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WeekendWarrior

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FlyKC
So I had a wild thought about owning a plane the other day, and maybe it's not as poor of a choice as I think it is.
I'm young, single, living at home, working full time. I'm lucky enough to be able to continue living at home indefinitely. I'm a 250 hour PPL, about to wrap up IFR and then hit the books hard for CPL. I love flying, but an issue I've been having recently is aircraft availability. I'm a renter at three area FBOs, and have a plethora of checkouts, but 2 of those 3 have policies prohibiting any overnight rentals and the third has the other problem - people taking week-long trips in the nicer planes. I'm on a couple waiting lists for nearby clubs, but a year on those lists and I'm no closer to being let in.
I don't have an airline aspiration. I'm not really time building anymore - I just want to fly around and explore the midwest on the weekends. Pavement, grass, anything. I want to fully experience GA.

How irresponsible of an idea would it be to try getting pre-approved for an aircraft loan? I don't have the cash now to buy anything decent, full stop, but I have solid month-to-month income with the ability to make payments. I've heard that you should never buy a plane until you can do it cash, but I also know plenty of pilots who've gotten loans. I've been setting aside a good bit for unexpected stuff as well.

My ideal plane is a mid-life 172 or an older 182 - something that I won't feel bad about beating up a little bit, but something that will be safe and fun to fly. It would live on tie-downs. I've tossed around the idea of building, but I'm not especially handy and don't have a place to build it.

Those of you who own - am I crazy, or is this a reasonable idea?
 
Sounds like you want it and will like it so do it.

Not crazy.

I was fortunate when I started down the ownership road. After getting my PPL with SEL and glider, I fell in love with soaring so my first 2 aircraft were gliders. Not any cheaper to buy than a small airplane but a lot cheaper to maintain and they came with trailers.


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You missed the buyers market a couple years ago. Planes are the highest I've ever seen right now.
 
I think almost everyone who owns a plane sacrifices something for it, even if they're not entirely aware of it.

Buying an airplane is financially dumb, it's only going to cost you money and it's a ticking time bomb of a potential massive repair bill(look up the cost to overhaul engines in what you're looking at for a worst case idea). Those costly repairs can also make it unable to be used for weeks or months or worse, weather will smash your plans, etc, etc. The best you will ever do is maybe be able to sell it for close to what you bought it for and be out all the years of maintenance costs. So can we say it's wise in any way shape or form? No, no we cannot. I think just about every one of us would be wealthier today if we hadn't gone down this rabbit hole of aviation.

That said, I traded the first one I bought for bigger and more expensive so... obviously there's some enjoyment in that.

I personally did have the cash to put down and I'd be very dubious of taking out a loan on anything that was just for fun but that's me. I guess the question I'd ask is if this airplane you bought suddenly blew an engine which is a $30k-50k repair can you handle that? Can you handle it if something happened to your income and your $50,000 toy suddenly becomes worth $10,000 because the engine is scrap? That would pretty much be the concern.

One thing I know a lot of folks do is a partnership/flying club where they all buy shares in a plane, that makes this stuff easier to swallow for sure.
 
buy the lowest you can, then insure it well, and rent it.
 
Tom-D said:
buy the lowest you can, then insure it well, and rent it.
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I've thought about this. Either renting it on weekdays (I work full-time, so I can't use it anyway, but there are plenty of guys flying on weekdays) or get it as a business vessel when I get my CFI and instruct out of it.

Two potential ways to make an unwise decision make more sense... but both incur rather large liability penalties too
 
Tom-D said:
Never borrow money to buy toys.
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If I would have followed that philosophy I would have missed out on a lot of fun my late teens, early 20s.

To the OP, plenty of planes out there to buy. Might want to make sure you can write checks for any mx issues that pop up as pointed out above. I don’t see any issues financing it if you’re responsible.
 
