Do you feel you have no more interesting challenges?

AdamFrisch wrote:

Although there’s nothing monetarily efficient with an airplane

Not necessarily. I recently had a week where I had to be all over CA within very short time frames. Took one of the club airplanes (C182 was available) and it got me to where I had to be on time – and on budget. In fact it would’ve prob90 cost me more to do these trips by car and/or CAT. These were flight IRO 2-4 hours ow. IMO there definitely is a business case for flying your own airplane.

He’s not short of money but he truly feels he has done it all when it comes to “going places”.

Flying just for flying is hard to justify. One day you realize that you’re only burning fuel, polluting the atmosphere and it is of no use to anyone.

Adding challenges can postpone the feeling.
1) sports – aerobatics takes years to master, but those negative Gs are not so nice for your brain
2) plane – climb up the type ladder. New plane can be exciting for a few years, but finance will become a barrier one day unless you’re Iron Maiden
3) route – RTWs, etc. How long can one throwaway 1000s of USD with handling agents? Sitting for many hours in one position also not very nice.

I think that becoming a professional has some advantages: 1) fly types you can’t afford 2) actually be useful to others 3) get symbolic remuneration.

If I ever get there, I’ll write what’s wrong with it ;-)

These were flight IRO 2-4 hours ow.

To save others the trouble, I think this means “In region of” and “one way”.

Timothy wrote:

To save others the trouble, I think this means “In region of” and “one way”.

Thanks, this really got me scratching my head.

MedEwok wrote:

Thanks, this really got me scratching my head.

I had to do a Google search, and it seemed a waste that everyone would have to repeat the work.

There are always something cool to do. That is my conclusion at the moment. I stopped flying for a couple of years partly due to being bored with C-172 and the limited performance in what it can be used for. This was after the club’s C-152 Arobat, which I had lots of fun with, got wrecked.

I have never been found of cross country. Too much straight and level for me, and the bang for the buck, or “bang for the time”, just isn’t there. To go somewhere I need a reason, sometimes I do, and then it’s OK (fly ins, air shows or something else). Flying several planes together is also much more fun than flying alone. This is something I want do do more actually, as it is fun, but is done way too seldom.

Towing gliders is cool. It’s not hard, but it is precision flying. Glider pilots are a nice bunch, and you get a sense of actually doing something useful. Flying gliders is also something everyone should try. Flying the Cub is cool. It’s real flying, 100% seat of the pants, and the aircraft itself must be one of aviation’s best designs ever. I could fly that for the rest of my life and still only scratch the surface of what it can do. Aerobatics is also very cool. Also something I can do for the rest of my life and hardly scratch the surface (not that I have any intentions than doing anything but “gentleman’s” stuff). Flying vintage/special aircraft is also cool. Getting to know the Saab Safir more and more. It’s like a warbird, noisy and shaky, and just cool. Flying UL/microlight is also fun, and now I’m an instructor also. Instructing gives a sense of doing something useful.

Of course, building aircraft is super fun all by itself. With the new 600 kg limit for microlight I could in fact retire, or semi retire, and build RV-12s for sale without paying anything, and even go in plus ever so slightly.

It was also fun flying locally this last weekend. There is a huge NATO exercise here, with tons of aircraft. ENVA is a used as a base for a helicopters from US Marine Corps. Shearing a crowded airspace and VFR reporting points with OV-22s and Super Cobra’s with their fancy call signs. It was just super cool all by itself, topped up with a few loops, and barrel rolls in the Safir

Anyway, for me it has been to get out of the “GA is flying a C-172 from A to B” – regime. As soon as you do, you will find that GA is a jungle of cool stuff. So diverse and large that no single person could ever run out of new stuff to do.

loco wrote:

Flying just for flying is hard to justify. One day you realize that you’re only burning fuel, polluting the atmosphere and it is of no use to anyone.

For me ‘just to fly’ is the main reason to fly. I’ve been flying for 23 years now and I still enjoy a lot to take the plane just one hour before dusk and bimble around.
It does not mean that I don’t enjoy also doing flying trips, o visiting places, sure.

This guy seems to be having some fun

Michael_J wrote:

This guy seems to be having some fun