Gloom

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
oups.com...
The cost of money, or of having it tied up, and the cost of storage seem
to
be the two biggest problems for the owners personally known to me.
OTOH,
fuel seems to be more of a verbalized annoyance--which converts readily
to a
hamberger (or omelet, depending on the time of day) flight to an airport
with less expensive fuel.

You will notice one thing about successful aircraft owners. (By
"successful" I mean that they actually FLY their planes often.)

They do not consider the cost of ownership in their equations at all.
They have factored the expense of purchasing, storing, and maintaining
their aircraft into their budgets, after which they regard it as a
zero-cost affair, only considering fuel as the cost of flying.

It's a form of mental illness, really, but it works.

:-)

The LEAST successful owners I know are the ones who run spreadsheets
on the "cost of money" and fixed expenses, because they are the ones
who constantly fret over the fact that they could have bought a nice
vacation home at the lake, rather than an airplane.

Which is the reason you'll hear so many of us bitching about the
increased cost of fuel so loudly. It's the only expense we really
"see" anymore.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Taking the items in reverse order:

I don't personnally know any of the owners who fret over the other toys they
could have bought instead of an aircraft, so I won't attempt to address that
issue. However, the spreadsheet issue is an interesting one--especially
with regard to new aircraft and, to a slightly lesser extent, late model
used aircraft. It is outside my areas of expertise, but was a large part of
the reason for my vociferous critisism of Mr. Bass at Piper. However, an
initial spreadsheet analysis is a traditional way to make a decision to own
or rent--despite the obvious problems.

Getting back to the questions of fixed vs variable costs, there a lot of
people who use their airplanes for business, or to facilitate business, and
who choose to do so from after tax income--usually because itis less than
half of their flying. That obviously does not pass a management class
analysis; but it often works better than concepts that do. The important
point is that, for them, the fixed costs were fully justified and amortized
by the business use--and only the variable costs remain. It is also a much
easier way to deal with the need for proficiency and currency.

Yes, I know that means most of the owners do not meet your definition of
successfull; but, despite their ****ing and moaning, their presence does
continue to further the cause of GA.

Peter

On Jun 18, 11:13 pm, Jay Honeck wrote:

You will notice one thing about successful aircraft owners. (By
"successful" I mean that they actually FLY their planes often.)

They do not consider the cost of ownership in their equations at all.
They have factored the expense of purchasing, storing, and maintaining
their aircraft into their budgets, after which they regard it as a
zero-cost affair, only considering fuel as the cost of flying.

It's a form of mental illness, really, but it works.

I fly because of the joy it brings me. I will continue to fly when I
can, and consider myself very blessed to have been able to fly 3000
hours in the last 30 years. I will not let gas prices steal my joy. I
will not let fretting about the future of GA steal my joy. I will
consider each hour I fly in the future to be even more precious than
the last because of its increasing scarcity. I refuse to participate
in the gloom.
--
Gene Seibel
Tales of Flight - http://pad39a.com/gene/tales.html
Because I fly, I envy no one.

Larry Dighera wrote:

On Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:06:38 -0700, Jay Honeck
wrote in . com:

[Report of low attendance at the Cherokee Pilots Association national
fly-in snipped]

Thanks for the data point.

As I recall, the cost of fuel makes up the major portion of the cost
of aircraft ownership and operation.

You've never owned an airplane, have you?



As long as the government continues to subsidize profiteering oil
companies, and fails to impose a windfall profits tax and/or price
controls as was done in the '70s, the cost of living will increase in
proportion to the obscene oilmens' profits. And don't forget, that
our government is letting our currency, the US dollar, continue its
plunge in value, thus further reducing the purchasing power of US
workers. So while baby Bush and the sheiks hug and kiss, the American
populace loses ground on the financial front, and Halliburton moves to
Dubai to escape taxation on their non-competitive government contract
profits.

Umm, sorry to break up your little tantrum with facts, but Halliburton is
moving to Dubai because that is where the oil is today. That's exactly
what happened when the oil companies moved their headquarters to Texas.
Profits made from U.S. of America will still be taxed by U.S. of America,
just like any other company in the world. What specific companies would
you like to see contracted instead?




