Originally Posted by
rickseeman
WOW, you guys play with some big numbers. Now let me tell you how po boys in Arkansas do it. A few years ago my brother was wondering if he wanted a large cabin jet. We've had Citations and a Lear Jet between us. Didn't really know if large cabin would be too much work/too expensive to maintain/so much hassle taking the fun out of ownership. But after having everything else wanted to give it a try. I found a GIII at Gulfstream coming out of inspections. The owner wanted out. The pilot was there to take it home. We went to see it. It looked good, the pilot said he would be glad to keep flying it. Paid $400,000 for it. Flew it to Las Vegas, Cancun, New York twice, several short hops. Had a lot of fun. Had a great local guy on the field jump in for the maintenance. Had a wing tip light go out. Cost $40 to fix it. That was the only parts ever bought. They were going to outlaw GIII's soon without hush kits so sold it for $400,000. So I guess what I'm saying is maybe some people can do it cheaper than the pricing stated above.
Big numbers? Or reality? Your story/point of view reminds me of a car purchase. I bought a Range Rover in 2011 still have it to this day. Never once has it had any serious issues or breakdowns, only in for scheduled maintenance. Friend of mine in 2013 bought a brand new range rover because I told him how much I enjoyed mine. First week of ownership back in shop.... to keep the story short over the course of 6 months he had it 2 months and was returned to dealer for lemon law.
Point of the story is you bought a aircraft on the cheap and you got to ride that purchase out without any issues. Can that happen without issues? Sure you just said so.
But reality and aviation would argue that is rare especially over the course of a few years, that wing tip light could of easily been a wing tip crack on a aircraft of that age and that $40... would of turned into $350,000 repair and now your BIG NUMBERS comment would go out the window.
At to be be very honest it sounds like you took on a very substantial amount of risk all for what? 10 trips it sounds like...equaling all of 20 hours of flight time? ARK to NY is what 2 hours flight time. X 2 so call it 5 hours total.
Jet 400k
Crew 250k
Fuel 50k
Fees/crew hotel 5k
hangar 10k
And that is just top of the head basic cost.
In the end let's call the cost of the Jet purchase a wash if you sold it for what you bough it for...good for you. But you still had to spend give or take $315k to fly 20 or so hours in a old ass GIII spending close to 16k a hour to operate. Now us Po Boys in California would of spent $6,300 a hour have no risk at all and flew on a new G650 for that type of coin.
And that is the point I think many of us try to make when a new member comes in here and tries to explain/justify why they wan to buy a old as jet that is extremely cheap to acquire. But you do you.