As already pointed out by some; the key to make this “commutable” is the proximity to the airports. If you live close(or at) and airport and your final destination is close(or at) an airport you have pretty good chances of doing it. Weather will of course be an aspect in most places but at some not. I imagine that the weather in California and some other states are pretty much year round VMC which reduces the workload and airport requirements.
Would be interesting to see some numbers from those people that are already doing it.
Looking just at the money side of it, it would probably be hard to compete with the potential rise in real estate value closer(or in) the large city which is your destination. If the value increases with 20% it will be a whole lot of money more than if the same increase happens in a cheaper area.
But who am I to spoil all the fun. ;)
The weather in California is just as varied and treacherous as anywhere. California has every climate on the planet – marine, mountain, desert, torrential rain/hail/snow and in between. At any given time there can be sigmets for thunderstorms and airmets for turbulence. There can be advection fog from the marine layer penetrating well inland for much of the morning and central valley ground fog producing zero visibility at the airports.
Commuting is a different mission entirely than recreational flying. If you do not have the aircraft, systems and experience to deal with sudden and severe weather and the ability to not fly on a given day and/or for up to weeks at a time, then no amount financial consideration is worth it.
It always made me laugh when “various assorted self interests” here in Europe criticise the US PPL as equipping the pilot only for good weather.
The US gets the whole spectrum.
Fly310 wrote:
the key to make this “commutable” is the proximity to the airports. If you live close(or at) and airport and your final destination is close(or at) an airport you have pretty good chances of doing it.
That is the key to it, plus the availability of the said airports. Far too many smaller GA fields in Europe are day only, non IFR, noise regulated and therefore of limited usability for commuting. What has always intrigued me in the US and some other places were that most airports are H24 and with pilot controlled lights, plus of course the advantage that for most parts there is no customs and immigration issue.
We had a huge discussion about this in the Swiss forum a while back. Not work commute but to/from vaccation homes or spots, as well as smaller trips which really bring GA value home.
Trigger was a short trip of mine to Neuchatel for the AOPA General Assembly last year. With my plane out of ZRH it took 30 minutes to get there, directly to the venue and 30 back, as opposed to 3 hours per way by car or train, so it was actually cheaper. I also live 3 minutes off ZRH and the venue was at the airport.
Other guys objected as they would need to drive one hour to their airport each way or their destinations did not have airports, or if they did, they have no customs e.t.c.
We found that while it is perfectly sane and profitable in terms of time/money scale to do commutes from / to places if they have a suitable airport nearby.
There were two guys who have vaccation homes in S- of France. One on the beach of Solinac near Montpellier and he lives close to Grenchen, where his plane is based. He claims he can do door to door in about 4 hours if everything goes fine. The other guy lives about one hour away from the small airport his plane is based and his vaccation home is near Ste Maries de la Mer. He claims that with the commutes he gets on both sides and the customs requirements, he is faster by car.
My own trip, if I were to do it regularly, is also faster by plane than by airline/train/car. To get from ZRH to Primorsko (BG) during normal season, this involves a flight to Sofia (available 3-4 times a week), 3 hour train ride to Plovdiv and a 4 hour car ride to Primorsko. Total flying time with the Mooney is about 6 hours with one stop in BEG and one in PDV (as Primorsko has no customs).
The biggest hurdles indeed are customs and opening hours in Europe, which does castrate many great facilities into unusefulness.
