nothing on the web is meant to replace a real phone WX briefing from the FAA. Use wxunderground for personal research PRIOR to calling 1.800.wx.brief, that is an order. For a sample of their aviation data, click here before visiting their Aviation home page, found here.

Giving back.

Having an airport exhibition at your home patch isn’t news…every city has one. But why I have chosen to “work” the Norwest Fly Fest in the booth of my flying club this Saturday is – to me – worthy of mention. And while this may be a Eugene, Oregon story, the ramifications are coast to coast, baby.

Not long ago, I had the distinct privilege of hearing AOPA President Phil Boyer speak up in Portland on their Project Pilot Program, then still in the planning stages. Phil summed the future of aviation up this way:

"Look around at any airport, and you see the pilot population is aging. We all know seasoned citizens who have lost their medicals. The sad part of this is that at the other end of the pilot stream, people in their 30s and 40s are not choosing to become pilots. It is now the responsibility of every licensed pilot to join forces and bring new student pilots into the fold. This is no longer an option, friends, it is mandatory."

I’m paraphrasing the Prez a little here, but this was the point Boyer was making. And like almost everything that comes out of my President’s mouth, it was right on.

So I’m joining some other members of TakeWing Flying Club this coming Saturday out at Mahlon Sweet Field (EUG) for the Norwest Fly Fest. It’s a day when our local aviation community will come together and pull collectively in the same direction – forwards – without holding grudges against anyone who ripped out a perfectly good crosswind runway.

If you value yourself as a proud pilot, you need to be on this bandwagon, my friends. Maybe not this weekend at EUG, but out at your local patch, at work, at the gym, at the game, or at a cocktail party. Talk up the advantages of flying to everyone you meet, tell them about the thrill we get when the wheels depart Mother Earth and the wings win their battle with gravity, and we are flying.

This weekend, I’m going to be talking the ears off of anyone that comes near the TakeWing booth, talking until I change one mind. One pilot, that’s all I ask. I want to convince one guy or gal to drop the dime and sign up for what I guarantee will be the ride of their lifetime.

From the land of BMWs, the Autobahn and great beer

My fascination with business jets continues to grow daily, and I try to keep up on breaking bizjet news as well as my schedule allows. So it is with complete surprise that today I stumbled on yet another private jet heading towards certification and production: The German-built Grob G180 SPn Utility Jet:

Grob calls the SPn “the largest private jet to be certified for single-pilot operations”, and the plane is equipped with a newly improved Honeywell APEX integrated all glass cockpit. Propulsion consists of two rear mounted FADEC controlled Williams J44-3A engines with 1270 kg of thrust which produces an amazing rate of climb of 4,330 FPM with eight souls aboard.

FAA Certification and first deliveries are schedule for 2Q 2007, about the same time a slew of other business jets are slated to hit the market. When I first read about the SPn, I polled a few friends via email and asked them if they’d every heard of Grob’s bizjet program. Unanimously, the answer was no…so I don’t feel too bad because the plane’s development was flying under my personal radar without detection.

Now I wonder if they have a European delivery plan to pick up one of these guys at the factory? Maybe I can make the trip a “twofer” and stop by BMW’s Berlin production facility and snag a K1200R to throw in the back of the SPn for the trip back across the pond.

Lucky for me, dreaming like this doesn’t cost real money, or else I’d be homeless.

Piperjet Program to be unveiled at NBAA

Aero-News Network seems to be first on the Internets with huge news that New Piper will “officially” announce a new Piperjet program at the 2006 NBAA Convention October 17th-19th in Orlando.

But Piper CEO James Bass is having a tough time keeping a lid on the project, and has begun slipping a few juicy details into his public appearances:

At the Malibu Mirage Owners and Pilot Association Annual get-together in Colorado Springs, CO recently, CEO Bass gave a limited presentation that seems to all but commit Piper to the development of a jet that sources say will be "positioned somewhere between a Piper Meridian and the HondaJet."

