How much longer?

"Jay Honeck" wrote in
news1eKj.55740$TT4.32970@attbi_s22:

JH, I know you dont like me responding to your posts but for the sake
of discussion I might add some perspective.

Thanks for that, Frank. I always appreciate your aviation-related
posts.

Complaining about the cost of flying. Yes, everyone has always
made a hobby out of bitching about the high price of aviation -- but
we've never seen fuel costs soar so much in such a short period,
especially not at a time when wages are stagnant or declining.

I, too, will always fly, no matter the cost. (Remember, you're talking
to a guy who sold his plasma for flight time) But as fuel costs
continue to rise our flight time will diminish -- and at some level it
will become impossible to do much more than fly the pattern.

I just don't know what that level will be.


That's because you are an idiot.


Bertie

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:NteKj.55766$TT4.55642@attbi_s22...
IIRC tar-sand production cost is ~$60 and suspect that Colorado oil shale
woild be similar but YMMV. We can only speculate as to the motives that
prefer war to domestic development.

An interesting question to ponder: At what price point do the masses rise
up and over-ride the environmentalist rules that currently restrict the
process?

Did Ron Paul get ANY delegates?

In article "Matt W. Barrow" writes:

"C J Campbell" wrote
Considering that there are waiting lists for people to buy a Cessna 172
for nearly $300,000, almost double what one cost a couple years ago, I
doubt that the price of gas is going to have much effect on aviation, even
if it goes to $100/gallon. The only effect will be to make the complaints
louder.

The cost of gas is a pittance compared to whatever else people spend on an
airplane. If gas starts to hurt airplane sales, the manufacturers will
simply offer incentives like Cessna has done in the past -- a free year's
fuel. Or more.

Operating cost is early 2007 were $185 an hour and fuel for me was an
average of $3.78; now it's $5.11 - at 15GPH my new cost is $20 more an hour
($205). My TOTAL cost is 11% higher.

Fortunately, I can just adjust my margins to match and my tax accountant has
new numbers to work with.

The problem is that costs go up for more than just gas. The local airport
had been raising their tie-down rates tied to the consumer price index, though
they are now talking of raising it much faster than that. Even tied to CPI,
the price of energy, food, etc., affect the price of tie-downs.

The mechanic needs to buy gasoline to get to work, and live his life. He
needs to buy food, clothes, etc. As these become more expensive, he has to
raise his prices to maintain his margins.

Those who manufacture and deliver aircraft parts need to raise their prices,
because their costs have gone up, both for the product, and for basic survival.

The food went up because the folks who deliver it pay more for gas, and for
everything else they need; the folks who retail it likewise have higher costs.
Even the folks who farm it need to fuel the tractors, feed themselves, buy
those pesky clothes, etc. They need to charge more. Conversion of food crops
to fuel crops for ethanol makes the food problem worse, but pushing up food
prices helps the farmers some.

When the price of energy goes up, so does a lot of other stuff that depends
on it, directly or indirectly.

For those who cannot pass on their increased costs, the choices are fly
cheaper, fly less, or don't fly at all.

I belive that we could make energy less expensive in this country, if we
had the will to do so.

Alan

In article Bertie the Bunyip writes:
"Jay Honeck" wrote
Which is why we're looking at entering a six-way partnership (flying
club, actually) on a 1946 Ercoupe. 85 horses, 2 seats, 4 gph. The
Pathfinder (immediate predecessor to the Dakota) is an awesome plane
for hauling a family in style -- and we'll certainly keep it -- but
Atlas burns 25 gph at takeoff, which makes buzzing down to a pancake
breakfast something you tend to think twice about nowadays.

You are an idiot. I will fly as long as there is air. Gasoline be
damned. I started without it and I'll finish withour if needs be.

Bertie

And if stopping global warming demands that we all stop burning fossil fuels
(i.e. stop flying)? If you believe that global warming is a real effect of
man burning fossil fuels, and that it is a problem, you should be looking at
curtaling actions that burn those fuels --- including flying.

Replacing all the light bulbs in your house with compact flourescent lamps
will only save a few percent of your total electrical use, which will be
swamped by the increased use of the increasing population.

You say you started without - how? Even gliders seem to need tows.


Alan

Mike,

What hasn't returned to the same level is the British flavored fly-schools.
Any ideas on that?


