WIX Archives
Re: OUR WARBIRD PLEASE READ
Posted by Paul Stewart on Thu Feb 21, 2002 07:51:47 PM
In reply top OUR WARBIRD PLEASE READ posted by Tony on Thu Feb 21, 2002 06:21:44 AM
OK, I'm going to make some negative points about the proposal but hopefully in a constructive way. Please bear with me:
The word profit is mentioned. I don't believe it's possible to make an operational profit operating any warbird in Europe. Not legally, anyway. It is not by accident that warbirds are owned by people with high levels of disposable income. I truly don't think it's a good idea to plan on the basis of doing anything other than offsetting some costs through the occasional air show appearance and very occasional film or TV appearance. Don't even think about charging for rides outside the shareholder group.
Question: how you propose to pay for qualified maintenance, parts, hangarage and insurance? These are significant items in the annual budget of any warbird. They grow disproportionately bigger the more ambitious you get about aeroplane types.
I think there is a pretty major disconnect in the proposal between the amount of money that is likely to be raised and the type of aircraft that are being talked about on this board. Can you really persuade several hundred plus people to part with $100 PLUS ongoing fixed overheads of upwards of $20,000 a year PLUS the operational cost of fuel, oil and engine reserves if you want to fly in it?
There is also no mention of who will get to pilot the plane. This is usually a source of major disagreement in situations where a large membership owns the asset.
Just my twopennorth. Keep the idea going, but in my opinion seriously lower the expectation and ambition level. If you can make this idea work with an L-4 it is a major, major achievement. Reasonable acquisition cost, lower ongoing costs. If it works out and is a demonstrable success, you will gain the confidence of more people and can maybe raise the ambition level.