The company that I still have loose ties to bought me one to use and fly board members around in. I didn't get very much time in it, and I can still guilt them into letting me take it every great once in a while on account of it sitting around and the raw deal they shivved me with. That's why I said 'if' I rented. The Cirrus SR-20 I believe eats about 15-20GPH depending on what you're doing, but they sure do get up and go. 100LL is 4.50 in many places. You're still looking at more than a few thousand in that case.
I know a guy out here that will pick you up in his L-39 as long as you pay for gas, he's always looking for takers. You don't even wanna know how much that'd be.
Aviation ain't cheap!! You can get by pretty well putting 88 octane pump gas in an old champ at a rate of 5 gallons per hour, but you'd never assume that it'd be no big deal to pick a buddy up halfway across the country. If so, you'd have to have a lot of time off and specifically want to take the proverbial 'backroads', a bit like a few of our member's motorcycle trips. It's not because a motorcycle is the most efficient or comfortable way to go cross-country.
This is the reason that many like Ken and who're also committed to GA look into light twins, because they can load up the family and head 500 miles downrange like it's no big deal if you can handle the gas bill. That's also the reason that many keep a pattern and short afternoon hop mule still keep a 172 around, which may be why Ken does that as well.
Aviation is different to plan for, that's for sure. There are many people who do pretty well on money that bought fighter jets because you can buy them for 250,000 dollars these day, and then fast discovered that they can't afford to fill them up with gas very often. Imagine a car like that!
Anyway, if you can foot the (tiny) bill, I'll swing out your way in a next to new Cirrus!!
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