as above
In terms of usage per distance or usage per hour? I’m pretty sure alot of airplanes exceed some cars in the former. But some modern homebuilt experimental aircraft with electronic fuel injection and electronic ignition equipped engines could exceed cars in both the former and later.
The FAA approved Lycoming engines in the common Cessna is not designed for efficiency, but rather reliability. They’re gas guzzlers that use old technology. A couple companies like Diamond for example do have some pretty nice efficiency thanks to their use of ECUs.
Put it this way: a 100 HP Cessna 150 gets around 12 miles to the gallon. Short answer to your question: nope.
Put it another way.
Depends upon the aircraft.
A Europa in the cruise has a fuel efficiency equivalent to 50 mpg in a car.
So that is 2x more efficient than my car.
Or
An Icon A5 has a fuel throughput of 3.8 gph and a cruise speed of 87kts c100mph. Equivalent is therefore 27 mpg.
This is assuming zero wind, a tailwind will increase ground speed hence improve equivalent mpg, a headwind will reduce ground speed and tgat plays havoc with equivalent mpg.
This is of course using the rubbish USA gallon which is non standard and different to the Imperial gallon.
Bear in mind with all this that aircraft do typically have the advantage of flying in a straight line, while cars have to duck and weave counties along highways.
To drive from St Catharines airport to Toronto City Center airport, that’s a roughly 118km drive, but just a 50km flight; a C152 would burn maybe 2-3 gallons on a direct flight, while my Mazda 3 would burn almost the same.
I got the Bonanza down to 43.4 mpg (5.42 l/100 km)
Going at 37.76 nmpg flying 96 KIAS (97 TAS) at 6ft above the water. Ground effect plus leaning the fuel beyond what should be possible in reality.
Settings used throttle/propeller/mixture, rpm, trim, air speed, start-end distance, start-end fuel
6ft 88%/ 90%/16.5% 78F 2249 rpm 27% IAS 96 TAS 97 810.0 497.0 40.00 31.71 37.756
That’s twice as efficient as my SUV in winter time.
It would be cool
I think the Diomond DA 50 can get close. With fuel burn of 9galons per hour and speed of 180kn. I think it gets close to car numbers. Either that or my math sucks.
Its engine is based on a Mercedes Diesel car engine after all.
Now try it at 10,000 feet.
Less dense air should aid economy
In terms of economic viability, fuel cost can approach that of a small SUV in some cases. But for ownership and operating cost overall, no way a certified aircraft can be as cheap as a car. Believe me I’ve tried to justify buying my own plane on that basis.
Some experimentals/homebuilts or ultralights, maybe.
The short answer is yes. I’m sure there are many, but the one I’m most familiar with is my dad’s Long-EZ. circa 1980s
Used ones sell for the price of a nice car ($30,000 USD or so), and they get 30+ miles to the gallon, which is better than my Subaru. They also have a 2000 mile range and are 2-3x faster than a car on the highway, so they smoke cars in pretty much every performance measure. Of course Avgas is more expensive than 89 octane car gas, as well as maintenance on those Lycoming engines.
The Long-EZ is even available for Flight Simulator:
You are comparing apples to oranges. First, economically viable can mean many things especially if there are tax advantages for a small business and government rebates for EPVs.
Other modes of transportation should be included.
All these modes of transportation ARE economically feasible for what they do. Otherwise they wouldn’t exist like the covered wagon or the stagecoach.
Nope it’s a ‘bug’ in FS2020, best fuel economy is as low as you can go.
At 10K ft the best I could squeeze out of the Bonanza was 25.2 nmpg
https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/mapping-the-performance-of-the-beechcraft-bonanza-g36/332575/7
Depends on the car mate…
A high performance car (Porsche, Ferrari, etc) can burn much more fuel than a standard rotax engine
But as cara go down to 4l/100kms I can only advice to buy a glider
Factor in all the costs involved such as getting to the departure airfield and back, getting to the destination from the nearest airport and back, handling fees, navigation/landing fees, maintenance, insurance, training flights, check rides, diversions or no go due to poor weather, restricted airspaces etc, etc.
Time to spare…go by air. (and cash)
The DA50 is even better than most cars. Most Diamonds are a lot more fuel efficient than cars and on top of that Jet-A is cheaper than car petrol or Diesel.
An A320 burns around 2 litres per passenger per 100km.
But the overall operating costs incl maintenance, certifications, yearly checks for aircraft, pilot certifications etc makes a flight hour much more expensive than an hour by car. But hey, you fly in a plane, what could possibly be better than that ^^
One hour in our 1972 C172 at the club costs me 100€ member price (Germany). I can fill up my car twice for the money alone and go more than 1000km per tank.
Has to be the Icon A5, about the same gas mileage as a compact car
If you can afford to fly a light aircraft, you won’t be worried about the price of 100LL.
But if you can afford to buy a DA50 as a personal aircraft, chances are you really don’t give a crap how much the fuel costs. Much like people who buy a Lamborghini don’t care how much fuel it burns. That’s chump change to them. It makes the whole fuel economy thing more of a limitation of the aircraft’s range and endurance rather than the price of the fuel.
In any case, when you consider the total cost of ownership, including the plane itself over time, fuel, insurance, hangar fees, landing fees, certifications, yearly and other periodic inspections / maintenance, etc, I don’t think you’d find any aircraft that’s cheaper to own and operate than even an automobile on the more expensive end of the spectrum.
Lol that‘s probably true