Doing my part by airplane

Hi: I bought my 2004 Prius from James Toyota in Moses Lake. Since then, I've gotten five other buyers over there, three from this chatline, and all of whom had a good experience with these folks. A year ago, I flew one of my flight students and his partner over to Moses Lake from Seattle (1.5 hour plane trip) to take delivery of their new 2005 Prius. Yesterday, I flew my friend Jaqui and a friend of hers over to take delivery of Jaqui's gorgeous new red Prius. It was great fun.

I can't recommend the dealership highly enough. They are "no-pressure" folks, as you might expect in a small agricultural community. The salesperson, Cheryl Moe, is a total sweetheart. Interestingly enough, Jaqui was also on the waiting list at Magic Toyota in Seattle, but they were adding a 3k surcharge to their Prii, as are other dealers in eco-friendly, Prius hungry Seattle. She wanted a red one, and Cheryl managed a trade with Magic to get her one. I thought it was interesting that she ended up with a car from Magic, but Magic didn't get their 3k greedy add-on price.

I told Cheryl about Prius chat. She says that dealers and salespeople have a hard time getting experience and savvy with Prii because they sell within hours of arriving on the lot. James Toyota is also James GMC, Chevy, Pontiac. I asked her how the big SUV's were going and she told me that there's been a noticeable drop in the larger vehicle sales, but the RAV-4 is selling well. She said Toyotas sell themselves and that Toyota buyers come in already primed about their prospective purchases. One GM customer, however, regularly buys a new Silverado pickup, and every one he's bought over the years has had the SAME electrical problem, which, to Cheryl, indicates that GM isn't interested in solving the problem. In her opinion, Toyotas are better made vehicles. People are definitely opting for mileage over horsepower. That this is happening in a rural, more conservative middle-America type community suggests a real shift in the American public. I'm not surprised by the success of the Prius in Seattle, but heartened by the success in the outback.

Cheryl suggested I come over again and give a seminar on the Prius to the salesdepartment.

Good time, and another new Prius owner who, I hope, will soon join Prius chat so she can figure out all the gizmos.
Bob

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eagle33199 @ Aug 16 2006, 02:14 AM) [snapback]303610[/snapback]</div>

Ah, you've touched on a raw nerve in my eco-brain: how to reconcile being a flight instructor with being a dedicated environmentalist. Frankly, I don't know how to resolve the question but I do raise the issue with aviation magazines and among my fellow pilots. What concerns me is that there is not much being done, that I'm aware of, in the field of alternate fuel for piston engine airplanes. I did come across an article that talked about ethanol fuel as a possible replacement. Jet engines can run on a wide variety of fuels, including, possibly, bio fuels, although biodiesel has a greater tendency to gel in cold weather and it's cold up there.

I've counselled several people against getting too excited about buying an airplane, i.e. before you buy into the fantasy, explore the realities. My reasoning is that it doesn't make fiscal or environmental sense to spend a huge amount of money on something that burns petroleum....with no alternative fuel available. Power boats, however, are worse than airplanes because their fuel efficiency is terrible, and there are so many more of them. A good sized 2-stroke outboard motor puts out more pollution per hour than a large car or, I suppose, a small airplane.

On the other hand, by far the greatest source of CO2 production in the US comes from burning coal. Piston engine airplanes amount to about half of one percent of the CO2 production; there are about 300,000 piston engine singles in the entire US vs 30 million cars in California alone. The amount of CO2 produced by those airplanes is pretty small.

Nonetheless, I can't rationalize it all away. Aviation, like everything else in our society, will change drastically as the petrol runs out. I'm balancing it as best I can, knowing that someday, the inexorable forces of change will move the balance point out of my reach altogether and I'll take up something simpler like brain surgery.

The airplane used 14 gallons of gas, for an average of about 13 mpg, although we don't measure airplane mileage like that; instead, we use "gallons per hour", i.e., we're concerned more by how long the engine has been running rather than the distance we've covered over ground because the airmass we are flying in is itself moving, so our groundspeed will vary. So, from a "mileage" point of view, my Cessna is about on a par with a Chevy Silverado. There's another way of looking at this: the airplane engine ran for an hour and a half; an automobile engine would have run for about 4 hours making the same trip. The fuel in the airplane is higher octane and has traces of lead, so it's pollution index is higher than that for gasoline. BUT...the airplane has dual ignition systems (two spark plugs per cylinder) so it burns fuel more efficiently than an automobile. It gets complicated from here.

Thanks for raising the question. I wish more people thought through the consequences of choices they make.

Bob