Are you flying to places of work ?

[Graeme Bird]

Working for my own company in a consultancy role I am very fortunate to be able to fly to different places of work from time to time, when the 'ducks are in a row'. I wobble off on a fold up bike the other end. I have done it for years in a group owned plane but now I have my own plane I have scope to maybe arrange things.... more conveniently.
I would be interested in hearing from others who do the same - although I haven't noticed a rush hour in the air yet, that said, Bagshot Mast on the corner of Heathrow was very busy at 8:00 the other day! Clearly, many people own their planes through a company. Advice appreciated

You can private message me if you prefer

Graeme

[Mike Jackson]

Deafening silence from everybody else on this one, so here's my comments. I assume from your posting on this forum that you are flying a LAA Permit aircraft.
I learnt to fly nearly 30 years ago, and have over 1450 hours now. For me, flying is all about an unbelievably wonderous means of personal travel. The aircraft and flying are no more my hobbies than my car or driving. Going places is. I always have a non aviation reason for wanting to get to the other end.
Of those hours, about 600 were for travel on my employers or my own business, and another 200 due to voluntary involvement with national and international adminisrtation of a highly competitive sport.
It was in 3 phases, in the 70's C172 and Mooney, the 80's R22 helicopter, and 90s my wonderful gem of an aircraft, a Glasair. I've been retired now for over 10 years, so my reasons for flying now are, for example, a day on the beach at Perranporth, lunch with my daughter in Plymouth or my sister in Nottingham, a two hour visit to the castle at Caernarfon. I had lunch in Guernsey day before yesterday when a ridge of high pressure suddenly brought a marvelous weather for a day amidst the endless stream of lows we have been getting for weeks.

Back to business, obviously weather is the main factor, and I never pushed it.
In the C172 and Mooney, IMCR was a boon, but I still never flew less than 1000' cloud base, or anywhere near TSs. With the R22, not only is it VFR limited, but my early version had no gyros at all, and training emphasised 'go into a cloud and you are dead'. Needless to say I never did, but my 400hrs business travel in it were immensly valuable and enjoyable. Based in Surrey, sites from Poole to Ipswich, Aylesbury to Maidstone, were all serviceable in half a day, and the R22 enabled me to handle a much larger, lucrative client base than could have otherwise been possible.
Come 1990, my client base had changed, and I got one with branches in Bristol, Jersey, and Isle of Man. Obviously not for the R22, and I was looking for another Mooney, but the Dec 1990 'Pilot' had a write up of this Glasair RG, which I had not heard of, but unbelievable in performance - easy 170kt IAS cruise on 160hp, and the builder had fitted a full panel and avionics kit, incl ILS/DME/ADF.
I was very wary of a home built, but the builder was a fine engineer who had used factory new equipment for everything. I studied the limitations on permit aircraft. The R22 had shown me how to work within VFR limits (needed there to stay alive!), which although a pain, I could accept. Note that all business and charter use of single engine choppers is VFR, mostly Bell 206s.
The limitation published by the PFA then, and still by the LAA, that permit aircraft are limited to 'recreational flying only' is absolutely WRONG. I made a repeated attempt to get this changed a few years ago but failed.
They are limited to private flight (as defined in the ANO), and a great deal of business flying, incl bizjets, is private flight. You could pay a CPL to fly a permit aircraft to collect a much needed spare part for a factory machine, but as long as the owner met all the cost, its a private flight and fully legal, and the full cost claimed from the business. Or if you had a RV6 in the Midlands, and your boss told you to visit a supplier in Exeter, you could fly there, weather permitting, and claim all costs. The ANO devotes a large section defining what is a private flight, and all such flights are legal in an LAA permit aircraft.

Overall, I'm delighted and feel privileged to have been able to do so much business flying during my working life. The experience was wonderful. Just don't push the weather!

Mike.

[PB]

I flew from Southampton to Nottingham for a meeting on Tuesday in my Tipsy Nipper. 1h20 on the way there, 2h40 on the way back! Fun, but slow aircraft are very susceptible to head winds!

For summer VFR I find it much less stressful than driving, though in reality not much quicker. I charge my employer the car-millage rate so it's a win-win. I get a bit of cheap flying and the boss saves a bit of my time.

[Graeme Bird]

There is an interesting letter in pilot on this this month where the guy does everything wrong and then implies its not practical,
Doesn't phone his destination or check notams
Is rushed for time,
Takes someone with him who is reluctant and sick within a few minutes, cant land at his destination as its closed, is late for the meeting, spends a fortune on taxis and sending his colleague home and gets into trouble with his MD the next day! Very bold to confess I thought.
In my experience:
a) you have to be prepared to drive on past the strip if the weathers not good
b) to plan your flight the night before and have time to check in the morning
c) be going to something thats not critical - it wont be the end of the world if you don't show or are late or look a mess
d) be prepared to stay over if the weather changes or you run short of daylight
e) be prepared for it to take as long as driving
f) make sure there is fuel in the plane or you have time to fuel at the destination after the work
g) be very reluctant to have anybody with you
h) sort a bike/ taxi/ train/ lift in advance with maps etc

For me its worked best when I regularly drive somewhere and there is a clear advantage due to traffic - I maybe get to fly one in three times in the summer months.

The most fun trip so far was to work in Toulouse while working with EADs. I never ask permission and the funny thing was the health and safety lot later had a problem with me flying my EADs Rallye to the EADs center for aviation to work on aerospace products because it was not safe enough. I thought they might have lost the pioneering spirit somewhere in the admin. I am sure they have a division manager seeking to sell TB850s for such purposes.

[Bob F]

Birdboy,

Is having your own airplane & using it for business similar to having a company car when it comes to Tax implications? Benefits in kind & all that. They use emissions & the price as new to work it out for company cars. Bad enough with a car like a Beamer or Merc worth £25k with reasonable emissions but what if it was a C172 or even a twin? The thought of the IR using the "as new" cost factor, never mind the emissions, makes my eyes water. Good luck, anyway.

Bob F

[ChampChump]

This subject was in P.lot a year or so ago. Our local paper also picked up on one of the residents of the airfield who flies to work. Well, he does when the weather is kind. It involved a drive to the airfield and a couple of buses the other end and takes far longer than the simple drive, but hey, it gives us something to rib him about.

I think it's been discussed on that Other forum too. You might get more response searching there, where there are more people in spamcans-off-tarmac, if I can put it that way.

[Kelvin Denize]

The closest I can get to flying for work.

My company agreed to pay for the insurance and make a contrbution towards my aircraft hire when I am in the states. This was in leiu of me hiring a car as I argued that everybody else hired a car for the weekend on expenses but I hired only an aeroplane.

I did not say I needed at least one of them to hire a car so I could get to the airport.

I have been asked to fly up but some of the places I work in the UK have absolutlely NO usable airfields around them. The infrastructure is not used becouse it is not there.