In article , Michael wrote:
have depreciated by at least $6K over 4 years. The delta is $8K. We've
nowhere near paid $8K on maintaining the beast.

Really? Does that include the annual inspections? How about your
time spent working on it?

Easily. Our maintenance was nowhere near 8K, even when we put two new
cylinders on it. I actually enjoy working with planes, so I don't count
my time messing with them as cost, any more than I count my time, say,
flying gliders or playing computer games as monetary cost. I spend at
least an entire day a week at the airport (and still do). Counting every
bit of your time as money is IMHO counterproductive. I work to live, I
don't live to work.

BTW - a $20K Toyota is a pretty high-end car. I've never paid that
much for a car, new or used.

Many people I know who say flying is very expensive think nothing of
taking out a large loan to buy a 20K vehicle and service the loan. At
least half the people I worked with (i.e. in a similar income range to
me) in Houston had cars that cost them at least 20K. I was the odd one
out, owning a pickup which cost me far less than half that - and I was
one of the few who wasn't servicing a car loan. These same people
wondered how I afforded this expensive flying thing. Easy when you're
not paying off a car loan and suffering the huge depreciation charge on
a new vehicle that was bought for over 20K. You just had to look in the
parking lot to see the numerous Suburban-sized SUVs (priced one
recently?), Mercedes and BMWs to see that many people were happy to
spend very large sums of money on their vehicle. Nothing wrong with that
of course, but to complain you're skint afterwards seems a bit
disingenious.

just over 6 years. It was only a two-seater, but it held two in MUCH
greater comfort than your C-140.

But it couldn't fly.

better gas mileage. My TOTAL cost of maintenance for the entire time
I owned it, including all required inspections and all routine
maintenance (none of which I ever did myself) was well under $1000.
Not per year, but total. I paid just over $11K for it new, and when
some idiot rear-ended me on the shoulder, the insurance company wrote
me a check for well over $7K.

So 6 years of driving cost approximately $5K less the fuel cost. That'll
buy quite a bit of maintenance on a modest light aircraft. Sure you'll
do the work yourself, but if you actually ENJOY the work, it can hardly
be considered 'cost'.

Sure, the level speed of a Toyota is much better than a C140. However,
how many speeding tickets will you get if you drive across Houston at
100 mph? Can you even do 100 mph anywhere on Houston freeways except in
the middle of the night? League City to the soaring club was 45 minutes
in my C140. It was 1.5 hours in my truck and I don't exactly drive
slow.

I'm not saying flying is cheap; it's not. However, you don't have to be
particularly rich to afford a modest plane. When I was in the US, I only
put my international service allowance + a part salary transfer into my
US bank account (IBM pays you in your home country). For the entire time
I was there, I never increased my salary transfer. The total paid into
my US account was $2400/month - I could afford to run my C140 (and my
Ford) on that money, and take the occasional trip in the Bonanza without
needing to transfer any extra money from home...and I was still saving
money in the US! It wasn't till I started flying twins that I had to
think of transferring money in. My parner in that C140 was one of SPX's
_line boys_. His wife was a newly-graduated chemical engineer (and flew
the plane too). They now own a Cessna 180 (although he's now on the
bottom rung of corporate piloting, only a slight pay drop from being a
line boy).

If you've got the will to fly, the passion for it - you can figure out
how to pay for it even on fairly modest money. Not buying a brand new
car with a car loan is one thing that helps tremendously.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"