I was a habitual renter, and got tired of planes already reserved or having to return on a deadline due to some else reservation right after mine. I bought a 182P to finish my PPL and work on my IFR. After 200 hours in 3 years, I'm very glad I bought the plane. For me flexibility and reliability was paramount. Owning a plane puts you in a different set of relationships at the airport, as you get to know other owners on the hangar row instead of other renters at the FBO.

Get a good 182. The extra cabin room, performance, and useful load are well worth it.

A good 182 with updated avionics, mid-time engine, clean logs, nice interior and paint will run $115K or more. A very nice 172 is like $50K-65K.


Here's my plane and some of the upgrades performed over the past couple of years.
http://welch.com/n46pg/

-David
 
NordicDave said:
I was a habitual renter, and got tired of planes already reserved or having to return on a deadline due to some else reservation right after mine. I bought a 182P to finish my PPL and work on my IFR. After 200 hours in 3 years, I'm very glad I bought the plane. For me flexibility and reliability was paramount. Owning a plane puts you in a different set of relationships at the airport, as you get to know other owners on the hangar row instead of other renters at the FBO.

Get a good 182. The extra cabin room, performance, and useful load are well worth it.

A good 182 with updated avionics, mid-time engine, clean logs, nice interior and paint will run $115K or more. A very nice 172 is like $50K-65K.


Here's my plane and some of the upgrades performed over the past couple of years.
http://welch.com/n46pg/

-David
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x2, except a clean later pre-restart 182 is closer to $130k+ now. Here's mine...similar to yours minus the turbo https://www.aircraftmerchants.com/cf/acDetail.cfm?AircraftId=78CCB29E-727B-4048-A4B1-1B0CF071A2E1
 
OkieAviator said:
If I would have followed that philosophy I would have missed out on a lot of fun my late teens, early 20s.

To the OP, plenty of planes out there to buy. Might want to make sure you can write checks for any mx issues that pop up as pointed out above. I don’t see any issues financing it if you’re responsible.
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Exactly what he said. If you want it go for it. Money has a way of working itself out, in my experience. Life is too short to hope there will be money "someday" to do what you want.
 
I must have missed the memo that said you have to pay cash for an airplane. You can also finance the cost of a new engine too. If you can make the payments as you stated, go for it.
 
As a parent, unless I was disabled and my adult child was living at home with me as my care-giver or there's some other serious situation wherein I was dependent upon my child for my well-being, my first thought would be that if my child is willing to take out a loan to buy an airplane, then maybe my child should first secure their own independent housing. I know NOTHING about your situation, and I don't mean any offense to you or your family by making this observation. I left home, as I was expected to and amicably, at 17 years old when I went to college, and the longest I was ever home after that was for two months in summer after my freshman year. I know that's generational... that's what was expected back then. My own kids followed pretty much the same "departure" schedules. You are indeed fortunate, and if everyone in your family is happy with whatever arrangement you have, that's great... more power to you.
As far as taking out a loan and buying a plane, financially it's incredibly unwise, but there are reasons to do things other than financial of course... just got to go in with your eyes wide open and make sure your reasons for wanting to do it are good enough to outweigh the complete lack of sound financial reasons to do so. Also, remember that buying the plane is just the start of the expenditure; it will cost, at a bare minimum, thousands just to own it every year (annual, insurance, maintenance, repairs, and tie-down space rental) and, depending upon what plane you end up with, around $50/hr just in fuel to fly it. The loan payment is just the tip of the iceberg.
I went at life the opposite way... lived very frugally for decades, few car loans, relatively inexpensive houses w/ small mortgages, NO credit card debt ever, worked a full time gig AND a part time gig all of my life, and paid off what loans I did have way ahead of schedule. Managed to salt enough away to take nice car-camping vacations with my family, and a few jaunts to the Caribbean w/ my wife once the kids were older and eventually out of the house, get my PPL in my early 40s, buy into a plane and eventually buy out my partners to become sole owner, all debt paid off including our house, and enough socked away that I could retire at 55 without, really, a care in the world, and I never made over $100K annually. The best part of it is that I STILL feel like the same 20 year-old kid who dreamed about all of this way back when. The difference is, if I had lived my dream then, I'd be working my butt off trying to make ends meet for the rest of my life.
As in all things, we're all different. As long you do nice things for folks and are responsible for yourself, there's no real "right" way to do it. Best to you!
 
