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Thread: Financing an affordable plane, or, is aviation REALLY available to the masses

  1. #11
    geosnooker2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DaleB View Post
    .

    One more thought. It might be more convenient to do your training in a Cherokee or a 172, but if you've been a Kitplanes subscriber and EAA member, you oughta have figured out by now that a solid used Experimental can be a fraction of the cost of a certified plane to own and operate. Just as a single example, our RV-12 cost more than a Cherokee, but we figure our operating cost -- all in, wet, including overhaul reserve -- at about $33 per hour. And it's quite a bit faster, too, while burning premium from the corner gas station at about 5 GPH. The last annual cost us less than $200.
    Oh, I fully intend to build my own while having the Piper to use during the construction process. Looking at a Ch640 maybe.

  2. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by geosnooker2000 View Post
    Why would you assume I am mortgage-free? I'm talking about the middle class. The middle class do not own their homes outright. A lot of them don't even have a mortgage these days, but rent.
    For the purpose of your financincing an aircraft question, mortgage free or not is totally irrelevant to the solutions available to you. Based on the short personal profile you provided, I made an assumption which by your response still does not tell me if you are or not. For your own purposes it just does not matter!

    However, your opinions on demographics as they relate to home ownership in the US, are just that, opinions without a shred of evidential substance to support them. Given the climate, making up s**t is fast becoming the abnormal norm.

    FYI: According to a 2017 report by ATTOM Data Solutions, 34% of ALL American homeowners are mortgage free. According to the US census in 2016, the US is a nation of homeowners. Though 100 million rent, they're outnumbered by more than 2 to 1 by those who own their own home. Furthermore, the rate of home ownership has remained almost the same since 1960. In 2018, the rate was 64.2% as compared to 1960 when it was 65.2%.

    I tried to give you some advice regarding the better option of a line of credit without collateral but you chose to respond in a manner that is corrosive and irrelevant to your own question. You should swallow your agenda and still look into it as a viable and common sense solution.

  3. #13
    Scooper's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by geosnooker2000 View Post
    Oh, I fully intend to build my own while having the Piper to use during the construction process. Looking at a Ch640 maybe.
    If you're thinking about a CH640, you might also consider a used AMD CH2000 Alarus. The Alarus is a factory built Part 23 certified 2-place airplane.

    The CH640, though advertised as a four place airplane, is really a 2+2 at best.

    Here's a low time Alarus advertised for $25k.

    https://www.controller.com/listings/aircraft/for-sale/list/manufacturer/amd/model/alarus-ch2000 (copy and paste into browser URL field; apparently hyperlink doesn't work).
    Last edited by Scooper; 07-09-2019 at 11:19 AM. Reason: link explanation
    - Stan Cooper (K4DRD), Private Pilot ASEL, LSR-I, EAA 115792 Lifetime Member, EAA Chapter 124
    Experimental AMD CH601XLi-B, N601KE, KSTS



  4. #14
    cub builder's Avatar
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    My advice is to fly a rental to learn to fly. Students are notoriously hard on aircraft (both air frame and engine), so put that thrashing on the rental plane. Additionally, there is so much you don't know about what you will like in a plane or how you will use it. You'll learn that with experience while learning to be a pilot. Once you have your ticket and develop relationships with other pilots, you'll get to fly or ride in a few different planes and gain a much better knowledge base about your wants and needs, as well as many of the pitfalls of buying or owning your own planes, so can make much more informed decisions. A lot of this will only come with experience. Then you will be ready to buy.

    And why finance? I've been middle class all my life. Now retired in my early 60s and still middle class. Most of my life I have had two planes in my stable, and currently have two planes that I built. When I had no money, I had no planes. My aviation funds came from the new cars I never owned. I let someone else take the depreciation on the cars, so mine are all old and had lots of miles before I owned them. I haven't had a car payment (or a plane payment) in nearly 40 years, or a house payment in 10.

    My view of my aircraft is that they are toys. I would be very sad to not have them, but they are still just toys and life will go on if I don't have them. So I only carry liability insurance, so my planes cost less to insure than my cars (which also only have liability). And if one of them gets damaged, I am the only one that's going to fix it. Since I built both of my current planes, my maintenance costs are also very low. I burn Mogas most of the time, so my fuel costs are significantly less.

