I've found myself in a situation where I'm spending way too many hours driving.  I've got a handful of businesses with a couple hundred miles between each of them, and I've become pretty serious about competition shooting, so I'm traveling 300-400 miles a couple times a month for that.  I've been thinking it would be a lot faster to fly.  It could change a five hour drive to a match into an hour and a half flight, or a full day trip 200 miles away to handle something at one of my shops could become a stop at several of them in the same day.  

I've been watching YouTube videos, and I've come up with some questions.  I've got a discovery flight scheduled for next week with the local flight school, and I could probably ask them, but I'd rather get my answers from someone who doesn't need me to pay them.  If you own your own airplane, or even if you just rent them often, please chime in.

Is it really going to save me any time?  I gather that there's a ton of stuff going on before and after a flight, but they never show that.  In your experience, what distance do you need to travel to make it more time efficient to get in an airplane rather than just drive it?

How often are small airplanes out of service?  They don't tend to post videos when nothing happens, so I'm seeing a lot of engine failures resulting in people being stranded.  How often does that really happen?  What are the odds that I'll want to fly 600 miles to a pistol match, get to the airport and realize that I'm not flying that day, and now it's too late to make the drive?  

I'm trying to decide if this is worth my time.  Thanks.

There's an expression...

"If you've got time to spare, go by air."

GA is not effective transportation unless you burn Jet A. It depends on weather.  Either t'storms in the summer or ice in the winter.   The reason why airlines work is that they burn Jet A, make enormous amounts of heat that can be channeled through the wings to melt ice, blast up to the flight levels above most of the weather, and get routed around build ups.

That is not to say don't do it.  I fly to hearings all the time.  But I'm prepared to drive every time.

Alright, so you guys are saying that while it may indeed save time, you can't count on it.  That's disappointing.

@xdoctor-

GA CAN be effective transportation IF:

1- You get an Instrument rating and stay proficient in it
2- You own your plane or have a good partnership in 1
3- You get an Instrument rating and stay proficient in it
4- You ALWAYS watch the weather and be prepared to bail on flying enough in advance to make other arrangements to travel
5- You get an Instrument rating and stay proficient in it
6-The plane you buy is a capable instrument platform, preferably with some type of autopilot and GPS  

Other than that, GA is mostly for smashing bugs and getting the $200 hamburger.

When I had my partnership on an Aztec (twin), I was able to follow the 6 bullet points above and use the plane to great effect; now that I rent to stay proficient, not so much.

You have to have an alternate plan.  Pushing things in GA often leads to bad results.

Please note, that is not saying you shouldn't do it.  It could provide a great, enjoyable and efficient means of travel.

One of the bigger causes of tragic ends in general aviation, is a condition known as Get-Home-Itis.  

When the weather starts looking iffy, there's a need to be somewhere by a certain time, and a pilot starts pushing their luck while thinking they've got a shot at scraping by, things can go bad rather quickly.  If you are going into it with the expectation of the world cooperating with your schedule, you could easily be disappointed.

Maintenance issues are a whole other mess.  Many of them can fit into the "should have seen that coming" (saving money by cutting corners on preventative maintenance, isn't really saving money in the long run), while others can just pop up out of nowhere.

It will require an annual inspection by a mechanic/shop certified to do annual inspections.  How long it will be down for that, depends on how complex the plane is (twin engines will require twice as much engine labor as a single engine, and retractable gear is more labor intensive than fixed gear, etc), what is found during the inspection, availability of needed parts, and the shop's schedule.

Figure an oil change, cleaning the plugs, and a quick 'look over' every 50 hours of flight time (or changing the oil every 25 hours of flight time, if the engine is one that uses an oil screen, instead of an oil filter).

Some planes will have mandatory items at set intervals, due to Airworthiness Directives being issued on that model of plane or that model of engine (or prop, or...).  It may be as simple as having a mechanic do a quick visual inspection of something, or it could be something involving tearing things apart and replacing some parts.  The interval could be 100 hours of flight time, or it could be 5,000 hours of flight time.  You have to research the particular model to see what ADs have been issued on it.

If the plane is IFR certified, there will be a recertification schedule for that.

If the plane has an oxygen bottle for flights at higher altitudes, there will be a schedule for having the bottle tested and recertified.

All of that is scheduled maintenance.  Based on my experience of having worked at a flight school where the boss didn't see any problem with replacing minor parts before they needed to be replaced, and taking care of major problems early (if the plane was already in the shop for something else), then later working for a company that tried to get as much as they could out of a few planes while spending as little as they could on the maintenance, I firmly believe that incidents of 'unscheduled maintenance' increase in frequency as you cut back on the scheduled maintenance (you can pay a mostly known amount now, or an unknown amount later, but you will be paying, one way or another).

My perception is that guys that do what you are proposing are justifying it because flying is their hobby.  It's not necessarily cheaper (by any stretch) or even quicker sometimes.

