Blu wrote:.... In this day and age, the second part of my plan takes a lot of work and commitment, doesn't just happen.

I think both of those things take a lot of work and commitment, one is just based on logic and facts though.

EZFlap wrote:

TomKatz wrote:
Once you own a plane, you don't care what you drive.

That is the very best aviation bumper sticker I've ever heard. Would you mind terribly if I took that idea and ran with it?

Describes me too. Our cars are a 1999 and a 2004. Though we might have to replace the scoobydoo outback - after 165k miles the trannie is acting up a little. Be looking at a 2009 or 2010 bargain wagon of some sort. For cash.

I spent a fair amount of my post college years being stupid with my finances. Amazing what you can afford when you aren't paying out monthly interest for anything.

For what it's worth, not everyone is obvious with their inheritance or trust. While I have encountered plenty of 'typical' trust fund babies like the earlier poster there are plenty out there using it as it ought to be used IMHO: for financial security and for their kids' future. Of course that might free up some income from their chosen profession for a few well chosen toys here and there but like the millionaire next door in the best selling book most you would never recognize. Except for their nice Supercub or 185 at the airport.

I financed a portion of my plane to make it happen a little sooner than it would have otherwise but I had a plan to rapidly accelerate the payoff using other money and I got rid of the loan at the earliest opportunity.

By the way this reminds me of something a buddy said to me a while ago. We were talking about what we would want "next" and he remarked: "For now I have all the plane I can't afford."

I financed 2/3 of mine and paid too much for it when I did it. Luckily I can write most of it off as a business expense. My thinking at the time (2005) was this; 1) Plane values are going up every year 2) Every time I check out a rental plane, it's 2 quarts low, been metal to metal on brakes, has to be back by tomorow. 3) I can pay it off in two years. 4) I want it now!

Here's what happened: 1) Plane values went down 2) All airplanes break down in two horse towns. 3) I spent $70,000 cash I intended to pay off the loan with the next 2 years adopting two kids. 4) I'm not proud of financing it but I don't regret it, I haven't died in a rental, I've had a lot of fun, I pay it off next Fall, and I've buried a lot of guys that didn't take it with them nor did they ever get around to their dreams while they were here.

Hats off to those that paid cash, without a business I would have done the same. All my personal assets are free and clear including my house. I don't necessarily recommend the finance route, but if you do, talk to the guy that mentioned 3%. I thought 5% was a good rate.

This is a little off topic but.. I think for people under 45 now is the time to borrow all u can on fixed rate loans.

I think the US's window to keep borrowing from china at low rates is drawing to a close. I think that will lead to higher inflation and higher interest rates within 6 years. The last thing u want in a high inflation time is lots of cash in the bank loosening its purchasing power each day. You want lots of loans at fixed rates (loans on income producering rental property not airplanes ) that you then pay off with cheap dollars in the future.

I could be wrong, I often am! But I've bought 5 homes in the last 2 months and plan to keep buying as fast as I can till the bank quits lending.

Check back in a couple years, I'll either have that third airplane and be smiling or living in section 8 housing playing flight simulates.

We understand your point Blu, but let's not derail a great thread with side topics. I'm looking forward to more responses.

Thankfully I grew up in an aviation family, at least my dad is anyway. So when I showed interest in flying he helped me through my PPL and to keep me from stealing his 182 or continuing to rent a 152 he picked up a 172 so I could get my instrument rating and build some hours. Sold the 172 a month after I got my instrument rating.

I found myself airplaneless and in college. Luckily I had a NROTC scholarship which paid for school and I worked during the summer as a lineman, an archaeologist, or general labor on a ranch to pay for other stuff. In his wanderings my dad found a Cessna 140 that had just come out of an estate sale and was last annualed shorty before the Cuban Missile Crisis. Since I had a wad of cash sitting around that was originally for school, which I no longer had to pay for, I bought the project and spent three years fixing it or paying someone to help me fix it. Going the project route really helped because as money came in I could put that towards parts and repairs.

I fly Navy H60s during the week to support my 140 flying on the weekend. Most friends can't believe I own a plane, let alone one built just after "The Big War." I do own a few motorcycles, which to date are the only vehicles I've ever financed and that was so I could start building a credit rating. I don't buy $8,000 pilot watches, own a boat, or drive a corvette. I choose my hobbies carefully and thankfully have a wife that doesn't have any expensive hobbies like myself.