    Aviation has always been a big and very important part of my life, as well as a big part of my identity. However, I always keep in mind that, for me, it is still just a hobby. I don't do debt for hobbies.

    Proportionally, the cost isn't much different from what it was when I learned to fly a gazillion years ago. Yeah, it only cost me $1200 to get my private ticket. But I only made $5000 that year. My first plane (Champ) cost $3800 (for which all the old timers told me I paid way too much). But I also didn't make spit for wages. So I don't see that aviation is any less affordable than it was 40+ years ago when I was getting started.

    -Cub Builder

  5. #15
    geosnooker2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Floatsflyer View Post
    For the purpose of your financincing an aircraft question, mortgage free or not is totally irrelevant to the solutions available to you. Based on the short personal profile you provided, I made an assumption which by your response still does not tell me if you are or not. For your own purposes it just does not matter!

    However, your opinions on demographics as they relate to home ownership in the US, are just that, opinions without a shred of evidential substance to support them. Given the climate, making up s**t is fast becoming the abnormal norm.

    FYI: According to a 2017 report by ATTOM Data Solutions, 34% of ALL American homeowners are mortgage free. According to the US census in 2016, the US is a nation of homeowners. Though 100 million rent, they're outnumbered by more than 2 to 1 by those who own their own home. Furthermore, the rate of home ownership has remained almost the same since 1960. In 2018, the rate was 64.2% as compared to 1960 when it was 65.2%.

    I tried to give you some advice regarding the better option of a line of credit without collateral but you chose to respond in a manner that is corrosive and irrelevant to your own question. You should swallow your agenda and still look into it as a viable and common sense solution.
    If you took my reply as corrosive (great word, by the way), then I apologize. I certainly didn't mean to be argumentative. Suffice to say, if your figures are right, I am shocked. I would have guessed no more than 10%. Not to push the issue, but are you sure we are talking about the same demo? 34% of all homeowners does not mean 34% of the American Public. More like ... 14%? Here is a link that might get you to thinking from a 45 degree angle on this: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...eir-mortgages/
    True enough it is 5 years old, but I believe the principles haven't changed. The main one being - the vast majority of those that have paid off their personal residence are 65 and over, and my position is, the majority of the younger subset are not what one would call "middle class". Just to be clear, I'm going by the Pew definition of $40,500 - $122,000.
    But stepping back and looking at that... The difference between $40k and $122k as it pertains to the ability to own and operate a GA plane seems like night and day. If all those articles and commentary opinions were talking about people making over $100k, then I would agree with them.

  6. #16
    geosnooker2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scooper View Post
    If you're thinking about a CH640, you might also consider a used AMD CH2000 Alarus. The Alarus is a factory built Part 23 certified 2-place airplane.

    The CH640, though advertised as a four place airplane, is really a 2+2 at best.

    Here's a low time Alarus advertised for $25k.

    https://www.controller.com/listings/aircraft/for-sale/list/manufacturer/amd/model/alarus-ch2000 (copy and paste into browser URL field; apparently hyperlink doesn't work).
    Thanks for the heads-up on that Alarus for sale. I am aware of them from all my research into the CH640. There is a big advantage to building your own airplane, one of them being the ability to massage the cabin dimensions (with the proper W&B and CG calculations of course).

  7. #17
    geosnooker2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cub builder View Post
    My advice is to fly a rental to learn to fly. Students are notoriously hard on aircraft (both air frame and engine), so put that thrashing on the rental plane. Additionally, there is so much you don't know about what you will like in a plane or how you will use it. You'll learn that with experience while learning to be a pilot. Once you have your ticket and develop relationships with other pilots, you'll get to fly or ride in a few different planes and gain a much better knowledge base about your wants and needs, as well as many of the pitfalls of buying or owning your own planes, so can make much more informed decisions. A lot of this will only come with experience. Then you will be ready to buy.

