WIX Archives

My first airplane... Start small!

Posted by bdk on Fri Jan 30, 2004 10:27:05 PM

In reply top How do you do it???? posted by Tulio on Fri Jan 30, 2004 09:14:35 PM

Let me preface this by saying I am far from wealthy, and I'm probably not the Paul Allen, Bob Pond, or Stephen Grey you really wanted to answer this. I just felt like telling you a long story.

I had just started my first engineering job with Douglas Aircraft in 1985 and bought a 1946 Luscombe 8A for $7000- on a line of credit at 19% interest... I just had to have my own plane, and it had to have a tailwheel!!!! I hired in making $26k at the time. Funny how I thought that was a lot of money.

After I sold that I bought a Stinson L-5B project and worked on that for a while. I found a better job and managed to buy a cut-rate Stearman for $30k (mostly run-out engine and ratty fabric) using a loan from the local bank. I think the rate was like 14% for the secured loan.

Then, I traded my flyable Stearman for my T-6 project, paying off the Stearman with the loan from the other bank and the cash from the L-5 project. Funny that the bank didn't ask if the plane they just financed was airworthy or not!

As an aside, there are no "certified" appraisers for aircraft, only "qualified" appraisers- whatever that means! Any airport friend with a letterhead was a "qualified" appraiser in my book!

Later on, I borrowed money on my car (which I had paid off by then) to pay off the balance of the loan on the T-6 because the finance rate was lower on a used car than for an airplane.

After I got married and the project slowed to a dribble. Not her fault, but I got involved in some other projects (I happen to be afflicted with the Military Vehicle bug as well). Now I'm back on the T-6.

Oh, and I bought a house in 1996 which has more than doubled in value since... Maybe after a few hundred hours of T-6 time I might be inclined to sell it and use a second mortgage on the house to finance a more ambitious warbird project???? :-)

We'll see!

So you see, I have used the income achievable through a 4 year college education (most important in my opinion), leveraged other people's money, taken advantage of some fortunate circumstances when they presented themselves (the cyclic boom in real estate, good deals when they come along), and lived in my hangar for a while to save money (before I got married- and yes it had a shower and a toilet!).

That's what I did- not that I'm recommending it. Is it a good accomplishment to have a 75% finished T-6 after 19 years of work? Definately maybe. I don't know. Others have clearly done better. But if you aren't born wealthy you just have to use whatever tools you have. Take the enthusiasm you have for aviation, work hard, and set a goal.

Just remember, virtually nobody ever made enough of a profit in warbirds to afford a Mustang (Steve Hinton is an exception- that's why I said virtually).

: So... how do the people who own warbirds manage to do it?
: How do you manage to make such an incredible amount of mon
: ey, that it allows you to invest so much in airplanes, the
: ir upkeep, your flight training and so on (discounting mil
: itary training, of course)? What is the secret? Is there a
: secret? Do I need to learn a secret password and hand-sha
: ke in order to join the fraternity of the owners?

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