No $8,000 pilot watches? So this isn't you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-tbWKkJKZU

porterjet wrote:No $8,000 pilot watches? So this isn't you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-tbWKkJKZU

Thats some good stuff right there. Hey Southernboy is that you?

porterjet wrote:No $8,000 pilot watches? So this isn't you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-tbWKkJKZU

I WISH that was me . . . . tough decision, 'cause I don't care how much money you make, I don't think any one of us could afford the blonde . . . .

My journey to poverty and plane ownership was roundabout, like many others here. I started flying lessons within weeks after separating from active duty in 1982 at the AF Aero Club at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH. My wife came on active duty as a nurse just before I got out, so we had some income, but flying lessons almost put us in the poorhouse. I was going to school full time, and she was supporting my flying habit (the beginning of a trend. . .). I tore my ACL before my check ride, so it was three years before I finished my license - back then it was a minimum of 18 months to rehab from an ACL reconstruction - nowadays they're back at full strength in less than 6 months . . .
#1 son came along in '86 and that pretty much put an end to my flying for a while.

I came back on active duty in '85, and was assigned to Elmendorf, AK in '92, where I started flying again. It became apparent that Alaska is a demanding place to fly, and if you're going to be safe, you've got to fly a lot. #2 son came along in '93, so flying was put off again.

Fast forward to 2008, and I ran a cross an opportunity to join/form a flying club with two Citabrias for what I thought was a reasonable amount. It got me into flying again, and after three years of serving as a Club Officer, I decided I wanted to go this alone. I chose to finance a portion of the plane because I can, and my "investments" are doing better than the 5% I have to pay for the 6 yr loan (which is on schedule to be paid off in 4). Now my wife owns her own company that keeps me in parts and avgas . . . . and boat gas. . . . . and RV gas . . . Maybe I should buy stock in BP/Exxon/Conoco . . .

Like me your WIFE stock is probably undervalued.

dirtstrip wrote:Like me your WIFE stock is probably undervalued.

It goes without saying! Of course, #2 son is starting college in the spring, soooo, the upgrade train is going to slow down. Gotta get that extended baggage mod in . . .

Well this became a "how I done it" thread.....so

.... Mine is pretty straight forward. Bought my first airplane in 1984. A single seat, open cockpit....S-1-C homebuilt Pitts with 49 hours total time on it. Paid $7,500.00 cash for it. Flew it 600 hours over a period of 12 years. Cheap to own, cheap to fly.....a barrel of fun and spent next to nothing on it. Sold it for double what I paid for it.

Took the money in 1996, added $20,000.00 of cash to it and bought a nice homebuilt Skybolt with 700 hrs. total time on the airframe and an IO-540: 260 H.P. engine. Now I could share the aerobatics and fun with another person. Flew the Skybolt another 400+ hours over the next 6 years. Decided in 2002 that I wanted to make a 15,000 mile around the nation, flying/camping trip with my 16 year old son in 2003. Wanted a C-180 but the nice ones were $120 to $130,000.00. Too rich for my blood. The wife suggested that we buy a C-180, fly it around the nation and then sell it. Good idea. But instead I found a beautiful 1976 Maule M-5-210-C which had really been babied and only had 270 hours on a Gold Medallion Continental Factory, Zero time engine. Paid $54,000,00 for it. Took the money out of savings to make the purchase. Kept the Skybolt and Maule both for several months. Sold the Skybolt at OshKosh cheap.. About 5% more than I paid for it. Put the money from the Skybolt sale back in the bank.

Have had the Maule for over 9 years. Flown it 700+ hours. It has been beat around a bit in the bush....no longer a hangar queen. But that is what I bought it for. Love the airplane and consider it a poor man's C-180...."a Jeep with wings." Sadly it is now worth about 25% LESS than I paid for it....if that much. It will probably be mine for the rest of my life.

Our lifestyle was financed by a 35 year airline career. Guess you could say we got our money the old fashioned way. WE WORKED FOR IT and I was blessed with a solid career. We chose to live below our means: are debt free, live in a nice but modest home, own a few rural acres, travel the world and enjoy rather entry level toys. A new Lincoln in 1985 and a new BMW in 2000 being the most extravagant splurges. The Linclon is in storage with 257,000 miles on it and I still zip about in the 11 year old Z-3 with 117,000 miles. The wife drives a 2002 Jeep Liberty with 155,000 miles, our son(in his last year of Law School) drives a 1999 Jeep Cherokee with 172,000 miles, I roam around our acreage in a 1987 Dakota pickup which is beat all to hell and has 200,000 miles on it. A new 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee will soon relegate the Liberty to backup duty.

