David Megginson writes: > > I flew an Arrow-III up to Minneapolis and back this past > > weekend. Even with a CAS of 135 kts, I had a GS of about 80-88 > > kts the whole way up to Minneapolis at 6000 feet because of a > > cold front moving through. On the way back, I had a great > > tailwind and at 9000 feet I was at 130 kts CAS and 194 kts GS. > > With a top speed of 217 kts GS on a descent from 9000 to 7000 > > feet. > > Interesting. That's why people will pay for an extra few knots -- if > you're flying into a 60kt headwind, a 120kt airplane is 1.5 times as > fast as a 100kt airplane, for example.
Oh, yeah, and you get your money back (with some interest) when you sell it in 10 or 20 years, while you might have to pay someone to toy the minivan away to the junk yard. I wouldn't choose a plane purely as an investment -- there's too much volatility for an average return of only about 7%/year over the past couple of decades (and flat over the past year or so) -- but given the markets since 2001, even if the plane just holds its current value it will be doing considerably better than my retirement investments. If you want to call it a fun 401K with wings, go for it. All the best, David -- David Megginson, [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://www.megginson.com/ _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