This is significant news because when we learned that Piper and Honda had inked a collaboration deal at Oshkosh, we assumed (at least I did) that the baby from that marriage would be a larger, faster craft more like the Hondajet than the Eclipse 500.

But the quote from Bass reported by ANN seems to indicate they are thinking smaller, with the Piperjet indeed courting Eclipse and Adam A700 buyers instead of Embraer Phenom 100, Raytheon Premier and Cessna Mustang buyers. Could that also mean a price point closer to the Eclipse? I’ve been waiting for another maker to come along and give Raburn a run for his money price wise, because it has always been rather interesting how he can build and sell the E500 for one point two million and change, when anything else in the private jet market will set up back at least another million.

New Piper – which has a page found HERE on their website where you can sign up for future factory updates on the Piperjet project – is serious enough about this deal to take your refundable $10,000 deposit on a plan they have yet to even announce. Now that requires some gold standard confidence in an airplane company.

At this posting, we have no idea what a Piperjet will look like or how much it will cost, but this we do know: Another steed is about to blast from the starting gate to join this VLJ & LJ horse race...a race by the way that has yet to even reach the first furlong pole.

Read it and weep.

Before you look at the rest of this post, put the dog outside, because when you see what our lovely government is cooking up for GA pilots, you’re going to want to kick something, and Fido doesn’t deserve your boot up his hiney:

This week, the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO), a multi-agency planning group that includes the FAA, NASA, the White House Science and Technology Office, and the Departments of Defense, Transportation, Homeland Security, and Commerce released a 105-page draft document called "Concept of Operations for the Next Generation Air Transportation System" that outlines their "common vision" of how air traffic control, airports, and airspace will be operated within 20 years.

AOPA is already throwing a fit, and my real president, Phil Boyer, has come unglued:

"Let's be blunt and call it what it is: the Next Generation AIRLINE Transportation System. This largely NASA/FAA vision of the future leaves general aviation out in the cold. In this nightmare of the future, GA would lose access to airspace, experience increased security requirements, and operate from fewer airports, even if we equipped with all the expensive technologies envisioned."

So what is all the fuss about? Well, here’s a taste of what happens when the same people who brought you Katrina and Iraq do a “heckuva job” on our airspace system:

Airspace would be "flexible," with boundaries shifting in real time for weather, traffic, defense, and security reasons. Airspace would be restricted for "higher performance operations" when necessary to "manage demand." Even VFR aircraft would be required to equip with expensive avionics to provide information for the "four dimensional trajectory (4DT) management" system, which would require every aircraft to supply a flight plan and continuously update current location and altitude, speed, direction and altitude vectors, and arrival time, even if not participating in the IFR environment.

AOPA says that there are 600,000 GA pilots flying 210,000 GA aircraft from more than 5,400 public-use airports — the majority of those airports used exclusively by general aviation. GA pilots fly more than 28 million hours a year (90% under VFR conditions), compared to 19 million hours for the airlines.

You can download a copy of the JPDO disaster here, if you have the stomach to read it.

The time has come.

There is a point in every modern-day pilot’s life when he or she must step into the cockpit of a Cirrus. It’s inevitable…it must be done. If any pilot ever says they have never dreamt of flying an SR22-GTS, they would be lying.

Today I took my first step towards finally getting a ride in a Cirrus. I have scheduled a demo ride at the Eugene Airport’s Norwest Fly Fest on September 24th, and already I get chills thinking about maybe – just maybe – actually getting a minute of “stick time” in the plane of my dreams.

So will I be writing a check right then and there for a SR22? Most likely not going to happen – although I didn’t check my Powerball tickets from last night – but we all know this:

The funny thing about airplanes is that they can be great motivators. You take that first plane ride as a kid, and next thing you know, you’re washing planes to earn the money for your private ticket. And I’m predicting here and now that my upcoming ride in the Cirrus will be the catalyst to kick my own ass into high gear, pushing me harder to solidify my investment portfolio so I can hold the keys to my own SR someday really soon.

