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Tide posted:Not looking at anything fancy. PA28 or something like that. Warrior II. Maybe a Mooney. Enjoy, As long as you can keep the ongoing costs, a/c ownership is very rewarding. Especially if you want to bugger off on longer trips
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Nov 5, 2015 23:19
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Dude, you are trading an INCOME SOURCE for a MAJOR LIABILITY that also depreciates. This is a really dumb idea. Don't do this. You can retire on rental house income. Run it by BFC if you don't believe me.
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Nov 5, 2015 23:22
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Colonel K posted:Enjoy, As long as you can keep the ongoing costs, a/c ownership is very rewarding. Especially if you want to bugger off on longer trips I'll admit that part of the desire to buy versus continuing to rent is not feeling like I need to kind of be mindful that other members of the club would want to use the plane as well. I don't want to be the dick that has the plane reserved every drat weekend; the dick part of me says 'sorry gently caress-o's gotta be quicker on the reserve'. Getting permission from the board for overnight trips sucks. Not feeling 'real' ownership of something. There's times I want to go out there and just clean the drat thing, but think "why, someone else is just going to dirty it up", not that it's ever been a problem with anyone not cleaning up after themselves. We have about 80 members, but only about 5 or 6 of us actually fly the club planes (two 1982 C172's). The rest are old codgers that still pay the monthly dues out of habit or own their own planes (while bitching that the club planes aren't getting enough airtime). I'll admit that when someone left the master on one of the planes and killed the battery, the club maintenance officer ordered a new battery and had it installed at no cost to me, it was pretty nice. But I'm also someone that went from dumping untold thousands of dollars into cars (Mustangs), used to fish offshore as often as possible, so, I'm used to expensive money sink hobbies.
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Nov 5, 2015 23:28
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Tide posted:The rental property basically pays for airplane rental costs we incur. So, it's break even, sometimes not. I just hate the feeling that I'm throwing money away on a rental. You should 100% wait the two to three years and just buy one outright.
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Nov 5, 2015 23:35
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I was going to congratulate you for using "better" rather than "cheaper" since it's generally fairly hard to make solo ownership cheaper than renting without putting hours on the plane that most private pilots don't reach. There's a lot of benefits with ownership, but "saving money" often isn't one of them. If you've managed to make that work, kudos.
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Nov 5, 2015 23:45
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e.pilot posted:You should 100% wait the two to three years and just buy one outright. Yeah, this sounds like a much, much better idea.
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Nov 6, 2015 00:19
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Tide posted:
WHAT youre going to sell a rental house that provides the income for an airplane?!?!?!?!?! STOP. THINK. BAD IDEA. Use the rental house income money to pay for the airplane. edit: okay everybody else said that's a dumb idea too. I really really think you can leverage that rental property into some good airplane income man. I hope it works out for you.
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Nov 6, 2015 00:26
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e.pilot posted:You should 100% wait the two to three years and just buy one outright. I saved what I could with a 4 year plan to buy a plane. Then a partnership opportunity came and and now I have a much nicer plane two years early. Partnerships are a great way to cut down the capital and maintenance budget. You probably already have a pool of guys with the flying club.
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Nov 6, 2015 02:46
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dexter6 posted:First time poster in this thread... What is spending a few years as PP? In the meantime, I'm writing a real response.
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Nov 6, 2015 02:51
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Rolo posted:What is spending a few years as PP? In the meantime, I'm writing a real response. Private Pilot, I'm going to guess.
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Nov 6, 2015 03:20
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Screw the haters. Sell the rental, mortgage the primary house Go big or go home baby YOLO xaarman fucked around with this message at 05:08 on Nov 6, 2015 |
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Nov 6, 2015 05:05
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xaarman posted:Screw the haters. Sell the rental, mortgage the primary house Yeah, don't be a little bitch, and go for a light twin at the very least! (NOTE: Don't do this, it's a bad idea)
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Nov 6, 2015 05:11
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Go with a homebuilt float plane! I mean if you are making a bad decision make it the worst decision.
