Comments on: Hard to beat GA utility http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=641 Online perspective from the editors of "AOPA Pilot". Sun, 16 Jun 2013 17:24:09 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Caprice DeLauder http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=641&cpage=1#comment-96395 Caprice DeLauder Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:07:49 +0000 http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=641#comment-96395 If you are a woman, and you are entering your mid-life crisis, best cure is to get your pilot’s license! My friends think I have lost my mind, but who cares??? You only live once, right? I have never had more fun or excitement with anything!!!!

]]> By: car floor jacks http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=641&cpage=1#comment-45114 car floor jacks Sat, 14 Mar 2009 12:48:41 +0000 http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=641#comment-45114 I have to say, I can not agree with you in 100%, but that’s just my opinion, which could be very wrong.
p.s. You have an awesome template for your blog. Where have you got it from?

]]> By: Henry Niese http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=641&cpage=1#comment-31012 Henry Niese Fri, 02 Jan 2009 22:43:29 +0000 http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=641#comment-31012 I soloed on skis, 1944, in a J-3. I did a lot of flying around PA & North NJ on skis, before I went off to Cooper Union art school.
I haven’t seen any GA aircraft on skis in a long while. Not enough snow?

]]> By: Adam Fast http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=641&cpage=1#comment-22461 Adam Fast Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:33:12 +0000 http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=641#comment-22461 I’m going to be enjoying GA for a family Thanksgiving trip as well. It would take around 3 hours with traffic, but it’ll be less than an hour in the Archer. I’d still go regardless, but the airplane adds an extra element of fun (not to mention expediency).

]]> By: Steve Ells http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=641&cpage=1#comment-22437 Steve Ells Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:55:48 +0000 http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=641#comment-22437 The best example I can think of iwill take place next week. My wife and I are planning to fly my baby Comanche to my sister’s for Thanksgiving in an hour and 15 minutes. The drive takes 3.7 to 4.2 depending on the route.
Instead of the hassle-filled hours negotiating California’s decaying roads, the dichotomy of having to deal with both super-aggressive younger drivers and super-cautious oldsters and illegal aliens, and unending highway expansion projects of CAL TRANS, we board 85Papa, take off and fly directly there, land on a neighbor’s farm strip and are bellying up to the groaning board bright faced and hungry.
‘Sonly way to go.

]]> By: Tom Haines http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=641&cpage=1#comment-22422 Tom Haines Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:06:34 +0000 http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=641#comment-22422 David–great examples of how a GA airplane can make seemingly impossible trips possible. Or, more likely, trips such as you describe aren’t even imagined by people who don’t have access to GA because they don’t understand the possibilities.

]]> By: David Reinhart http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=641&cpage=1#comment-22099 David Reinhart Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:15:58 +0000 http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=641#comment-22099 Traffic to, from, and along Cape Cod can be murder in the summer but the thermometer at places like Provincetown (PVC) can be 15 degrees cooler (or more) than around Worcester in central Mass. On hot afternoons, my wife and I will meet at Fitchburg (FIT) after I get out of work, load up ourselves and picnic dinner and fly out to PVC. It takes about 40 minutes in our Cardinal instead of the hours it would take by road. A short walk to Race Point Beach and we’re watching the sunset and enjoying the cool sea breeze.

My 86 year-old mother in-law can’t tolerate long car trips very well so driving down to South New Jersey to visit her other daughter, grand-children and great-grand-children is an ordeal. With the Cardinal, we pick her up at Northampton Airport, just a couple miles from her home, and in about 1.5 hours we are on the ground at Camden County (19N) or the Flying W (N14). The airplane allows us to do a day trip instead of taking all weekend and staying overnight.

Some trips are just impossible to do by car or airline given the time available. This past summer we started off with a flight down to Frederick for the Fly-in. We left two days early and spent the Friday before at Gettysburg. After the fly-in, it was off to St. Louis to visit my nephew. Two days in the STL area and it was time to head to Pine Bluff, AR to visit with an old college roommate and his family. Next stop was Knoxville, TN for another family visit. Then we headed home with a stop at Hagerstown for fuel. The total was about 2,300 nm in 10 days and about 25 hours of flying time. No way we could have driven that trip in that time frame and the using the airlines would have difficult and expensive since we weren’t doing round-trip tickets.

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