So watch this space after my September 24th ride when I’ll post a thorough review of the plane I have dreamed about owning from the very first second I saw one in person. Will it live up to my expectations? Will it be a no-brainer to fly the side-stick flight controls? Will it be smooth, powerful and will the avionics be far superior than anything I could imagine would be installed in a GA plane?

All those questions will be answered – if I can come down off of cloud nine long enough to type!

More proof that aviation business is red hot

Signs are everywhere on the web these days that shows the aviation business community as seriously rocking. It is now completely safe to forget those bleak days not that long ago when major airframe manufacturers were closing down production lines and shuttering factories:

Over at the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA), 2006 first quarter sales figures are through the roof, with total sales of $2.9 billion showing a 39.7% increase over 1Q05. The biggest leap of all – which really rocks my world – is that the largest increase comes from piston airplanes at 37.6%.

In the bizjet community, NBAA is crowing about this:

Five weeks out, the NBAA 59th Annual Meeting & Convention exhibit floor has completely sold out for first time in NBAA convention history, with close to 1,150 Exhibitors registered and 5,216 10-foot by 10-foot booth spaces sold.

This year's NBAA event also will feature 11 fixed-wing aircraft and four helicopters at the Orange County Convention Center, the most aircraft ever shown on the exhibit floor. More than 100 additional business aircraft will be presented at the nearby Static Display on Orlando Executive Airport.

All of this gushing good news points to one thing – that 2006 and beyond will forever be regarded as one of the most exciting periods ever in aviation history. The VLJ craze is about to change everything in the private jet aircraft sector, LSAs are coming at us from all directions, and Virgin Galactic just announced plans to launch Paris Hilton into space. Think about that last one for a moment…Paris Hilton in space. This ought to be fun, watching the paparazzi chasing her into orbit.

Football season means more TFRs

It used to be that we could hop in our Wichita Bomber and plow off through the strata to hone in on a cooked slab of dead cow that cost one-tenth of a grand…fat, dumb and happy. Flight planning was for those high timers flying planes with V-tails or birds with two engines.

Not so anymore:

One of my jaunts when I lived in Cali was over the coast range to Half Moon Bay. As I crossed through the South San Francisco Bay area, I could look over and see Candlestick Park, where “my” ‘Niners played football. But now that we live in the era of the TFR du jour, Bay Approach won’t let you get anywhere near what is now called (reluctantly) 3Com Park.

AOPA has a great reference page up on their wonderful site listing ALL stadiums and speedways where you can expect TFRs on game (or race) day, along with NFL schedules to see if one of those TFRs will conflict with your quest to seek out really expensive hamburgers.

There are all sorts of sources for TFR information out there on the web, so there really is no excuse to bust one, unless you are the type of pilot who thinks flight rules are for the other guy. The FAA’s TFR search page is real-time, and Aeroplanner has a great state-by-state search available.

787 sold out through 2011.

Good news out of Everett, Washington regarding the 787. [Yes, I know Boeing is “based” in Chicago now, but in my heart they will always be a Seattle-area company, no matter where the CEO buys his lattes]. Boeing Co. now has 420 commitments from airlines to buy its new 787 Dreamliner commercial jet, a company executive said late last week, with 377 firm orders through August and shipments set to begin in 2008. The Chicago-based company is betting the farm on the 787 to again earn world dominance from Airbus SAS, and if ever a airliner can do that, it is the 787.

A few interesting facts about the Dreamliner:

• Just over 70 percent of the jet's parts come from outside suppliers. This is a record for any commercial aircraft ever built, says Boeing.

• The 250-seat plane is said to be the first made of more than 50% composite materials.

• It will take just three days to assemble a 787 after all of its parts are delivered from suppliers around the globe.

Tonight I bought two Powerball tickets, one of which I’m sure will generate $137 million for me. After taxes, I should have just enough to buy one of those shiny new Dreamliners, and have it fitted with a BBJ interior and maybe one of those solid gold toilets like they have on the flying yachts flown by Saudi princes.