Welcome to the land of government of the people, by the corporations,
and for the corporations. And thanks for voting for that sniveling
nepotistic who is squandering our hard earned tax dollars at the rate
of $3 billion a week on a pointless war while irrationally supporting
the right of a zygote to Constitutional protections,

irrationally
obstructing embryonic stem cell research

Relax. There are bans on stem cell research. There are only bans on
using federal tax dollars, which a few phrases above you were claiming
were being spent too often anyway.

Taylor Hughes wrote:

Larry Dighera wrote:

On Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:06:38 -0700, Jay Honeck
wrote in . com:

[Report of low attendance at the Cherokee Pilots Association national
fly-in snipped]

Thanks for the data point.

As I recall, the cost of fuel makes up the major portion of the cost
of aircraft ownership and operation.

You've never owned an airplane, have you?



As long as the government continues to subsidize profiteering oil
companies, and fails to impose a windfall profits tax and/or price
controls as was done in the '70s, the cost of living will increase in
proportion to the obscene oilmens' profits. And don't forget, that
our government is letting our currency, the US dollar, continue its
plunge in value, thus further reducing the purchasing power of US
workers. So while baby Bush and the sheiks hug and kiss, the American
populace loses ground on the financial front, and Halliburton moves to
Dubai to escape taxation on their non-competitive government contract
profits.

Umm, sorry to break up your little tantrum with facts, but Halliburton is
moving to Dubai because that is where the oil is today. That's exactly
what happened when the oil companies moved their headquarters to Texas.
Profits made from U.S. of America will still be taxed by U.S. of America,
just like any other company in the world. What specific companies would
you like to see contracted instead?



Welcome to the land of government of the people, by the corporations,
and for the corporations. And thanks for voting for that sniveling
nepotistic who is squandering our hard earned tax dollars at the rate
of $3 billion a week on a pointless war while irrationally supporting
the right of a zygote to Constitutional protections,

irrationally
obstructing embryonic stem cell research

Relax. There are bans on stem cell research.

Oops, should read, there are no bans on doing stem cell research, doh!


There are only bans on
using federal tax dollars, which a few phrases above you were claiming
were being spent too often anyway.

On Jun 17, 8:06 pm, Jay Honeck wrote:
Mary and I just returned from a wonderful weekend at the Cherokee
Pilots Association national fly-in, held annually in Osage Beach,
Missouri, at the Tan-Tar-A resort. We had a wonderful time, catching
up with old friends, and making new ones. We bought some cool stuff
from the vendors, gave away some hotel certificates to CPA members,
and I enjoyed a marvelous Father's Day flight home.

Appreciate the report Jay. I had intended to go to last year's
shindig, but by the time I got around to doing anything about it there
wasn't any more room at Tan-Tar-A for the fly-in (I don't remember the
details, but basically what I do remember, was that I was "too late"
and was kicking myself).

This year, I didn't hear about it until I happened by one of your
posts, and then realized that it was father's day weekend. It wasn't
always on father's day weekend was it? I certainly don't remember
that from previous years. For some reason I thought it was later in
June. Combine that with the fact that I have a pre-planned family get
away at the the Lake of the Ozark's the following weekend and it just
didn't "fit" for me this year.

To further your gloom, it was also the WACO fly-in at 1H0 this
weekend. And while there were plenty of airplanes on the ramp, it was
not up to previous years. I haven't gotten the details from the
regulars on the field yet as to if the overall numbers were up/down,
but I suspect they were down.

While fuel costs have certainly curtailed some flying, I find my
biggest issue with planning a long cross country is the local
attractions/transportation. I've gone to Tan-Tar-A for a weekend trip
before with the wife and kid and we had a blast, but we were basically
locked into the resort. A one day car rental was over $80 (before
taxes) from the front desk, and $50-60 at the FBO. That quickly
destroy's the value proposition versus driving 3 hours.

Basically I "need" someone at the remote destination, or it has to be
a major city with decent car rentals (and no exhorbitant FBO
surcharges!) in which case I likely have to pay an exhorbitant price
for fuel.

As to OSH, I'll be there this year, (and hope to make it to the R.A.P
party for the first time), but it looks like I'm driving as my other
partners are getting their chance to fly the trip this year.

Brian

I was a P28 owner that did not attend the CPA event this year, but as
many others have stated, it was because of a scheduling conflict
(wedding). There's always been something in June.

My overall opinion is that piston airplanes are just too expensive for
what they are capable of doing, including the Cirrus and Columbia
portfolio. $500,000 for a single engine airplane? $500,000???
$75,000 for a LSA that has government limitations that have nothing to
do with performance capabilities.