But... I'm with you.  I see customers once per month on a 1200 mile drive.  It's wearing me down.  How awesome would it be to fly out there and avoid all the traffic/weather BS.  

Anything plane related seems insanely expensive.  Lookup Youtube Premier Driver.  Now, he's flying a jet to customers, so not a Cessna, but I think rebuild on his engines was like $400k.  Crazy.

https://www.youtube.com/user/gregmink/videos

So far all the posts have been about things money and effort can fix. Let's cut right to the heart of your question: Is it really going to save me any time?

The answer is "maybe".

What really matters in this equation is door-to-door time.

Say you want to fly from home to a match. It's a 5 hour drive. 300 statute miles by road. Let's just say, hypothetically, 250 statute miles by air, airport to airport. You've got an airplane that can do that with an average speed of, say 150mph for the leg:

30 minutes to get from home to airport
30 minutes to load your stuff, preflight, fuel, taxi out, take off
1:40 runway to runway
15 minutes (and I'm being optimistic) to taxi in, shutdown, unload, get a car/uber/whatever, and hit the road
30 minutes from airport to match

Total time: about 3.5 hours. Plus you probably spent another 30 minutes flight planning at home. So really 4 hours invested. Not a lot of savings.

But there are intangibles to be considered. Did you get there more relaxed? Was it more fun?

My numbers might be high or low for you. How far are the airports from your home and destinations?

For the work destinations, can you assign an employee to get you to and from the airport? That's a HUGE convenience issue.

Do you transact a lot of business on the phone during your drivetime? If so, that time will be lost to you.

How many cubic dollars can you bring to bear on the problem? Money equals speed. IMHO the sweet spot is 200 MPH and up. Got $500K to spend? That'll get you an older SR22. You can probably get into a Mooney Ovation 2 GX for maybe $350K. Both are wonderful IFR machines that'll do just about 200MPH. The Cirrus will be better supported as the company is in business. Got a shit-ton of money? Buy a turboprop single like an M600 or TBM. Now you are in 300MPH+ territory. Insurance will kill you until you build time, so find a young, hungry pilot with the right cred's to handle the insurance issue to fly with you and pay him/her. That's actually a huge time saver, too, because you send them to get the plane ready or leave them at the other end to sort out the refueling and stuff. All you do is show up and fly. HUGE timesaver, if you can afford it.

Thanks for that.  It's what I needed to know.  Money isn't really a huge issue, time is the issue.  I'm in Central Wyoming, and that means nothing is ever easy to get to.  So I'm traveling to Grand Junction, which is a 384 miles to drive, 206 nm to fly.  Area 1 this year is in Nampa Idaho; that's 703 miles by road, or 442 nm by air.  

I'll meet with the flight school and see what it's like around here as far as weather.  I'm guessing it's pretty ugly, the wind here is legendary.  

I appreciate all the responses.  It's the dose of reality I needed.  

You have some great responses that cover most things.  

I will emphasize that one of the biggest issues with using a small plane and personally flying it for business is unpredictable weather.  Even if you are an experienced and current pilot with a capable plane, weather can make any planning a guess at best.    I do not plan any trips where I have to be somewhere on a certain day/time with my cessna 182.  Too much pressure to make a flight that I shouldn't if things are not looking good.

So, all mountains and forest?  That adds another factor.

Some.  Mostly high plains desert.  

Wyoming, eh? Money not a problem? Lots of empty space, perhaps?

If you've got the space in your front yard and the parking lots or back lots of your businesses, and if you are able to plan your business trips around the weather, i.e. be ok with having to move things around a few days once in a while, consider a helicopter rating. They are not as fast, say 130mph for a Robinson R66, but now you've just avoided getting to and from the airport, flight planning got easier, and you can pop out to the helicopter and preflight when it's convenient, then just jump in and leave when you are ready. Equipped with an aux tank you can get 4 hours range and you can get air conditioning, XM audio, full glass panel and an autopilot. Figure $800k for a lightly used example of an R66. Expensive, not IFR certified, but they can do things airplanes can't.

Some might frown on this, but since you are flying down around the cell towers in a helicopter you can even get a little business done on the phone if you are not in airspace where you have to talk to ATC. Lots of excellent, Bluetooth equipped headsets out there.

You will have to drop into an airport periodically for fuel but that can be done on the way to/from. And/or sort out some strategically placed fuel trailers. Exploit your workers to make fuel magically appear.

One other idea: how hard would it be for you to put in an airstrip at home? Do you live in the space necessary? It is Wyoming. In the winter just roll the snow flat and hard so the snowbanks don't get higher than your wings.

nothing that can't be overcome, but the idea of a simple 182 is probably out the window.  TBM would be my first pick

Fly would be great in the summers up there, stunning scenery just driving around.  

Agreed,

If money is really not an issue, this is probably your best bet (and you could possibly write-off some of the cost RE: business expenses).

I’ve driven my car 4500 miles since 2017 and flown over 1000 hours since then. Nearly all of it was in one of my planes.