Forget the 172/182 and find a good 152...probably pick up one between $15-20k. If it’s got the avionics for the IFR, you’ll be able to finish most of the CPL in it, too. Then get a better paying job and move up to the larger airplane. Meanwhile, you won’t have such a large money pit facing you.
 
Here's my take. I won't let people rent my plane. BTDT

Love what you do and do what you love.

The rest of the world has multiple generations under one roof, a faux pas in Western cultures. I was a co owner of a plane while living at home. I'm fortunate to have these memories.

I financed half the value of the plane. The other half is cash only for use for airplane maintenance. These toys break and it's always expensive.

A hangar's value is greater than just a big box for your plane. All sorts of stuff fit in it too. Maybe an uncle's naughty magazine collection at X $ a month. Or a humidor. Or a dude's motorcycle his wife doesn't know about. But I follow the airport rules.

I found a plane that will accomplish 75% of what I'll use it for. Rent the other 25%.

The first day I bought a plane I regretted it. Just as much as the day I sold it.

My cars are not fancy and I can fix them myself, usually.

I rent a one bedroom apartment so I can just leave with the little lady on an adventure and never deal with snow or a leak or the lawn.

I work very hard to maintain an excellent relationship with my A&P IA so I can save a few, few, bucks on MX.

I rent the plane to myself at 100 bucks n hour; the cash goes into the oh snap pile of reserve cash.

The cost of fuel is my least concern. Skimp on that and I'm afraid I'll be a statistic.

Most of our camping gear and bikes will fit with imagination. Uber is our friend, and hitching a ride with a local airport bum helps.

Alcohol is for deicing, not drinking.

I buy all the insurance available that makes sense. Has paid for it's self once so far.

My life is full and I have everything I could possibly imagine. My clothes are out of style, my new car is 10 years old. Eating out is for fancy occasions. I splurge on expensive shoes and tools. And whatever she wants; she wears a rubber wedding ring and her RV is a dinosaur. We make less than 100k and are totally fine with that.

The current plane is about the same as a mid level Jeep in price, but is as old as us, 40's. I have made some terrible financial decisions, mostly buying airplanes, and I don't care. No Ragerts as the kids say.

Buying an airplane is the dumbest thing to do with money, especially when the time-value of investing that same money could have made me a billion air by now, maybe.

YMWV
 
I financed 50% of the cost when I bought the bonanza. Yeah obviously it's better to buy the toys in cash but not everybody can and I'm not going to limit myself from experiencing GA because of some ultra rich guys conservative finance rule. I got a rate of 4.99% and with a rate that low, some would say it may be better to finance and then invest your leftover cash for a better return.

But on the other hand... you need to get your own place. Dont live at home. I dont care how cool you think your parents are. A young man NEEDS his own place. End of story. If you can still afford the airplane after buying yourself a small ranch house or rent on a nice apartment then go for it. This is the best advice you are receiving on this subject I promise you. I just went through it all myself and I am also young (age 30).
 
Find about 3 or 4 partners and buy together. You will cut the expense and the risk way down and you will have less chance of your plane sitting up for long periods of time when you find yourself unable to fly for work or health reasons. And with only a few partner, a decent scheduling agreement and a little planning, you should be able to take all the overnight trips you want.
 
Try to find a partnership. Cuts down the capital outlay and fixed cost considerably. I find 3 partners to be the best size.

As for the wisdom of owning while you live at home. That's between you and your parents. I know folks who want to have their kids move out asap and then there are others who enjoy having another adult in the house. Just no way of telling from the outside.
 
I was fortunate enough to pay cash for my plane and I love being able to fly when and wherever I want without the hassle of renting. Having said that, buying a plane makes no financial sense and is only justified as purely a love of flying. I set aside money at the beginning of each year to pay for a hangar, insurance and an annual and say the first hour a year costs $6000 and for the rest of the year the cost is very reasonable. And whatever you do, don’t try to add up what you spend on flying and the opportunity cost of the money you spend on a plane. What were you going to do with the money anyway? Take it to the grave with you?
 