So - most of us opt for used airplanes, only to find out that over a
period of several years it's easy - nay - mandatory, to spend much
more on maintenance than the airplane is worth.

As a result, a lot of people who fly used airplanes are just sort of
scraping along to keep it going. All it takes is one expensive event
to cause a sale. Often it's an AD. The Arrow series had a $3000 SB
this year for many of us. Hidden damage shows up when fixing minor
problems, e.g. the poor guy who discovered spar corrosion that totaled
the plane. I know of one flier at KGYY who stopped flying when his
hangar rent went up $50 a month - that was his limit.

Having stated a problem, I have to admit that I haven't a clue how to
make a new airplane for $100,000 that carries 4 people in relaxed
comfort with reasonable noise levels at 200 knots. I assume that the
certification and litigation costs are major contributors to the
problem, but even a high end kit plane with first class avionics can
easily set you back $150K. Another part of the problem is that the
manufacturing volume isn't there to spread development costs over
millions of units.

On Jun 17, 9:06 pm, Jay Honeck wrote:

Get out there and FLY, people!

I appreciate learning info like this,even though I don't really want
to know it.

I love flying, but unless I ever come into some kind of mad money, I
will always be a club pilot and/or renter, with its huge cost
advantages but huge drawbacks in the areas of availability and control
of your own aviation destiny.

I am flying to Oshkosh for the first time this year but I have a
sneaking suspicion in the back of my mind that given the way aviation
is going, Oshkosh 2007 may be my last hurrah of aviation. On the one
hand I hope not, but besides accumulating more ratings I don't see
much to drive to me to keep flying given the expense and the high
percentage of my flying time and budget that goes to staying
proficient to allow me to take hypothetical trips that never seem to
happen for whatever reason -- weather, schedule, etc. In six years of
flying I have taken exaclty two long distance x-country trips where I
got full utility and enjoyment out of my years of investment, and they
were great. Far more have been cancelled. Oshkosh will be the
third. Maybe I should look more closely at light sport. Maybe the
IFR rating isn't worth the trouble and money I went through to get it
and what it takes to keep it current. I was thinking of going for my
commercial but I have to ask why? To become an instructor in my
retirement from the cube farm, but will there be anyone left to
instruct by then?

AOPA may be doing us a service by warning about the doom coming with
the FAA's next authorization bill, but I suspect I'm not the only one
who finds that the AOPA propaganda is more effective at being
discouraging than galvanizing action. Not trying to start a poltical
flame war but it's clear we have an administration that listens to no
one, and will do whatever it wants to no matter the evidence, public
opinion and consequences, or alternatively you could say they stand by
what they think is right come what may, but either way it's clear that
what they are bent on doing is destroying GA with this year's FAA
"reforms" and their drive to privatize.

I do think clubs will be the salvation of aviation, or at least the
life support system that keeps it limping along for several more
years. It's really the only way the "everyman" that you refer to can
afford to keep flying.

On Jun 17, 8:06 pm, Jay Honeck wrote:
The general consensus, after too many gin & tonics, was that the entry-
level Cherokee owners were the owners who were barely able to afford
ownership in the first place, and have been most devastated by the
recent 25% increase in fuel costs. In other words, they were the
"canaries in the bird cage", and have died first and quickest, to
serve as a warning to us all...

I've been accused of being a troll over this, but didn't i mention
something about aircraft prices being out of reach of the general
public, and that would be a major factor in the decline of GA?

Just how much is an "entry level" cherokee?

dont give me just a dollar price, give me a percentage of a persons
average income versus 20 years ago.

Just how much is an "entry level" cherokee?

dont give me just a dollar price, give me a percentage of a persons
average income versus 20 years ago.

I don't know an average person's income versus 20 years ago, but I do
know that you can buy a nice Cherokee 140 for about $30K.

That's less than my Ford Econoline van cost new, so I don't think it's
an outrageous expense nowadays.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On 6/19/2007 12:17:16 AM, Jay Honeck wrote:

I don't know an average person's income versus 20 years ago, but I do
know that you can buy a nice Cherokee 140 for about $30K.

As you know, but for the benefit of those who don't own, operating costs for
older aircraft become more of a barrier than acquisition cost.

--
Peter