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Nov 6, 2015 05:49
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Surely a home built flying boat would be even worse.
hobbesmaster fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Nov 6, 2015 |
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Nov 6, 2015 05:50
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Two death traps fir the price of one!
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Nov 6, 2015 05:53
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What could go wrong?
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Nov 6, 2015 05:58
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dexter6 posted:My main question - I'm in a stable career now in IT and I'm 31 years old. I'm considering changing careers and becoming a pilot. It seems like I could spend a few years as PP before making the cutover, but is it worth it? OK here's my long post: I love flying. I love my job. I went to work today, flew a jet to the mountains, flew back, got home at noon and I made pretty good money doing it. This rocks. That being said, the last 3 years were the most difficult of my life. I'm 28 and I don't think I could go through it again. I took out a loan to get my instrument, commercial, multi and CFI ratings and it crippled me for the next decade. I'm not trying to dissuade you from a really fun job, just know that the initial struggle is very real. I don't mean deciding not to eat out that night, I mean deciding which bills you're going to not pay that month. If you want to build the flight time without it costing more than the 80k you're already going to spend, you're probably going to have to become a CFI and teach. I was initially excited to be an instructor until I saw what it was like to work full time as one. Teaching as a hobby is fun, doing it solely for income is stressful. Is it stormy outside? Did your student get sick? Did the plane break? Guess what? You probably made roughly 0 dollars today, even though you spent all day at the airport. Busiest time to instruct? Weekends. Say goodbye to those, I literally spent my first year as a commercial pilot without getting a weekend off. Not one. I made about 9k. Losing both all of my income and all of my free time slowly cost me a lot of relationships, and moving for my first real offer sealed the deal on the rest. I've moved again since then. I'm not trying to be a downer at all, and it will be different if you take it slow and have a back-up job for income, but God drat do I shutter sometimes when I think of the process it has been. This career is not something you do when simply seeking change, it will chew you up and spit you the gently caress out if your heart isn't in it completely. Phew, that being said, I have a decade's experience between being a line worker, A&P mechanic, flight-school instructor, private instructor, [huge jet pilot training facility] employee and part 135 jet pilot. Ask me anything pertaining to any of those and I'll happily answer the best I can! I hope you can make it work and enjoy it if you decide to do it. All bullshit aside, I'm excited to go to work tomorrow.
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Nov 6, 2015 07:09
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I'm on my third move for this career now and I've only been getting paid to fly 3 years! If you have a nice cushy IT job, don't make the switch. Get a private pilot license, fly for fun on the weekends. I do think airline flying work is enjoyable, I don't hate going to work, but there has been a lot of work (that I did hate) to get here. Teaching the chinese in the hot desert 118F heat, for example, for a year. Your employer doesn't care about circadian rhythm, later this month I have a 5:45am show time (I'll be awake at 4am for) and then I fly late into the evening 2 days later culminating with a redeye flight. I went from having a stable income to living at home because they pay me peanuts, and it'll be peanuts for awhile yet. I'm working thanksgiving, I'll be working Christmas, my friends get annoyed trying to hang out with me because it's drat near impossible to schedule. There's just so many sacrifices. I wouldn't say that I regret it, but I'm aware of what I've given up and I'm often reminded of it. This still was right for me, but mostly because of the position I was in where things just weren't working out with my old career. If things were going well, I'd have been foolish to have spent what I did and given up what I have to have gotten here. And I spent 3 years absolutely dreading going to the regionals worried that I'd have done all of this for nothing, that I'd absolutely hate it. Well, I'm glad to say I don't hate it, but it's such a night and day difference between when you rent an airplane and go fly with a bunch of friends for fun versus "Well, we're getting a line check, the captain is kind of a douche, and I woke up at 4am today and I'll sleep in some weird city in a lovely hotel tonight." I still enjoy my job and my work. But I wouldn't recommend it, either.
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Nov 6, 2015 09:11
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I'm a private pilot with no commercial aspirations. From talking to friends who are commercial pilots generally speaking they love the flying part of their job and dislike the rest of it. I'm a big fan of grass trips / off field flying. Low landing fees and getting exactly where you need to go / having fun.