But even when I get that big fat check, I’m still basically screwed if I want a quick delivery position on my new -87:

Boeing says they are "sold out through 2011, and 2012 is getting taken up really fast."

Sold out for five years. I guess that’s what happens when you build an airplane thats beautiful, efficient and, well, just plain HOT. Can I say that? Can an airplane be…hot? Have you seen the cockpit of the Dreamliner? Makes anything else in the sky look like the cab of a freakin’ locomotive. And back there where the passengers lounge in those ultra-swank seats…baby, there’s some seriously sexy mood lighting going on in there.

I guess when you think about it, yes, airplanes can be hot. Love…it’s not just for people anymore.

Cessna, by a nose.

In the VLJ horse race, Cessna pulled ahead of the pack late last week, with their Mustang now being trumpeted as the “official” first VLJ to receive full type certification in company releases:

Cessna Aircraft's Citation Mustang received full type certification Friday, clearing the way for customer deliveries. It's the first jet among a new class of small airplanes called "very light jets" to receive full type certification from the Federal Aviation Administration. Cessna has orders for 250 of the $2.6 million six-seat jet. Production is sold out into 2009.

But this headline and story released by EAA during Airventure 2006 led many to believe Eclipse had built and certified the first VLJ:

Eclipse 500 first certified VLJ – At EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2006 this summer, FAA Administrator Marion Blakey awarded Vern Raburn, Eclipse Aviation’s president and CEO the provisional Type Certificate for the Eclipse 500 VLJ.

The key word in the Eclipse release back in July was of course, “provisional”, so yes, Cessna wins on a technicality because their TC is a full one. But in five years, when VLJs are everywhere, will it really matter who was awarded the first TC?

Apparently, the answer to that is yes, at least in Kansas.

You knew I couldn’t possibly stay away.

My regular readers of this blog have already known that because of a couple of huge projects, I was forced to take the summer off. As an aviation junkie, I missed writing this blog every day, and longed for the interaction with the 100 or so regulars that stopped by my virtual hangar each day.

Throughout those two projects, I still watched the traffic stats, and it killed me to see all of you come to my blog as I stayed on hiatus. But now that my son Michael is married (happened 9.2.06 in Los Gatos) and my mammoth Oshkosh forum on my Three-Eight Charlie screenplay project is in the books, I think I may again have the quality time to spend sifting through the day’s aviation news and then spewing forth my usual “Dave Barry meets Herb Caen” style of blogging.

I've been on the fence about re-starting World of Flying for a couple of weeks, but today something happened that helped me make the decision to return.

A while back, I posted some gut feelings and musings about the ultra-cool HondaJet (see "Is Honda Still Just Toying With Us" below). Well, yesterday I get a phone call out of deep left field from a reporter writing for a major mainstream national paper asking for quotes on what I thought of the HondaJet project. She said my blog “oozed aviation enthusiasm” which I took as a compliment, but I warned the nice young lady that I was just a Cessna driver with 300 hours, a happy GA pilot who pokes holes in the sky and chase $100 hamburgers. I was not any sort of expert on the HondaJet, that I made clear.

Didn’t matter. Seems she just wanted a GA point of view on what Average Joe Cessna pilot thinks of the company that makes my lawnmower engine getting into the bizjet business. I told her simply this: I went through a dozen mowers in my life with Briggs and Stratton powerplants that seemed to always give me fits, and the one I have now – with a nice quiet Honda four-stroker – starts on the first pull every time and runs all day without so much as a hiccup. I told her if they make their jet as solid as they make lawnmower engines, the uber-successful Accord line or my beloved Honda SL 100 motorcycle that I owned as a teenager, it would in fact set a pretty high benchmark for the likes of Eclipse, Raytheon and Cessna.

It is still a little weird to think that in a few weeks, there is some possibility that USA Today will run quotes from me in a national article about the sexiest private jet in the world. Why me?

Hell, why not.