Well, your simple-sounding "come on over" involves TSA checks months in
advance, visas for simple add-on ratings and thus, using only flight schools
that can request visa (Part 141 only?), deciding on a flight school and having
to stick with it before even coming over, and more quite onerous and expensive
pseudo-security stuff. I'm sure that's a big part of the reason.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

On Sun, 6 Apr 2008 18:01:16 -0700, C J Campbell
wrote:

Considering that there are waiting lists for people to buy a Cessna 172
for nearly $300,000, almost double what one cost a couple years ago, I
doubt that the price of gas is going to have much effect on aviation,
even if it goes to $100/gallon. The only effect will be to make the
complaints louder.

Must be a wide definitoion of "a couple" - they've been over $250k
factory new since at least 2001. I also know some dealers with 07 and
08 models on the floor which they'd let you pick up right this minute
if they could. I guess with the territory system unless your dealer
is willing to work out a deal with another dealer to swap delivery
slots, you can have areas where people are waiting and areas with
inventory sitting on ramps which they can't sell to anyone outside
their area until (2?) years after they've inventoried it.

The cost of gas is a pittance compared to whatever else people spend on
an airplane. If gas starts to hurt airplane sales, the manufacturers
will simply offer incentives like Cessna has done in the past -- a free
year's fuel. Or more.

Actually, just to pick a nit, they gave out a gas card from
MultiService with a credit on it of (I forget, couple thousand?) and
you burned it off within two years or lost anything that was left on
it, so it could have lasted you 6 months or 2 years, depending on your
flying habits. The point that they'll adjust the price of acquisition
somehow does stand.

On 2008-04-05, Morgans wrote:
That, and cleaner, slicker airframes will allow them to fly more miles to
the gallon. Look at some of the RV's that get something like 25 miles to
the gallon, of auto gas.

If you're friendly with your passenger, even go for the Europa. IIRC,
the 912-engined Europa can do 40 nm/gal at 120 ktas. I have a friend
with a turboed (914S) Europa, and that one still gets great economy on
auto gas at 135 ktas. It also climbs out at almost 2000 fpm if you push
the throttle past the detent into the 'limited for 5 minutes' power
setting.

The cabin is NOT big, though. Fits me fine but then again at my last
medical I was 152 lbs.

--
From the sunny Isle of Man.
Yes, the Reply-To email address is valid.

On 2008-04-07, Jay Honeck wrote:
This is probably a topic for a different thread, but it does make you wonder
about the true motives of those who would see people suffer on an
unprecedented economic scale rather than develop our known oil reserves.

I'm not sure about 'suffer'; for instance, gasoline in Ireland is around
60% more expensive than in the United States, yet the Irish GDP per
capita overtook the USA a good two years ago now.

You can maintain a good standard of living while using less oil, for
example, driving a vehicle that gets 35 to the gallon isn't what I'd
call a decrease in living standard over driving an SUV that barely gets
12. Turning off the AC when you're not in the house makes a tremendous
difference. The power company in Texas mistakenly sent me the bill for
the people who moved into my place after I left, and the TNMPE bills all
had a 'last 12 months usage graph' on them. The new occupants used
*twice* as much power as me; I suspect they didn't turn the AC off
during the working day. Incidentally, that place had very little in the
way of good insulation - not even double glazing, and that seemed pretty
typical in the area I lived in. Over here by contrast virtually everyone
has good insulation and double glazing. These things significantly
reduce heating costs in the winter *without* degrading the quality of
life (in fact, improving it, since the home is quieter).

Much of the high energy cost people have done by their own choice. I
choose to operate an aircraft with a large engine for the airframe - I'm
not whining, it's a choice I made.

--
From the sunny Isle of Man.
Yes, the Reply-To email address is valid.

On Apr 4, 8:47*pm, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
With Avgas topping five bucks a gallon, I find myself asking: How much more
will it take before GA is completely unaffordable? * At what price point
will all the current "weekend pilots" be driven from the market?

Example: While on our trip back from Florida a couple of weeks ago, we paid
$5.20 per gallon in St. Louis. *Since we needed 60 gallons, we paid over
$300 for a single tank of gas -- something I *never* thought I'd see.

Could have stopped 31 miles SSE at Festus and saved $60 while
supporting a small airport that's just trying to survive. Air Nav is
your friend.
--
Gene Seibel
Gene & Sue's Aeroplanes - http://pad39a.com/gene/planes.html
Because we fly, we envy no one.

Jay Honeck schrieb:

An interesting question to ponder: At what price point do the masses rise up
and over-ride the environmentalist rules that currently restrict the
process?

whatever the price is: what will mankind do after that? you're only
moving the finding of a solution to later generations.

#m