Well the unfortunate rising cost of oil prices affects not only your morning commute, but possibly your wings too!  Here is a story (link to Story - see video) about a Connecticut Flying school feeling the crunch of fuel price hikes. 

The otherside to the story is I crunched the numbers last summer on driving my wifes Yukon on vacation to Destin, Florida from Dallas, TX with her, the kids and me.  Time wise for the 766 mile juant with fuel stops, kids stops (they’re small and the DVD only lasts so long, you understand) about 13 hours average M.P.G. is a stunning 13 on the Highway so that puts us at 59 gals @ $3.35/gal for 87 octane and we are at $197.65 and did I mention 13 hours. 

With a rental of a 172 @ 110 kts ($109/block) and fuel averaging $5.00/gal that cuts the time from 13 hours to 5 hours and 12 min respectively.  Well $1090 round trip vs $400 round trip is a big difference, but you get to log the time, show the family some cool sights from the air instead of dwelling on those lousy Louisana roads for 4 hours and you get at least an extra day on the beach…priceless!

However, if you own your own plane you can cut that $1090 in about half and well $500 worth of flying in 5.5 hours or less vs 13 hours + in the car and high gas prices all of a sudden make flying your own plane comparable with the cost of driving.  If you are a pilot or aviation lover you probably don’t need the justification, but hey it may help with the better half or justifying it in your business, with a little pleasure use too. 

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