| ill set the stage again a bit for context, I don't own a plane or fly in 135 charters, I'm a member of a flight club that owns a few planes. As a member I effectively rent the planes from the club at a very reasonable rate with a small fixed monthly cost for things like storage etc. The planes are not used for primary training and are only available to club members. They are very well equipped IFR capable aircraft that are very well maintained. The club is small enough that its pretty easy to get a plane when you want/need one. With that in mind here are some cool things the club has aloud me to do. 1) I have moved a few times since I got my PPL and some of my friends have as well. At this point I have fairly close friends all up and down the eastern seaboard. The plane has aloud me to see them regularly without very much complex planning and often for lunch or breakfast when it would otherwise need to be for the whole weekend. Just yesterday I flew down south a bit to meet a buddy for breakfast that I otherwise would not have been able to drive to do do such a thing. This has been a really nice aspect of flying. 2) We have some family that lives close but not super close (7ish hour drive). The plane has aloud us to be part of their new borns life in a tangible way. Similar to seeing friends that I otherwise couldn't 3) The plane has expanded my weekend trip options. We have explored islands, gone to further cities and seem more than we would in a car. There are just north of 16,000 airfields in the US and only a small chunk of them service commercial traffic. I can get my little plane into pretty much all of them and land super close to lots of interesting places. 4) Ive been able to leverage interesting one day opportunities: Is there a once in a decade eclipse coming, best viewing spot is 600 miles, lets take the plane for the day. Is there an airshow somewhere lets fly in and check it out. Ferries booked to Nantucket for the weekend, take the plane. Want to get some chowder the vineyard for lunch, take the plane. Wedding in the Hamptons, traffic looking like its gonna be 6 hours to get there, take the plane. Buddies bachelor part is far and you need to get there friday potentially stuck in hours of beach traffic, take the plane (and pick up some friends along the way!)<- all things Ive done. Before anyone jumps to "its super expensive to do those things" the fact is, in a reasonable GA plane its about the same cost as driving +fees for dealing with cars these days. My plane gets the gas milage of an SUV and most airports charge less than $20 a day for ramp parking, free if you buy some fuel typically. Some cities have silly $2 mandatory parking fees or what ever but if your careful about picking which small airport you go to in a city you can usually fly in for VERY cheap or free if you buy gas and you generally need to buy gas anyway... With tolls and gas prices the way they are its usually not much of a price difference to take the plane even after rental costs are figured in. |