Well, you can do what I did on my Arrow. Partner up with someone who CAN write a check and just make your payments to him/her.
 
Tom-D said:
Never borrow money to buy toys.
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Have to agree with Tom on this one. I know plenty of people borrow money to buy an airplane, but the finances of it don't make sense most of the time. I looked into it when buying the Aztec but the terms were not favorable. All depends on your personal financial philosophy here. My thought is that if you're looking at a 172/182 that's on the older side, you could also buy any number of tail draggers for less money and have more fun with lower operating costs.
 
I had it all backwards: bought my first airplane before I bought a home, got married, or did anything else of consequence. I had two roommates in a crappy little apartment and a $60,000 plane that I financed. I’d like to say it was dumb in retrospect, but it was awesome. Nothing better than being 26 with a plane to explore the country.

That said, it seems weird that you’re still living at home and considering this.

With age and wisdom, I can’t exactly recommend my path. Better to save your pennies, not finance, check some of the other boxes first, but... man... those were some good years.
 
WeekendWarrior said:
I've heard that you should never buy a plane until you can do it cash
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I've heard this many times. But I'm not sure I ever asked the question. Its just one of those things that people tend to tell you whether you ask or not. Its taken me a long time to learn to not take advice from people that give it unsolicited.
 
Warning; thread derail coming:

As far as young people living at home, I think that CAN be a great thing. It makes a ton of financial sense for both the parent and the offspring. But it has to be a mutually beneficial arrangement. A young person staying home eating potato chips and playing video games on the couch without contributing, in lieu of getting a job is just wrong.

But a working young adult that contributes to the family budget and gets along well is a great thin (IMNSHO).

Now, back to our regularly scheduled banter.
 
I did not officially move out until I was 23....but from the time I graduated from high school until 23, I wnt to out of state colleges for the both under grad and graduate degrees, only being at “home” for very few and very random weekends. Altho back home for a few summer vacations, I was either in summer school or working or both. Rule in my family - as soon as you can pay cash for it, you can buy it. Definitely kept me out of trouble. Paid half in cash, partner paid the other half. When partner died, I bought the other half from the estate.

The upfront purchase price is often the least of your worries. Upkeep and new goodies for it, well.....that’s another story.
 
To finance or not is a complicated question lets assume you can afford the down payment and maintenance, if you can't stop there and wait until you can. The plane will cost you depreciation, maintenance and operating cost. There is no financial sound reason to tie up money long term in an airplane if it can be invested and make a decent return instead. Therefore I suggest a middle of the road approach, put down enough so you are always in a good equity position in case you have to rid yourself of the expense and finance the rest since interest rates are low.
 
If your one and only option is to borrow money, then I think it would be a terrible, ridiculous, awful idea to buy a plane. I'm very much in the "pay cash for toys" crowd. That makes toys more fun because you're not stressed about the money.

Personally, I saved up several years until I could pay cash for my plane, plus have enough left in the airplane fund to write a check for a new engine if it blew on Day 1. And no, I'm not an "ultra rich guy." I just choose to live in a modest paid-off house, drive modest paid-off cars and don't pay interest to bankers.

I know not everybody is as conservative as me. Some options that I wouldn't do personally but are still semi-reasonable ...

— "I'm going to finance half the cost so I can keep a big maintenance fund."

— "I could write a check for it, but I'd rather keep that money invested where it makes more interest than the loan is costing me."

— "I'm well on my way to saving up for it, but I'll take out a loan to speed up the process and then pay it off quickly."

If something like that describes your situation, it might be OK. But if you're essentially broke and borrowing out of necessity, that's a recipe for stress, heartache and disappointment.

Owning a plane outright is expensive, and borrowing the money makes it even more expensive.
 
Live your life how you want to live it.

