Originally Posted by
gbruton
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.
Some people (such as my brother and I) just love airplanes. We want to own one. We lay in bed at night a fantasize about them. I have layed in bed for 50 years dreaming about airplanes. We don't want to rent transportation. We want to have an airplane of our own. To love them. To wax them and polish the britework. It's love. And we have had so much pleasure out of our airplanes. I'm just so happy to be living in a time when these jets have come down so far in price that a po boy can have what used to be only for billionaires. I never saw this coming.