    And why finance? I've been middle class all my life. Now retired in my early 60s and still middle class. Most of my life I have had two planes in my stable, and currently have two planes that I built. When I had no money, I had no planes. My aviation funds came from the new cars I never owned. I let someone else take the depreciation on the cars, so mine are all old and had lots of miles before I owned them. I haven't had a car payment (or a plane payment) in nearly 40 years, or a house payment in 10.

    My view of my aircraft is that they are toys. I would be very sad to not have them, but they are still just toys and life will go on if I don't have them. So I only carry liability insurance, so my planes cost less to insure than my cars (which also only have liability). And if one of them gets damaged, I am the only one that's going to fix it. Since I built both of my current planes, my maintenance costs are also very low. I burn Mogas most of the time, so my fuel costs are significantly less.

    Aviation has always been a big and very important part of my life, as well as a big part of my identity. However, I always keep in mind that, for me, it is still just a hobby. I don't do debt for hobbies.

    Proportionally, the cost isn't much different from what it was when I learned to fly a gazillion years ago. Yeah, it only cost me $1200 to get my private ticket. But I only made $5000 that year. My first plane (Champ) cost $3800 (for which all the old timers told me I paid way too much). But I also didn't make spit for wages. So I don't see that aviation is any less affordable than it was 40+ years ago when I was getting started.

    -Cub Builder
    I'm not going to defend myself on financial decisions in this thread, other than to say, We don't buy new cars, we don't have credit-card debt, and we are Dave Ramsey fans. But this is getting too micro-centric. I was asking if, in general, people felt the average ordinary guy (or gal) can afford to fly? Not - "can geosnooker2000 afford to fly?"

  8. #18
    DaleB's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by geosnooker2000 View Post
    I was asking if, in general, people felt the average ordinary guy (or gal) can afford to fly? Not - "can geosnooker2000 afford to fly?"
    With a few reservations. If you think of "middle class" being in the $40K to $122K income range, then "middle class" covers a whole lot of territory -- and of course income is less than half the story. The more "average" the more you may have to scrimp, save, compromise, and defer. I know several members of my local EAA chapter who I am pretty sure are not particularly wealthy, yet own a plane. or two. I'm not particularly wealthy, and I own half a plane... could swing the whole thing if I had to. And I'm building another one, very slowly, so some day I'll have two.
    Measure twice, cut once...
    scratch head, shrug, shim to fit.

    Flying an RV-12. I am building a Fisher Celebrity, slowly.

  9. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by geosnooker2000 View Post
    I'm not going to defend myself on financial decisions in this thread, other than to say, We don't buy new cars, we don't have credit-card debt, and we are Dave Ramsey fans. But this is getting too micro-centric. I was asking if, in general, people felt the average ordinary guy (or gal) can afford to fly? Not - "can geosnooker2000 afford to fly?"

    This is an interesting question and I'm appreciative of the thoughts of everyone here on this topic. Just to clarify, I think your original question was if it's feasible for someone to own their own airplane by themselves.

    "Can someone afford to fly" is quite a bit different.

    I think there are certainly options that allow someone to 'affordably' fly, but sole ownership of an airplane is a different story and I'd argue it's not all that attainable for the average person. It's one of the reasons I feel so strongly about flying clubs and partnerships. Both knock down costs considerably and at that point I'd argue the 'average person' could afford to fly if they are willing to give up some control over the airplane.
    Eric Cernjar, EAA # 1133654

  10. #20
    geosnooker2000's Avatar
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    Here is a little sample of what I'm talking about:
    A common misconception leads some to think ofpersonal or small business aircraft as only for theextremely wealthy. In fact, many people of middleclass means fly airplanes less costly to acquire thana new family car
    - last paragraph in https://www.aopa.org/-/media/files/a...cy/what_ga.pdf

    Given "many people of middle class means" acquire their NEW family car (it said new) with an auto loan, I am just poking the bear and challenging this notion. The main point being, the local bank doesn't require you to have a 6 month emergency fund in place in order to borrow money to buy a car, and they don't require "closing costs". OR as much as a 15% down-payment... Maybe I'm just bewildered at NAFCO and the like, and that's all it is.

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