Was it smart for me to buy a 80k airplane before I owned a house? Absolutely, completely, totally not. But do I regret it one bit? Not at all. When making the decision to buy it, you get one life, don't waste it on doing things you're "supposed to do", playing life conservatively is how you end up at the end of your life with a butt load of cash and a butt load of regrets, and no memories or experiences, or atleast, not as many as you could have had. Toys are what give us life experience and life experience is what makes life worth living. You'll notice that people that make somewhat reckless decisions pretty rarely regret them, at least those that are smart about it :).

That being said, planes *most* of us would buy on this board do not depreciate, so worst case scenario you can sell the plane for as much as you bought it for (assuming no engine overhaul required) and you'll only be out Maintenance costs. Owning a plane makes you a much better pilot IMO as well, it makes you aware of all the things that go into owning and maintaining a plane which are incredibly useful skills to have. It opens a whole new world that no one had shown or described to me where you are responsible for the aircraft, not some FBO. If you can swing it, and you're happy where you are, then absolutely go for it. That being said, ALL of these old airplanes require a hefty maintenance budget, keep in mind if someone is selling a plane it's not because they've decided it's been maintained too well :).
 
weilke said:
Make sure you own before you get married. Lol.
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I got hitched so I could buy, actually finance, my first aircraft.

Working in Manhattan required leveraging every possible resource.


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TexasAviation said:
I'm very much in the "pay cash for toys" crowd. That makes toys more fun because you're not stressed about the money.
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That's really it for me. While the MU-2 is owned by Cloud Nine technically I'm financially responsible for it. If I had to worry about paying for a bank note every month on top of all of the ownership costs, I would just sell. The thing causes enough stress as-is.

Mtns2Skies said:
Live your life how you want to live it.

Was it smart for me to buy a 80k airplane before I owned a house? Absolutely, completely, totally not. But do I regret it one bit? Not at all. When making the decision to buy it, you get one life, don't waste it on doing things you're "supposed to do", playing life conservatively is how you end up at the end of your life with a butt load of cash and a butt load of regrets, and no memories or experiences, or atleast, not as many as you could have had. Toys are what give us life experience and life experience is what makes life worth living. You'll notice that people that make somewhat reckless decisions pretty rarely regret them, at least those that are smart about it :).
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True, and I'll admit that my advice to you to buy the house before the plane was bad advice. You've really used your airplane and it's been a perfect fit for you. It's also realistically a forever plane for you, all things that honestly are atypical among buyers. You also had worked to save up a good chunk of money. Of course me buying the Aztec was a horrible financial decision and I don't regret it one but, but I also owned the thing outright. It was nice knowing that I could always bail out of it at any time and walk away with money in my pocket if I needed to. With a loan, not so. Some people don't get stressed out about owing money to the bank, in which case that's different.

As you know I buy lots of toys and I don't think anyone would accuse me of being too conservative, but I also buy them all in cash. The only things we have loans for our the house and the truck. That removes a lot of stress from life, and lets us enjoy the toys we have more fully with the knowledge that if there was ever a truly rainy day, there's a lot of things we could turn into cash.

Where I think people get it wrong is when I see them have no real toys or hobbies, thinking "I'll do that when I retire", and then they die at 50. Balance is key in life.
 
Couching debt in absolute terms (eg never, or always) is disingenuous IMO. The reality is it depends on whether it's a good idea or not. I think that debt is fine for toy purchases as long as you are smart about it. I've had loans on all kinds of toys -- boats, motorcycles, and my current plane. The trick is being realistic about your debt to income ratio and not overextending yourself to the point of debt mismanagement (IOW taking out a loan too large to comfortably make the payments.) Do that and there won't be any stress and you can have your cake and eat it too. It's great to be able to pay cash for everything, but it's not the end of the world not to, and in fact it is not always the best strategy for a depreciating asset if you'd rather put your cash to work depending on available loan rates and the current available return of any investments.

