Editor's Log: 07/06

High Prices

Five years ago, I figured it cost about $80 an hour in direct operating costs (fuel, oil and other consumables) to run my airplane. That’s when avgas was hovering around $2.00 a gallon. Nobody in his right mind was going to a Signature operation and forking over $3.50 a gallon unless someone else was paying for it.

Eighty octane was $0.47 a gallon while 100 octane went for a princely $0.49 way back when I was working as a teenage lineboy at my local airport. Nowadays, fuel prices at my FBO are hovering around the $5.00 mark, and I figure it costs an average of $150 an hour to fly; the increase is solely attributable to fuel costs. I plan each flight around the pr...