What to look for - bringing an aircraft back to life

("Louis L. Perley III" wrote)
snips
I seek the collective wisdom of the group. As I have mentioned previously,
I
was the co-owner of a 1965 Piper Aztec, due to various conflicts in the
partnership, the plane has not flown in two and a half years (approx.)
most
of this time it has been in a heated hangar, but has been out in the
weather
since April. I have just this past week convinced my partners that it was
doing no one any good to have it just sit there, and they finally let me
buy
them out.

The aircraft and I are based
at Jeffco (KBJC) in Broomfield, CO. I am really looking forward to taking
a
flight in this aircraft, as I've owned half of it for 2.5 years and have
never flown it. I've seen those in the group who have been, or are in
partnerships, however the whole mess surrounding this one has made such an
idea in the future somewhat unpalatable.


I missed the messy partnership story. Could you provide a brief recap -
hitting the high ...or low points? Thanks.

Also, you convinced your (plural) partner(s) to sell. And (they) agreed. -
yet you owned half of the plane? How many partners were there? Did you end
up getting stuck for half of the fixed costs?

Hope *your* (singular) plane gets flying again - soon!


Montblack

The aircraft and I are based
at Jeffco (KBJC) in Broomfield, CO. I am really looking forward to
taking
a
flight in this aircraft, as I've owned half of it for 2.5 years and have
never flown it. I've seen those in the group who have been, or are in
partnerships, however the whole mess surrounding this one has made such
an
idea in the future somewhat unpalatable.


I missed the messy partnership story. Could you provide a brief recap -
hitting the high ...or low points? Thanks.

Also, you convinced your (plural) partner(s) to sell. And (they) agreed. -
yet you owned half of the plane? How many partners were there? Did you end
up getting stuck for half of the fixed costs?


Well, the story, even in short form is pretty long because of the time
and people involved, but the short version that explains one of the main
reasons is as follows. I setup a company for the sole purpose of owning the
aircraft. I was a 50% shareholder, with the remaining 50% divided up equally
among three other parties. One party worked for a Part 135 operation, the
other was a multi-engine-Instructor rated pilot and A&P, with the third
being my former instructor for my PP-ASEL. From a corporation standpoint, I
was the president and secretary (since I knew what to do with the paperwork,
etc.) with the other three being the VP of operations, VP of maintenance,
and VP of instruction respectively. Overall I thought that together we put
together a pretty good mix and had all our bases covered. The problem came
when the VP of maintenance started the annual. It took forever, with many
promises as to when it would get done and it never getting finished. My
problem was that since the company was more or less 50/50 (did I mention the
fact that the VP of maintenance is married to the VP of instruction, who is
the daughter of the VP of operations?). Anytime I'd try and get something
done, it was countered by the other three (usually with promises of "You
don't need to do that, we'll get the annual done"). After trying this for
two years, I finally got fed up and had a maintenance shop on the field
begin an annual. In my mind, it was coming out of my pocket, so it shouldn't
have been an issue, and all would benefit. It was not viewed this way by the
other three who called the mechanic and ordered him to stop immediately. The
shop didn't want to get involved and so stopped working on the airplane. I
called a meeting to discuss and was again promised two weeks to complete the
aircraft by the VP of maintenance. Well, two weeks passed and while there
was more work done on the airplane, it wasn't completed (and to this day
hasn't been), and it took the rest of the summer to work on getting
everyone's agreement to buy them out. There is alot of detail missing from
this brief explanation, but if anything is to be learned by others from my
experience, is to never leave a partnership/corporation in a state where
there could be a deadlock. I always figured that to get something done, I'd
only need to have one other person agree with me and we'd have the vote to
do so. Or conversely I figured if the other three were in agreement, that I
should concede based on their additional experience compared to my own in
such things. Well, such is life and now I know better.

--
Louis L. Perley III
N46000 - C152
N370 - PA-23-250