You must be newleyweds!

Seriously, though, if you have "ulterior motives" for purchasing a plane
and helping support the flight school, that's great! I would recommend you
try to figure out realistically what the total risk is, perhaps best-case,
worst-case and a "realistic expectation forecast" that is somewhere in
between. Then balance that with the reward of having a plane and keeping
the school open. Of course, this means you need to put a real $$$ value on
your reward ratio. You may also want to consider other financial
expenditures that you may use to help protect your investment (ie: perhaps
you will spend money on marketing/advertising flight training at that
school once you have a vested interest).

The nice thing about approaching it this way is that you can also prepare
an "out-plan". Basically, you can give yourself a cut-off point in advance
that says if after xxx number of months, if you are losing $yyy, it is time
to cut your losses and sell out...

Hopefully, you hit best-case, and everything works out - maybe you even
make a few bucks. But if not, and you have planned it all out, you can
protect yourself from worst case...

Essentially, as with any business, you are likely to have the most success
if you have a plan with accurate forecast models...


Robert Perkins wrote in
:

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 00:54:41 GMT, Judah wrote:

Robert Perkins wrote in

Here's the way I look at it. If you continue to remain married after
purchasing a plane, your wife will probably hold it over your head for
a very long time and a variety of favors.

Not her. I've got her scheduled for a Stearman ride in August. I'm
proselyting! Perhaps the day will come when she looks in my office and
says, "Have a look at this used Piper 6X! That looks like the airplane
for us!"

That's mostly what I'm going for. The leaseback thing was an idea to
keep an airplane (A Piper Cub!) on the ramp. Two other members of my
family want to learn flying, so I have a vested interest in keeping
this school alive. It's one of only two flight schools in Clark
County, Washington, and both are threatened by various levels of
apathy and animosity.

OTOH, if you simply divorce your wife, you may be able to reduce the
total divorce settlement by up to 50% of the money that you drain into
your airplane. Perhaps you can give the house to your wife, and keep
the plane outright, and live in the plane for a while.

Divorcing my wife is out of the question. I'm far too fond of her.
Fonder than I am of aviation.

Rob