hindsight2020

The trick is not to land at the hub, but at the outlying feeder airports and find free/reduced parking, then leave a jalopy at that airport for getting around the hub's local area.

I'm in the military, so my commute has been the reverse, commuting for the mil job during extended TDYs. I also have it as a future option for when I move the family in preparation for an airline job switch, where I can geobachelor-commute to them until the airline job materializes and I can quit living at the military location.

I never had any issues during my GA commute, but again it was predicated on the fact if need be, I could drive it. Knock on wood, never had a mx cnx or wx cnx. This works in the South. New England or great lakes commutes, forget it. You need FIKI to make it happen in the winter, and the cost runs away from you at that point.

SAT to DFW or IAH is cake. Easily driveable, and the options for feeder airport landings are plentiful. The difference between driving and flying your own craft is night and day. I used to do a 9.5 hour drive (KDRT-KDTN) every other weekend on a 110knot WarriorII, which compressed it to 4 hours block. Made the entire difference between having a wife today and us not being together at all. I was actually rested enough to go out at night and party my rear off before going to work the next day. Reclining your seat, stretching, and letting flight following do the work is cake compared to 6-9 hours of being on the defensive and trying to stay awake for hours of that white dashed line trying to get the other thousand cars in your immediate vicinity to kill you.

And ultimately remember, it ain't about saving money, it's about having an excuse to do something I wanted to do anyways. Granted, my motivation behind becoming a pro pilot had to do with going upside down for a living; in that regard airline flying is insipid to me. Honestly, if civilian flight training paid like the airlines, I'd never set foot in an airliner. Alas, it doesn't, so one makes lemonade. I still love getting into my own airplane and take in the amazing sights of this Country at 2-3 miles a minute. I'll never lose that. And if there's something I've learned from my airline pilot mentors at work, is that honestly I want to minimize flying at work. Certainly not fly so much that it cures me from wanting to do it on my days off. To each their own. I'm just a QOL guy.

As to partnerships, they exist. I know a guy in my unit that part-owns a 182RG and uses it to commute DWH-DRT. 6 hour drive compressed down to 2ish hour flight at 150KTAS. That's where GA really shines.

It's not a pipe dream, it's just a matter of planning and priorities. The other poster got all offended, that's not my intent, it's just hard to read inflection in written form.

trip

I've thought about it a few times. I'm usually bushed after a 4 day and just wouldn't want to be piloting a GA home in the dark after a long trip.
I'd rather sit in the back of the bus watching a movie or dozing.

WhiskeyDelta

Guess I'm not the only one who's allegedly despondent.

FAAFlyer

That's the funniest thing I have read on this website!

Setopbug

I've been working on the issue for a while now.

As others have said, hub avoidance is the big part of it. At my base, the single engine landing fee is $190.

Nope.

My biggest challenge is that my girlfriend thinks that if I purchase a Bonanza, I'm going to sell the Cub.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

As far as the safety aspect of it, I'm not the least bit bothered. Like Hacker says, it's the decision making, not the airplane. My Immelmans may need work and my four point rolls aren't always as sharp as I'd like, especially to the right.

But after all these years, I'd like to think I can be a pretty good scaredy-cat point A to point B aviator. Regardless of what's strapped to my butt.

PermaFo

Let me get this straight... You're "sure", you're "not an expert", but "you're certain"...

And you are wrong.

aa73

As mentioned previously, pressure to make sign-in/departure time can really lead to unsafe situations. Case in point, back in the 80s a commuting Eastern captain was trying to land at Tampa early one foggy morning in his twin Aztec, rushing to make his flight. He missed the approach once and tried again....except the second time he went below mins and landed on the taxiway...and right into a taxiing Pan Am 727, killing him in the process.

Tumbleweed11

Some very solid advice on this thread. It will most likely be something that I revisit later down the road...After I get a job and decide where we are going to live post military.

I do like the idea of avoiding the hub and keeping a beater at a nearby airport to avoid the high costs.

Thanks again to all of you!

badflaps

I remember that, mistook the strobes I think.

mooneymite

[QUOTE=Tumbleweed11;2167674]Some very solid advice on this thread. It will most likely be something that I revisit later down the road...After I get a job and decide where we are going to live post military.
/QUOTE]

If you're looking forward to a long career, do youtself and your family a huge service: live close to your base.

As far as GA commuting...there are way too many problems unless you're talking a once in awhile adventure. I live in an airpark and have owned a good IFR airplane for 18 years and never used it to go to work. When you figure in the entire preflight planning to the final tie-down sequence, it's hard to beat driving unless you fly a very fast GA plane.