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Nov 6, 2015 09:47
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The Slaughter posted:I'm on my third move for this career now and I've only been getting paid to fly 3 years! If you have a nice cushy IT job, don't make the switch. Get a private pilot license, fly for fun on the weekends. I do think airline flying work is enjoyable, I don't hate going to work, but there has been a lot of work (that I did hate) to get here. Adding to what The Slaughter said, also keep in mind that aviation is one of the most fickle industries out there, and most professional pilots are going to end up jobless at least once when the economy does so much as hiccup, and even in a good economy, there's no guarantee that some sociopaths with MBA's (also known as airline management) won't decide to gut an airline to make themselves a bigger bonus at the end of the year. I currently fly for a regional with a parent company that's making record profits, and their management is threatening to park 40% of our airplanes and outsourcing the flying to a non-union airline unless agree to concessions in our contract, which is a pretty good example of the lack of stability in this industry.
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Nov 6, 2015 10:22
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Rolo posted:The loving Truth I agree to all this and more. Yeah it sucks being away from home and missing all the holidays, your friends and all that but sometimes you get killer views like this:  azflyboy posted:I currently fly for a regional with a parent company that's making record profits, and their management is threatening to park 40% of our airplanes and outsourcing the flying to a non-union airline unless agree to concessions in our contract, which is a pretty good example of the lack of stability in this industry. I work for said non-union carrier, and I think it's lovely that AAG is basically forcing you guys to go with this. It happens all too often in the airline biz that Major X threatens Regional A with switching flying to Carrier Z unless they chicken out and decide to cut costs with sometimes dire effects (see Pinnacle, Colgan, etc). So unless you really like working for the lowest bidder and constant whipsawing between companies, don't pursue an airline job.
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Nov 6, 2015 19:57
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I seem to have found the ONLY Dash 8 in existence which the bleed air fed cabin heater worked. My flight from OAK-PDX last night was a goddamn sauna. The purser gleefully said as we were preparing to depart, "And no, it will not cool down at all, your safety cards make great fans, just a suggestion!" I blame azflyboy. Stupid Coug plane 
SeaborneClink fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Nov 6, 2015 |
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Nov 6, 2015 22:20
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wow professional aviation sounds like a clusterfuck. interesting read though. which are more cost efficient: giant airplanes that hold 60+ people, or smaller planes that hold < 60 people (seems like smaller airports use these for short flights to Big Airports) if airports became less hub-oriented and a typical passenger flight was five or six hops on smaller planes, would costs probably rise or fall?
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Nov 7, 2015 00:25
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I'm guessing they'd probably rise. More takeoff/landing cycles on an airframe means more cost in maintenance, more airframes needed to cover more routes (these two are probably mitigated somewhat by the planes being smaller though), and you need to pay more pilots needed for said airframes. Also shorter flights are less fuel-efficient because you burn more gas down low during takeoff/landing, so more time at cruise is preferable. Most importantly, if I had to do six hops on an RJ to go anywhere I would kill myself, which is probably going to result in a lawsuit against the airline, and those cost money to resolve and/or settle.
