5 ms·

Insanely cool. Would love to do this one day. How expensive is it to park your airplane for the night?

by asselinpaul 11y ago

msds 11y ago
The sign in a photo near the end of the article ("Tie Downs") suggests it can be quite cheap - $7.00 / night.
- huhtenberg 11y ago
  http://www.bbc.com/travel/bespoke/story/20150424-a-view-that-puts-window-seats-to-shame/media/s-_lone_pine-1920-hr_znvui23.jpg http://www.bbc.com/travel/bespoke/story/20150424-a-view-that...
jxf 11y ago
At many regional airports, it's either free for small planes or very cheap. For example, my airport of Charlottesville, VA charges nothing for planes under 7,000 lb ("LNDG FEE ONLY FOR ACFT OVER 7000 LBS."): http://airnav.com/airport/CHO http://airnav.com/airport/CHO
- pkorzeniewski 11y ago
  Why there're so many abbrevations? Is there a technical reason for it or is it just a convention among pilots?
  - richieb 11y ago
    It's bit of history. At one time all this info was transmitted via telegraph/telex where number of characters mattered.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  pkorzeniewski> Why there're so many abbrevations? Is there a technical reason for it or is it just a convention among pilots? It's a [frustrating] convention among pilot data services. METARs, TAFs, FDs, etc are all coded. Many of these systems date back 30+ years, when telecom equipment and data transmission was much more limited and expensive. After a short while, it's relatively transparent to decode the abbreviated weather and other items that we use a lot. And of course, anyone who is remotely fluent in English can decode the minimal abbreviations in the quoted text. It's also somewhat easier to scan certain reports (TAFs and Winds Aloft forecasts) as the abbreviations tend to keep the data in a visually scannable almost tabular form, so you can easily see when conditions are becoming more/less favorable. If it were free/cheap to update all the systems that generate and all the systems that process, interpret, archive, and/or retransmit that data, there's no reason to keep the abbreviation culture. It's far from free, so inertia will keep it the way it is for a long time. PS: I don't know why that comment is dead. It seems a perfectly reasonable question and your account isn't banned...
  - athenot 11y ago
    Probably for the same reason Digital Video is filled with acronyms. Medical notes also have the same pattern. Basically, specialized fields have their own vocabulary that evolved super fast relative to the evolution of the English language. It would be very cumbersome to use the full terms when trying to communicate. At any rate, the original hyperlink to the world wide web page for this article has beautiful joint photographic expert group pictures—or perhaps were they portable network graphics, I didn't check the hyperterxt markup language to verify. And the cascading style sheet layout is quite clever to present these pictures. ;)
wildlogic 11y ago
in addition to the free or cheap parking ($5 for a tie down), sometimes smaller airports even have courtesy car or two that you can take around town if you are just visiting for the day.

Insanely cool. Would love to do this one day. How expensive is it to park your airplane for the night?

msds 11y ago

The sign in a photo near the end of the article ("Tie Downs") suggests it can be quite cheap - $7.00 / night.

huhtenberg 11y ago
http://www.bbc.com/travel/bespoke/story/20150424-a-view-that-puts-window-seats-to-shame/media/s-_lone_pine-1920-hr_znvui23.jpg http://www.bbc.com/travel/bespoke/story/20150424-a-view-that...

jxf 11y ago

At many regional airports, it's either free for small planes or very cheap. For example, my airport of Charlottesville, VA charges nothing for planes under 7,000 lb ("LNDG FEE ONLY FOR ACFT OVER 7000 LBS."): http://airnav.com/airport/CHO http://airnav.com/airport/CHO

pkorzeniewski 11y ago
Why there're so many abbrevations? Is there a technical reason for it or is it just a convention among pilots?
- richieb 11y ago
  It's bit of history. At one time all this info was transmitted via telegraph/telex where number of characters mattered.
sokoloff 11y ago
pkorzeniewski> Why there're so many abbrevations? Is there a technical reason for it or is it just a convention among pilots? It's a [frustrating] convention among pilot data services. METARs, TAFs, FDs, etc are all coded. Many of these systems date back 30+ years, when telecom equipment and data transmission was much more limited and expensive. After a short while, it's relatively transparent to decode the abbreviated weather and other items that we use a lot. And of course, anyone who is remotely fluent in English can decode the minimal abbreviations in the quoted text. It's also somewhat easier to scan certain reports (TAFs and Winds Aloft forecasts) as the abbreviations tend to keep the data in a visually scannable almost tabular form, so you can easily see when conditions are becoming more/less favorable. If it were free/cheap to update all the systems that generate and all the systems that process, interpret, archive, and/or retransmit that data, there's no reason to keep the abbreviation culture. It's far from free, so inertia will keep it the way it is for a long time. PS: I don't know why that comment is dead. It seems a perfectly reasonable question and your account isn't banned...
- athenot 11y ago
  Probably for the same reason Digital Video is filled with acronyms. Medical notes also have the same pattern. Basically, specialized fields have their own vocabulary that evolved super fast relative to the evolution of the English language. It would be very cumbersome to use the full terms when trying to communicate. At any rate, the original hyperlink to the world wide web page for this article has beautiful joint photographic expert group pictures—or perhaps were they portable network graphics, I didn't check the hyperterxt markup language to verify. And the cascading style sheet layout is quite clever to present these pictures. ;)

wildlogic 11y ago

in addition to the free or cheap parking ($5 for a tie down), sometimes smaller airports even have courtesy car or two that you can take around town if you are just visiting for the day.