How far do you drive to fly.

[Glider Steve]

I currently drive around 50 miles to get to my chosen flying club. It takes me around 90 minutes to get there. How long do you spend in the car getting to your aircraft. Longer? Shorter?

[VictorGolf]

I fly from a farm strip which is 8 miles/15 minutes away. Lucky me.

[Jan Olieslagers]

My choice of field was dictated by availability of hangar space (scarce round here, as in many places), I had few (if any) alternatives. Still, the road distance was only slightly less than yours - with a driving time of close on one hour, give or take - and it was one the reasons for my suspending flying.

[The Ancient Geek]

Dont just ask if a field has hangar space, also ask if you could build a T hangar there.
It will cost you around 8000 but you can get that back easily when you sell so its an investment.

[LTCTerry]

I currently drive around 50 miles to get to my chosen flying club. It takes me around 90 minutes to get there. How long do you spend in the car getting to your aircraft. Longer? Shorter?
I see "Glider" in the OP's name...
I drive two hours, mostly at 55-70mph, to get to my glider club. I drive 3:20 at faster speeds to get to where I fly every second month with our equivalent of Air Cadets. I "only" drive about 30 minutes to get to the airport where I instruct in airplanes.

[Jan Olieslagers]

ask if you could build a T hangar there

Not a beginning of a chance. Every hangar that can legally be built has been built. Which is why hangar places are scarce.

[Glider Steve]

I see "Glider" in the OP's name...
I drive two hours, mostly at 55-70mph, to get to my glider club. I drive 3:20 at faster speeds to get to where I fly every second month with our equivalent of Air Cadets. I "only" drive about 30 minutes to get to the airport where I instruct in airplanes.

I am SOOOOO relieved to read that someone else has to drive as far as I do! I started out in gliders a couple of years ago, switched to power and now fly UK Microlights (sports aircraft I guess) and am just adding a rating to enable me to fly 172s etc. I still want to go back to finish gliding someday. You’ve restored my faith and renewed my commitment and I’ll think of you having another half hour to go when I next arrive at the club 😊

[Glider Steve]

I fly from a farm strip which is 8 miles/15 minutes away. Lucky me.

i hate you already! 🤣

[OpenCirrus619]

i hate you already! 🤣
Oh dear - you'll REALLY hate me.

I live a whole 2 miles from the gliding club where my share-o-plane (motorglider) lives in a T-hangar.

OC619

[flash8]

During PPL, CPL and IR I was driven and picked up by my girlfriend, thoroughly amusing my instructors who milked that one for all it was worth. At that time it was slightly embarrassing.

On the 737 the ridicule continued when raised (tried to avoid the subject)... although I became immune to it by then.

Still can't drive a vehicle.

[Maoraigh1]

About 50 miles, all single carriageway, with 2 towns to go through. 1 hour 15 on lucky days.
( As a teenager I pedaled ~55 miles to Aberdeen Airport to glide, then back.)

[TCU]

Well I used to live 10 minutes away from my flying base at White Waltham; a lovely drive along Berkshire country lanes

But these days its a 50 minute drive across a Table mountain pass then and along the False Bay coast on Baden Powell Drive to my new flying base at Stellenbosch....tough life

[srjumbo747]

There’s a few pilots (longhaul base in the U.K.) who commute from South Africa.

[srjumbo747]

About 50 miles, all single carriageway, with 2 towns to go through. 1 hour 15 on lucky days.
( As a teenager I pedaled ~55 miles to Aberdeen Airport to glide, then back.)
Should’ve spent more time speling than pedalling! 😂

[Glider Steve]

About 50 miles, all single carriageway, with 2 towns to go through. 1 hour 15 on lucky days.
( As a teenager I pedaled ~55 miles to Aberdeen Airport to glide, then back.)

all power to you !! You’re on my Christmas card list now!

[Glider Steve]

There’s a few pilots (longhaul base in the U.K.) who commute from South Africa.

that doesn't count! 😊

[Local Variation]

Spruce Creek Fl is the place to be. Land, taxi and park it on the drive at home. Wonder over to Downwind for eggs over easy.

Walk back and put it in the garage.

Marvellous.

[srjumbo747]

Spruce Creek Fl is the place to be. Land, taxi and park it on the drive at home. Wonder over to Downwind for eggs over easy.

Walk back and put it in the garage.

Marvellous.
Wonder or Wander?
Can’t anyone on here spell correctly?

[extralite]

During PPL, CPL and IR I was driven and picked up by my girlfriend, thoroughly amusing my instructors who milked that one for all it was worth. At that time it was slightly embarrassing.

On the 737 the ridicule continued when raised (tried to avoid the subject)... although I became immune to it by then.

Still can't drive a vehicle.
Ohhhh you had a girlfriend? What's that like? Ohh you fly a 737? aww man can you add me? Good contribution to the how far you drive to fly thread 😀

[Glider Steve]

Ohhhh you had a girlfriend? What's that like? Ohh you fly a 737? aww man can you add me? Good contribution to the how far you drive to fly thread 😀

yeah…..I did wonder about that one 🤔

[MrAverage]

Through the nineties I had a 220 mile round trip to where I flew. I once drove there, got in the 172 with some friends, then flew past my home area and on a further 35nm to fly gliders from a grass strip. When the gliding finished we flew back and I drove the 110 miles home.

