Reply to post: Re: Hopefully...

Re: Hopefully...

It used to work, at the very least, to beat congestion and crappy roads.

My old man used to have to journey from the far, far north of Scotland to Manchester/Brum for work, as he oversaw some factories down there.

Driving? At best a working day to get down there (6am to 4pm or so), hotel, freshen up the in the morning to be professional, then after the (often just one or two hour) time on site, either drive back through the night like a bat out of hell, or hotel and do the trip back the next day. Trains were worse.

The problem was (and still is to a degree) the stretch from Wick to Inverness, which back in the 70s was all small A-Road with no dual carriageways etc - that 100 miles could take well over three hours depending on the number of tractors that buses got stuck behind, etc.

So he was looking at light planes from a hobby standpoint, did the math, and worked out that commuting to sites via aircraft would be significantly cheaper, faster and more efficient than anything else.

He put the business case together, and it was agreed that he could expense aircraft fuel and airport space, and other business use costs. Very much like sorting out company use for a personal car, but with wings.

He ended up buying a part finished two seater Cessna-like, built it, got it certified (including stall and VMax testing...*) and got his PPL. He proved that his use case was correct, and he got instrument rating so he could fly on days that weren't nice and sunny (or at night) meaning that used to be a three day trip (drive down, hotel, meeting next day, meeting drags on, hotel again, drive back the next day) could be done in about ten hours flat.

Important points:

A:This was the 70s, the running costs for a light plane were less back then as he explained it - insurance, airport space, etc.

B: His case was a real edge case - if he'd lived slightly south of Inverness (and thus had access to real main roads without a three hour stint beforehand) it would never have crossed his mind.

C: He stopped using the plane once he stopped needing it - it was a bit dangerous as a 'jolly' and mother dearest was quite insistent after they had kids. Especially after a few of his friends in the flying club had...unscheduled landings, killing them. Sort of focusses the mind when a chum ends up flying into a wall at 90mph because he didn't adjust his altimeter properly when flying on instruments.

He kept his nose in the aircraft stuff, but reverted to RC planes and choppers after that - less dangerous.

He kept it in a field over the road from our house owned by a friendly farmer, so yes, he did use it to go and get milk from the airport two miles away. Because of course he did.

Not sure what the point of relaying the above is - just one of those things that me old man did that makes me smile with the sheer audacity of it, the crazy old bugger.

Steven R

* Got a photo of him standing by the plane looking nervous, with the engine running but the cowling off. It was the day of the stall testing and VMAX testing and the pic was taken as he was doing final engine tweeks and checking levels etc - if he hadn't built the plane right, it would have been the last picture there'd have been of him other than the coroners report....