Very good analysis. Two things seem apparent:

First, based on your number, I would say one thing
needed would be to improve cycle time, say from 10
flights an hour to 16 flights an hour. Since there
are two planes, each plane has to make 8 flights an
hours, or a cycle time of 7.5 minutes. This would
push profits up to $240 per hour gross.

Seems reasonable if there are two adjacent launch areas
and two trucks for independent auto-tow.

Second, how does the capital investment between this
2 plane, 2 truck business compare with the capital
investment of the indoor cart track? For example,
buy two used 2-33's @$10,000 each and two used trucks
@$5,000 each and you have $20,000 invested. I would
assume this is a lot less than the building and track
costs for the karting. Labor and insurance cost might
be the same, but the airplane business would have no
heating/electrical bill/etc. associated with a brick-and-mortar
establishment. Point is, maybe the airplane business
does not need to gross as much since there is much
less overhead in paying off building loans. Any feel
of the difference in investment needed between the
cart track and the glider operation?

At 12:24 20 April 2004, Plasticguy wrote:
Ok Guys. This is a spinoff of the entertainment thread.....

Indoor Karting is an economically viable business if
you can fill the seats.
The usual race at the center I ran was $15 for 12 minutes
of track time.
We figured 3 minutes to load the karts with the next
race group. This gave
us
on paper, 4 race groups/hr. This is at full utilization.
Reality is less
than full
run groups, and dead track time without racers. 4
employees needed.

If you compare this to an attemp to use 2 gliders on
a 6 minute cycle time
to get 10 launches an hour at capacity, using 4 employees.....

Karting at capacity 10 karts/group, 4 grps/hr, $15
a ride..... $600 hr
gross.

Soaring at capacity, 10 rides/hr @ $15/ride.....
$150/hr gross.

As you can see, it can't/won't work. It's a nice idea
but the
numbers just aren't there.

Scott