My wife asked me a couple years ago how much money we had spent on airplanes over the prior 25 years. Back of the envelope came up with around $250,000.00. That was kind of shocking. But I guess 10 grand a year for 25(now 27 years) isn't too awful all things considered. Thank God my wife has always supported my dreams and shared them with me.

Enough already.

Bob

Dang nabbit

z3skybolt wrote:....our son(in his last year of Law School) drives a 1999 Jeep Cherokee with 172,000 miles,
My wife asked me a couple years ago how much money we had spent on airplanes over the prior 25 years. Back of the envelope came up with around $250,000.00. That was kind of shocking. But I guess 10 grand a year for 25(now 27 years) isn't too awful all things considered. Thank God my wife has always supported my dreams and shared them with me.

Enough already.

Bob

My sympathies to your son on his choice of career Bob. It's a noble profession certainly but won't pay the bills any more unless he's at Harvard and want's to go the New York City path and work 4000-5000 hours a year. Tough life. I've got four cousins in the business. Fifty percent of them have done as well or better than I did as a non PE engineer. Of course one of them is so damn rich he changed over to the Democrat party. Harvard grad. Estate Planning.

On the cost of flying, don't work that computation on rent and groceries; It'll scare you.

Emory Bored wrote:On the cost of flying, don't work that computation on rent and groceries; It'll scare you.

Maybe I'm dumb, and nuts.... OK, I am, but.

I never figure cost per hour of the airplane by breaking down the expenses. Anymore than I do my pickup truck, ATV's, my house, or anything else. It costs X amount to fill up the gas tank, X amount for insurance, X amount in the shop for annual maintenance, and off ad nauseum. All part of day to day living. I work hard and smart and make enough $$$ to cover it all. If I don't, I either cut back the outflow of cash, or work harder to bring more in.

Gump

Lets see if I can figure this right??
Kind of like Gump.
Have had at least one aircraft and up to 11 any 1 year in the last 31 years, Damn I'm gettin old!!
50K a year, lets see AW SH(*^&*%^%(^T, my calculator does'nt go there!!
Course neither did some of my exwives??
Had fun, still speak to most of the ex's,(Except for 1) don't owe anyone any money, Still have to work, but hell what else would I be doin??
GT

Well, I do not own anything outright.... It is a family deal.... And after reading all of these posts, I figure I must be the luckiest guy here....

First airplane, our Super Cub bought in 1965 by my grandfather for 1 season of crop dusting... Dad got it in 68, and now it is registered in the family trust of which I am 1/4 owner....

Second airplane, our Pacer. Bought in 81 because my brother and I no longer could sit side by side in the baggage compartment of the cub. Dad said that the first 170B, 175 or Pacer that he came across for $4500.00 was going to be our family airplane. Was a 150 horse Tri-Pacer, now a 180 horse tail-draggen highly modified machine. Same deal as the cub, family trust....

Third airplane... PA-22... Bought it about 15 years ago for 10 grand. It is ugly and could use a complete restoration. But, we use it exclusively for R&D work for the Pacers. Has not flown in about 5 years now because we took the wings off to use on the Pacer that we got the 0-360 constant speed conversion STC on. Currently we have the top cabin fabric torn off to install our skylight STC.... Also in the trust....

Fourth airplane (yes I said 4)... PA-28-180..... Customer of ours landed at our airfield with the oil drain plug gone... He could not afford to overhaul the engine so he offered it to us for 18K.... Could not pass that up since we had been looking for one to possibly use for test flying the tail-dragger STC that we have been working on. Have about 26K into it now including fixing the engine twice (long story but it involved a re-ground cam shaft) and completely redoing the interior... In the trust again....

My parents have always drove used cars and did very little on credit. They have everything paid off, no mortgage, no car payments.... Mom makes good money working as a lab teck at the hospital and she likes airplanes. Is a pilot herself, met my dad taking pilot lessons. The property that they live on has been built up over the last 40 years and is where our family aircraft business is based.... If they cant afford what they need, they save up for it until they can.