[Piper.Classique]

I begged the use of a bit of pasture from my neighbour when I got my autogyro. Two years of regular cutting has given me a strip 230 metres by 12 metres. But I do have to taxi 300 metres from the barn along the access track to the house. From there I can fly to the Club at which I instruct in 3 axis microlights.

[flash8]

Ohhhh you had a girlfriend? What's that like? Ohh you fly a 737? aww man can you add me? Good contribution to the how far you drive to fly thread 😀My god.. lighten up... point was I didn't drive due to an inability to drive, so was driven, however if it makes you happy I'll add the distance... approx 24 KM!

[LTCTerry]

Through the nineties I had a 220 mile round trip to where I flew. I once drove there, got in the 172 with some friends, then flew past my home area and on a further 35nm to fly gliders from a grass strip. When the gliding finished we flew back and I drove the 110 miles home.
That is a committed pilot!

[ChrisVJ]

When I kept my aircraft at Squamish I had to drive an hour each way, however the owner of the floatplane company 30 yards from my house let me add a small finger on the back of the dock so part of the Summer I kept my seaplane there.

My main complaint about keeping the aircraft so far away was not the drive so much as the lack of a any social content at the airfield. When I learned to fly there were flying clubs with social space or a bar. These days everything is commercialised so it is arrive, fly and leave. Not the same at all.

[Big Pistons Forever]

5 minutes to the airport to get my Grumman AA 1 and then a 45 minute flight to the glider field

I got my drivers license as a teenager mostly because my father got tired of driving me to the airport and then waiting until my flying lesson was over to drive me home

[Parson]

80 miles on A and B roads. Takes about 1 hour 45 mins though is a nice drive through mostly countryside. I should buy an open top 2 seater to enjoy the drive more......

[Parson]

I begged the use of a bit of pasture from my neighbour when I got my autogyro. Two years of regular cutting has given me a strip 230 metres by 12 metres. But I do have to taxi 300 metres from the barn along the access track to the house. From there I can fly to the Club at which I instruct in 3 axis microlights.

Taxi 300m.....? Oh the hardship..... Only kidding, good on you

[On Track]

When I started flying lessons I was driving 8km to the airport (YSCB). By the time I completed my training I was living in a different city and flying from a different airport (YSCN) which was about 80km from home by the quickest route.

[Pilot DAR]

I'm looking at my airplane as I type this from home, so driving to the airport is not required. But... I bought the property, I cleared the land and built the runway, I cut the grass, and I clear the snow, so it's not a freebee either. Sometimes after a couple of hours on the tractor caring for the runway, some highway time to the airport does not sound quite so bad. The convenience of it taking 15 minutes to take my plane for a ten minute flight cannot be beaten though!

[pasta]

I still want to go back to finish gliding someday.
You never finish gliding, there's always something else to do...

Mine's a 1h45 drive to get there, first thing in the morning, more like 2h30 to get back in the evening. I actually drive past 4 other gliding clubs to get there, but it's worth it...

[cavuman1]

I, my (then) wife, and young son (now a 51-year-old physician) lived on Georgia's coast on an island paradise called St. Simons. I learned to fly there and received my ticket in - Gulp! - 1977.

The asphaltic runway in the foreground, now 16/34, used to be 15/33. I soloed on 33, but the reciprocal took me directly over our home which was situated directly beside the Atlantic Ocean. I'd be climbing through 400' and would give my family a wing waggle or two. They'd always wave back. That happened a hundreds times. One never forgets.

It took me less than three minutes to drive to our hangar. Three minutes of pre-preflight which lasted half a lifetime. The equidistant return lasted a minute or three or less, for I had stories to tell, and my boy thought I was The Master of the Air.

Those were the days....

- Ed


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/320x213/kssi_3_94b163f9fc6bf7220b41b844b46568586336c17b.jpg

[squidie]

About 90 minutes max mostly.

[pistongone]

a good friend walks about 2 minutes to his hangar behind his house, opens the doors, pulls his aircraft out, starts it up and off he goes.
Sounds like a top place to live😎

[pistongone]

I was based in Belgium 4 years ago and EBSG had hangar space at a very good €150/mth, but I moved to EBKT @€250/mth as I needed to clear in and out most flights back to the UK. It was the huge hangar on the NE side just past Qualiflight.

[classic200]

At a previous company, we had a Capt. who lived in Texas, he would jump on company a/c overnight to London, walk down road to crew check in, look at paperwork and then transport to a/c, usually the same a/c, and then operate to Texas, two local nights and then operate back to UK, stay in terminal and pax back to Texas and home. He would do this 3 or 4 times a month, quite the commute, nice work if you can get it!

[ak7274]

Just under 2 1/2 miles

[double_barrel]

About an hour.

I have all of my checklists recorded on my phone and run through them as I drive, physically reaching for the controls and touching the non existent dials as I go. That probably makes my flying safer and my driving less safe.

[LowNSlow]

It's 35 miles for me. 20 on motorways and 15 through the lovely Cambridgeshire countryside. Usually got the top down cos if the weather isn't good enough for open top motoring I probably won't be going flying! Usually takes around 45-50 mins.

[NearlyStol]

About 15 mins to OXENHOPE (shortly to be in the news)
This for the last 50 years !