Personally, I didn't want to be like my parents whom by the time they could afford toys were too old to enjoy them to they never bought them. So yeah, I use loans for toys and for me it has never been an issue. YMMV....
 
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cowman said:
....it's a ticking time bomb of a potential massive repair bill(look up the cost to overhaul engines in what you're looking at for a worst case idea)...
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That ain't the worst case. If it's an older airplane, the discovery of corrosion in some primary structural component, like the wing spars, can mean an airfame writeoff due to the huge costs of dismantling the thing and repairing it. As the fleet ages we're going to see more of that, and in many cases all it would take is an innocuous AD to give an owner a heart attack.
 
Tom-D said:
Never borrow money to buy toys.
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Agreed!

Ted DuPuis said:

Where I think people get it wrong is when I see them have no real toys or hobbies, thinking "I'll do that when I retire", and then they die at 50. Balance is key in life.
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Also agreed!

For me, the fun comes from the experience, and experiences can be had at either end of the financial spectrum.

When I was racing sports cars, there were folks who sunk big bucks into high performance cars for the faster classes. I raced in one of the slower classes for a lot less money. I was competitive and had a ball. Were the people racing $200,000 Porsches having more fun than I was having in a $12,000 RX7? Maybe a little, but probably not much.

Just the same, you can have fun flying a plane you can pay cash for, like an Ercoupe or Luscombe, have less financial stress and lose less sleep, and upgrade later if you choose.

With racecars, the popular philosophy was "Never put more money on the track than you're willing to hold between your fingers and touch with a lit match." Not a bad mindset for recreational flying. Don't fly something you can't walk away from if it's damaged or has a major repair expense, and you can't walk away from a loan.
 
Half Fast said:
For me, the fun comes from the experience, and experiences can be had at either end of the financial spectrum.

When I was racing sports cars, there were folks who sunk big bucks into high performance cars for the faster classes. I raced in one of the slower classes for a lot less money. I was competitive and had a ball. Were the people racing $200,000 Porsches having more fun than I was having in a $12,000 RX7? Maybe a little, but probably not much.
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Very true. I see it on the Cobra group as well. Lots of people easily have $50k+ into these cars, and that's with them doing all the building themselves. Meanwhile the guys who go out and do donor car builds and are just running around with a stock 302 and a T-5 from a fox body or SN95 are having just as much fun, if not more, for less money.

The fact that I enjoy turning wrenches helps. Part of my secret to fun with my toys has been buying toys cheap that need some level of work, putting in a little elbow grease (and having fun doing it) and then flipping them for usually a break even or a profit. I've usually done pretty well on this formula.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Very true. I see it on the Cobra group as well. Lots of people easily have $50k+ into these cars, and that's with them doing all the building themselves. Meanwhile the guys who go out and do donor car builds and are just running around with a stock 302 and a T-5 from a fox body or SN95 are having just as much fun, if not more, for less money.

The fact that I enjoy turning wrenches helps. Part of my secret to fun with my toys has been buying toys cheap that need some level of work, putting in a little elbow grease (and having fun doing it) and then flipping them for usually a break even or a profit. I've usually done pretty well on this formula.
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Exactly.

I recall one particular race weekend at Sebring when my paddock spot was next to a guy racing in GT1. He had bought a retired professional Trans Am car. I'm guessing he sunk $100k into the car. He had a helluva time keeping it running and I got considerably more track time than he did. I looked his car over, and pretty much every part on it came from a custom builder or an expensive race shop.

I had some full-on race parts on my car, too, but things like an axle housing or a door or a radiator could be had from a junk yard. Anything he bent or broke would cost big money. I doubt he could do an engine rebuild for less than 40 grand, and when I cooked mine the rebuild was less than $2k.

Lots of people buy such cars and then can't afford to keep them on the track.
 