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Nov 7, 2015 00:37
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Give 'em a break. The Q400 has a quirky air conditioning system:
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Nov 7, 2015 00:41
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dexter6 posted:My main question - I'm in a stable career now in IT and I'm 31 years old. I'm considering changing careers and becoming a pilot. It seems like I could spend a few years as PP before making the cutover, but is it worth it? One of the instructors when I started training in 2005 was a former Highway Patrolman in his late 40s who suffered an injury costing him his job. He worked part time as a biology instructor before becoming a CFI (may have had the prior ratings before, I can't remember). Fully aware he'd be out of work in 10 years (which later became 15), he went through the entire process and was hired by Comair. If you know Comair's story, you know what happens next. Others have provided good first-hand feedback, but let me give you another. A friend of mine was hired in 2007. He flew there for seven years before realizing he wasn't going to get anywhere and bailed on them despite getting a domicile near his hometown. After some time off, he got on with another regional with supposedly better career progression and is now LAX-based. His commute to work the day we both happened to be in San Diego (me on vacation, his layover) involved travel on UPS via Louisville to Seattle, sleeping in a sleeping bag in the cargo hold on the way there, then picking up his trip in SEA that morning. For his efforts, he'll make $22,500 this year (per AirlinePilotCentral); I showed him a Ralph's grocery in downtown San Diego he might be able to use for food and snacks when he laid over there. For dinner, he bought a tub of newly-clearanced potato wedges from the hot food deli for $1.49 (refusing to let me pay for whatever he bought), quipping "Welcome to the life of a regional airline pilot.". In talking his career, his next company move would be back to the East Coast, to a company he could've been hired by from the beginning. He tried his hardest to take the high road when he spoke, but you could see he wasn't happy. In my case, I quit while building time for Commercial. I'd grown to hate time-building and the prospects seemed bleak to me, especially since Our Betters in the government, with a little help from a folk hero, decided I needed an extra 1,300 hours flight time (in spite of having a degree from ERAU). I didn't take the decision lightly and went through personal hell before cutting the cord, both internally and externally, especially a concerned mom who didn't want to see me give up my dream (until she read an article about Great Lakes and was like "Yeah, my bad, you're right."). It's stories like the above friend's, another friend who started flying cargo on beater MD-11s (think Transpac with only HF radios) to get out of the regionals only to enter into a totally different world of bullshit, and posts from fellow goons that make me realize "Yeah, that might not have been a bad move.". In the end, things worked out. I've been brought into a family-run real estate company and I can't loving wait to get some time (  ) to do a BFR. Your mileage may vary.
CBJSprague24 fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Nov 7, 2015 |
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Nov 7, 2015 01:12
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azflyboy posted:I currently fly for a regional with a parent company that's making record profits, and their management is threatening to park 40% of our airplanes and outsourcing the flying to a non-union airline unless agree to concessions in our contract, which is a pretty good example of the lack of stability in this industry. Man I wish they'd stop screwing with My Regional of Choice since I have to take them semi frequently and I don't want to see Goons get screwed out of  AND considering how F'd up the state of aviation is and has been.Speaking of which: azflyboy you still doing SEA->MFR at all? Going down there next Friday and I want you to be my 
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Nov 7, 2015 01:20
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SeaborneClink posted:I blame azflyboy. Stupid Coug plane That airplane is almost 15 years old, and is pretty much the poster child for "Why the hell were we the launch customer for this thing?". Thankfully, it's going back to the leasing company in 2017, and will probably get turned into beer cans at that point. Butt Reactor posted:I work for said non-union carrier, and I think it's lovely that AAG is basically forcing you guys to go with this. It happens all too often in the airline biz that Major X threatens Regional A with switching flying to Carrier Z unless they chicken out and decide to cut costs with sometimes dire effects (see Pinnacle, Colgan, etc). So unless you really like working for the lowest bidder and constant whipsawing between companies, don't pursue an airline job. A lot of the pilots here have basically quit worrying about the jets, since AAG has probably already decided who will fly them, and management is either just trying to get us to work for less (if we're getting the jets), or delay the mass exodus of pilots until after the summer and holiday flying seasons are done if the jets go to you. At this point, there's basically zero trust in our upper management by anyone, since spending $1 billion on a stock buyback and $43 million to name a football stadium while demanding pay cuts didn't exactly go over well. Duke Chin posted:Speaking of which: azflyboy you still doing SEA->MFR at all? Going down there next Friday and I want you to be my I've tried to avoid SEA as much as possible the last few months (the runway construction causes all kinds of fun delays, and is now a month behind schedule), and a lot of the SEA-MFR stuff is done by either SEA or MFR based crews. Most of my flying has been in Washington or Montana the last couple of months for some reason, but I'll occasionally end up somewhere like RDM or EUG.
