Philosophical question on owning & IFR rating

My cost point may be lower than you would expect simply because my club
is such a good deal the cost has to be pretty low to justify owning IMO.

This is fallacy #1.

You will never, ever, ever, ever, EVER financially justify owning your own
plane.

But it's still worth it.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

You will never, ever, ever, ever, EVER financially justify owning your own
plane.

But it's still worth it.


Amen!
www.Rosspilot.com

Jay, Jay, Jay, (sigh)

As a midwesterner, a people not completely devoid of common sense, you are
obviously not using the right type of economics.

The following is a list of things that are much more expensive than owning
an aircraft, and can often be avoided by owning one. Of course, just like
many modern pharmaceuticals, the side affects can, in rare cases, actually
cause some of the things you were trying to avoid (or worse).

Here it is:

Divorce
Professional Counseling
Anti-Depressants
Heart Attacks
Lawyer to defend you for throttling the guy at the security checkpoint
Other stupid things you might have bought in a midlife crisis
Sailboat
Business investments that loses even more money
Gambling
Alcohol
Girlfriend
Death due to boring life
Quitting high paying profession due to boredom (ask a radiologist or similar
doctor)
Lost business opportunities due to lack of face time

and for some of the serious money earners out the
Lost time using airlines instead of having personal aircraft

I am sure there are other examples, which, if you can just keep your common
sense at bay a little, you can come up with.


Besides, it runs a close second to sex.







"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:WhRXc.72676$Fg5.60045@attbi_s53...
My cost point may be lower than you would expect simply because my club
is such a good deal the cost has to be pretty low to justify owning IMO.

This is fallacy #1.

You will never, ever, ever, ever, EVER financially justify owning your own
plane.

But it's still worth it.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

I am sure there are other examples, which, if you can just keep your
common
sense at bay a little, you can come up with.

Oh, I can think of dozens (hundreds?) of reasons to own your own plane. I
would not want to go back to renting.

And, in our case, a plane is an excellent business tool. We use it to visit
FBOs all over the country, delivering promotional displays and schmoozing
the FBOs about our aviation theme hotel.

But it simply can't be justified purely financially. Renting will always be
cheaper, simply because there is no risk of paying for anything beyond the
per-hour fee.

Now, of course, the original poster is comparing owning to a flying CLUB,
which (usually) does have SOME financial risk in the event of an early
engine rebuild, or something similar. In that case, owning will still be
more expensive, but perhaps not quite as dramatically so, by comparison.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote:
And, in our case, a plane is an excellent business tool. We use it to
visit
FBOs all over the country, delivering promotional displays and
schmoozing
the FBOs about our aviation theme hotel.

But it simply can't be justified purely financially. Renting will
always be
cheaper, simply because there is no risk of paying for anything beyond
the
per-hour fee.

Well, then, what's the overall cost/benefit picture? If you were a
renter, would you get the same business utility that you get from owning
the -235?

I don't have hard numbers for this, but I know having my my airplane
contributes to the success of my business. There have been occasions
when I needed it on short notice; when it was available but the club
planes might not have been. What's that worth?
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

Well, Jay seemed to miss my subtle sarcasm, but it was subtle for a reason.

There are almost always cheaper solutions than plane ownership, unless you
really make a lot of money (high hourly time value can warp economics
quickly). There are also business flyers with missions that can be cheaper
by owning, but they are even rarer than the high income guys.

There is flexibility that comes with renting, and different flexibility that
comes with ownership, and each end up costing the pilot or traveler time.
Time to figure out how to get somewhere, or time spent on ownership
decisions and tasks. If you were to give me a hypothetical situation on
needing to get somewhere, yet not having a rental available, I could show
you how to use other means for more costs (or less to big cities) in that
one instance, yet still come out ahead overall.

The bottom line for me is that the joy of ownership outweighs the costs, and
I think Jay agrees with me. What he is pointing out though, is that we do
pay some amount for the joy.

When the percieved joy of ownership and its benefits outweighs the well
examined probable costs one should buy an airplane.

For me, renting got boring and disappointing before I even earned my private
certificate. The planes available for rent were not what I wanted to spend
my time in. A more tempered soul would have gone a more traditional route,
but I bought a brand new plane that brought me the enjoyment of flying I
yearned for. I felt guilty, and even foolish at times, but overall I did
the right thing.

Why should I spend money and time working for ratings and not enjoying it
when I am really doing the whole thing for enjoyment anyway? I was spending
5k a year, flying less than 50 hours, and not having a lot of fun. I bought
a plane, put it on leaseback, and spend a real 10k a year (that is counting
EVERYTHING, except depreciation, which I may have to send back. If I sold
the plane today, it would cost me another 10k loss due to real depreciation
against my principle). I now fly over 100 hours per year, so my hourly rate
is about the same, but I get more fun, and enjoy it more often.

You could say I am losing money in my leaseback, but I see it as a good
value. Not a good investment, a good value.

The pain of renting for me was not the scheduling hassles, and it still is
not a big pain, or I would take my plane off leaseback. I do have the added
benefit that if the plane is really busy, it makes a profit enough that I
could rent any other plane in the fleet and still come out ahead.

You could say I am losing money in my leaseback, but I see it as a good
value. Not a good investment, a good value.

That pretty well sums up aircraft ownership in general.

You can't define it in terms of "investment," but rather in terms of
"value."
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"