I would be solidly in the camp of: DO IT! "Crap" happens in life, everything is a gamble, do it as smart as you can... I would also definetly be in the group of saying buy something that doesn't break the bank or take you to the max you can afford, both payment and operating costs... I couldn't agree more that a 150/152 would be a great option, or have some real fun and buy a 120/140 and learn TW, though if you are going for IFR your options would be more limited there. However this means you can buy a very flyable plane for $15-$25k, with proper inspections and a reasonable amount of luck you won't face any likely monster bills soon, though it can happen to any plane of any age and hours at any time. Due diligence up front can mitigate this risk greatly. Find one with the least amount of equipment necessary for your mission- less stuff on/in it=less stuff to break and need fixing. The other great advantage is you will be burning a whopping 5gal an hour as you build time. Boatloads of 4 seaters fly around all the time with 2-3 seats empty... When you need 4 seats rent... This is what I do. I have a Cessna 140 I keep at my hometown airport and a membership in a 172 club a 15 minute flight away to get her... Oh and yes owning I agree brings a whole new aspect of flying, you become a better pilot in terms of you care more how your flying habits effect your Metal Maiden of the Skies long term, etc. I have found there is as much or more involved with learning to become a GOOD owner as their is learning to fly the contraption to begin with.

Your living arrangements are no ones biz but you and your parent(s). If it makes sense for you both no reason not to. Good argument to be made that done right it is beneficial to all involved in multiple ways. Just and automatic stigma in our society of it, but living at home does not truly mean ones a jobless or permanent fast-food employed, video gamed addicted mooch living in their folks basement for perpetuity due to sloth-like tendencies! Even if that were the case- it ain't our business...

Buying a plane for cash or financing does not make sense! I'm not suggesting one finance themselves right to the brink of bankruptcy either, its a discretionary call, which has a different answer for each individuals financial philosophy. Even paying cash you are paying interest... The cash they spent is now not invested and earning interest, so there is an opportunity cost to giving up that cash... I financed my $20k ish bird. I could have waited a year or two and easily paid cash with recent good fortune in life, who's to say in that year or two my blood pressure wont go through the roof and I'll be grounded, who's to say cancer won't say hello... My brother was the picture of perfect health and had multiple physicals for his job and he dropped dead as a doornail playing softball one afternoon at 23 years old. Carpe Diem... Someone on another thread in here put it well: You don't ever see the armored car following a hearse... Live while you are alive.
 
Tom-D said:
Never borrow money to buy toys.
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cowman said:
I think almost everyone who owns a plane sacrifices something for it, even if they're not entirely aware of it.

Buying an airplane is financially dumb, it's only going to cost you money and it's a ticking time bomb of a potential massive repair bill(look up the cost to overhaul engines in what you're looking at for a worst case idea). Those costly repairs can also make it unable to be used for weeks or months or worse, weather will smash your plans, etc, etc. The best you will ever do is maybe be able to sell it for close to what you bought it for and be out all the years of maintenance costs. So can we say it's wise in any way shape or form? No, no we cannot. I think just about every one of us would be wealthier today if we hadn't gone down this rabbit hole of aviation.

That said, I traded the first one I bought for bigger and more expensive so... obviously there's some enjoyment in that.

I personally did have the cash to put down and I'd be very dubious of taking out a loan on anything that was just for fun but that's me. I guess the question I'd ask is if this airplane you bought suddenly blew an engine which is a $30k-50k repair can you handle that? Can you handle it if something happened to your income and your $50,000 toy suddenly becomes worth $10,000 because the engine is scrap? That would pretty much be the concern.

One thing I know a lot of folks do is a partnership/flying club where they all buy shares in a plane, that makes this stuff easier to swallow for sure.
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I'm in this camp
 
Lots of food for thought, grasshopper. I'm not going to get into whether or not you should live at home, or move out (but women like men who have their own places better than men living at home), nor whether you should borrow or pay cash for your plane. But, if you decide to buy, think about used Experimentals. You can do any, and all work you want to on them, yourself, and need an A&P (vs. an IA) to do the equivalent of an annual. The only thing you can't do without a SODA is rent them out for hire, including instructing in them, and leaseback at an FBO.

If you buy, get the least plane you can find that will still fit you comfortably, and meet 75% your mission requirements.
 
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