Myself, I have a mortgage. Just paid off the family car, my personal Mazda pick up has over 300K on it.... Have 3 kids all 10 and under.... There is no way I could ever afford to buy an airplane on my own.... I feel very blessed to have the family that I have and the ability to do what I do. I enjoy being an A&P. I love working on these things and look forward to every project that comes through my shop doors. I have had the privilege to talk to a lot of great people over the phone doing our STC business....It is a great life...

Brian.

In 1985 we were free and clear of debt so I was able to start taking flying lessons. A 1/5th share in a Cherokee 180 at our local field was up for sale for $1500. I bought the share and finished my lessons in it. That same year my instructor showed me an information packet he had on a Kitfox.

My share in the Cherokee turned out to be a great investment. Two of the five partners didn't fly it at all but continued to pay their share of the fixed costs. The engine was near needing an overhaul and our partnership had the money in the engine Kitty for an overhaul to zero time.

There were a couple cubs at our field that I always liked and wanted one. I checked on the price of one and knew I could never afford that. Then in 1994 Kitfox had an introductory price offer of $15000 for a complet Classic IV kit. Engine, instruments the whole nine yards. I could afford to make payments on a credit union loan to buy the Kitfox Kit.

My plan was to keep my intrest in the Cherokee while I built my kitfox. Then the Boss from hell was transfered to my office. I was lucky enough to get a transfer out of there and lucky that one owner in our Cherokee partnership had a long range plan to eventually own 100%. We each now owned 1/3rd interest and I sold him my 1/3rd for $6000. That was a great deal for both of us.

We moved from NE oregon to Central Oregon...Poverty with a view. Equilivent homes were 50% more money. We had to take out a home mortgauge. The home loan rate was less than my credit union Kitfox loan so we took out a home loan for enough to pay off the Kitfox and buy a new house.

I ran my original purchase costs through this inflation calculator http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl and found the value of that $15000 Kitfox kit in 1994 is $22,964 in today's dollars and my original $1500 1/5th Cherokee 180 share in 1985 is $3163 today. One might find a deal like that on a partnership but not on a new kitfox kit complete with engine and insturments.

I do all my own maintenance and don't have to pay the price of certified parts. I keep my kitfox at home and trailer it to and from the airport for each flight. It's a lot of monkey motion but it's the only way flying is affordable for me. I think it would be pretty difficult to find the same kind of deals on airplanes today. Shur you can find great deals on older tube and fablic tail draggers but I still couldn't afford the cost to own or even rent a hangar or pay for maintenance today.

I learned my lesson about paying cash when I was about 7. Went to a Waffle house, my uncle gave me $5 to buy breakfast. Being a normal 7 year old boy, I wanted a lot of food. I ended up ordering about $5.35. My uncle wouldn't give me anymore money. Had to "sell" a biscuit to my sister to get the extra change.... Pretty traumatic for a seven year old, but I learned my lesson. It's nice knowing I could walk away from everything, knowing I'd take a loss, but have nobody out hunting me down because I owe them money. Or just knowing that if I wanted to, I could walk away from my job, and be alright for awhile. I have a credit card, but it's paid off every month and there are some things it does for me that a Debit card won't do.

As for the plane, I am close to getting one I think. Right now, my criteria is an IFR capable for less than $30k. (Anyone have a flyable Husky in that price range? ) Asking a lot, but it can be done. My employer says that a plane is a big hole in the sky you throw money at and he has several Jet Rangers.... I'm looking for the slightly smaller hole. I have all sorts of ratings, but am on the fixed pitch/gear airplane for the ease and cost of maintenance. I had other faster more complex planes on my list a while ago... I keep changing my mind every 6 months what plane I want, so maybe it's a good thing I don't quite have the money for one yet. I'm an A&P so I could fix one up, but where I live here in AK, I don't have access to a hangar for long term work....

The conversion of a 172 to a tailwheel would be nice (I actually got my TW in a 152)., but the cost of 172's tends to be higher, then add the conversion costs. And upgrading the panel, because chances are slim to get an old 172 with a decent panel. So, right now I'm thinking a Cherokee. I could buy some of the 140/160s but I think a 180 would fit me better.

But as for the thread, cash, all the way. The only loan I ever see doing is a house, and that because I don't know how I'd ever do one without a loan.