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Nov 7, 2015 02:02
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CBJSprague24 posted:Others have provided good first-hand feedback, but let me give you another. A friend of mine was hired in 2007. He flew there for seven years before realizing he wasn't going to get anywhere and bailed on them despite getting a domicile near his hometown. After some time off, he got on with another regional with supposedly better career progression and is now LAX-based. His commute to work the day we both happened to be in San Diego (me on vacation, his layover) involved travel on UPS via Louisville to Seattle, sleeping in a sleeping bag in the cargo hold on the way there, then picking up his trip in SEA that morning. For his efforts, he'll make $22,500 this year (per AirlinePilotCentral); I showed him a Ralph's grocery in downtown San Diego he might be able to use for food and snacks when he laid over there. For dinner, he bought a tub of newly-clearanced potato wedges from the hot food deli for $1.49 (refusing to let me pay for whatever he bought), quipping "Welcome to the life of a regional airline pilot.". In talking his career, his next company move would be back to the East Coast, to a company he could've been hired by from the beginning. He tried his hardest to take the high road when he spoke, but you could see he wasn't happy. Worst story I've heard from an Ex-Comair guy. Most went to Go-Jets and upgraded rather quickly. PSA is hiring street captains now and is east coast based. I have my standards and I understand the ego but at the end of the day, being stuck at the regionals for lack of PIC time (which IMO is incredibly retarded) sucks and is curable if you're willing to sell your soul. Which, BTW, JetBlue/Spirit/Frontier will all hire you if you've sold your soul to some poo poo carrier for PIC, I know some acquaintances that did that. --------------- In other news, Island flying is fun  -------------- Also A20 or PFX ? AWSEFT fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Nov 7, 2015 |
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Nov 7, 2015 14:21
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AWSEFT posted:Worst story I've heard from an Ex-Comair guy. That friend was different than the CFI. He actually was at the Delta-affiliated regional with the name and former callsign being a clever reference to their hometown. (e- For those who might not get what I meant, it was ASA. "Candler" was their callsign for a while. Asa Candler was a founder of Coca-Cola and mayor of Atlanta. ) I did meet an ex-Comair captain who sat next to me in my ERAU graduation, though. He got off when the ship was clearly sinking. CBJSprague24 fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Nov 7, 2015 |
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Nov 7, 2015 18:00
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froward posted:Dude, you are trading an INCOME SOURCE for a MAJOR LIABILITY that also depreciates. This is a really dumb idea. Don't do this. You can retire on rental house income. Run it by BFC if you don't believe me. Absolutely 100% agree with the above.
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Nov 8, 2015 04:58
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hobbesmaster posted:Surely a home built flying boat would be even worse. I think this can be taken even further. Home built flying houseboat.
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Nov 8, 2015 05:00
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Go big or go home: you must build a working replica of the Spruce Goose and then live on it.
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Nov 8, 2015 05:27
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Put a V tail on your car and drive it off the roof.
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Nov 8, 2015 07:28
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Yeah, so this was seriously a question in the computer-based indoc I'm taking for a 135 company. Right now.
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Nov 8, 2015 21:24
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It's Flight Instructor Renewal Time. I have a 100% pass rate and am eligible to renew my CFI based on activity and passrate. This requires going to the FSDO and showing my logs. This isn't a problem and I really like my FSDO contact. OR I can pay 100 bucks and renew through a 'defensive driver' style course through American Flyers or AOPA or AceCFI. What say you, other CFIs?
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Nov 8, 2015 22:19
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Captain Apollo posted:It's Flight Instructor Renewal Time. I did the one time fee for lifetime renewals with American Fliers. I've used it 4 times already. It is really easy and lets you do it at your own pace.
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Nov 8, 2015 22:26
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vessbot posted:Yeah, so this was seriously a question in the computer-based indoc I'm taking for a 135 company. Right now. "Which is more accurate, an NDB hold, or an LFR hold?"
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Nov 8, 2015 22:49
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AWSEFT posted:I did the one time fee for lifetime renewals with American Fliers. I've used it 4 times already. It is really easy and lets you do it at your own pace. Does it punish you by time-delaying your quizzes or whatever? The 'AceCFI' has good reviews because you can buzz through it really quickly...so I am tempted. Although I usually like the AOPA's ASI's videos/interactive stuff.
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Nov 8, 2015 22:53
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Well holy poo poo. Turns out the State of Montana still maintains some of these in service!quote:Night-time Lighted Airway Beacons
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Nov 8, 2015 22:57
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