I consider you both rich and PITAs to boot. How’s that?
The price you quote is only for the plane–there is the um, storage fee (hangar space or similar), the lessons and the upkeep on the license etc.
Spend your money however you like, but if you can afford 2 private planes and the stuff that goes with them, you have a decent amount of expendable income. Ditto for boats, IMO. Or car collectors. Middle class you may be, but either you’re pinching pennies somewhere else or you are not middle class (upper, perhaps).
Notice I don’t ask, WHY you would want 2 planes or boats… To each his own.
And I still don’t know how that guy ended up in the desert, alone, with a broken back and no vehicle etc. I’ll never know.
-Overachiving human cannonball?
-Took a right turn in Albuquerque?
-A fitting end for his career as a snitch?
-Fell of a quad with cruise control?
-A deported Raelian?
Truck owners (not the same as drivers) do get the equivalent of mortgages on their equipment. In some locations they can also get special government loans and so forth.
I have to wonder what $15K from the '70s translates to in same year dollars. I got my SEL license in 1975, and I was looking lustfully at a Cardinal RG for about $15K at the time, and it was most definitely an unattainable dream for me.
However, to continue the hijack, one needn’t be rich to spend one’s disposable income on what some might consider to be outrageously expensive toys. It’s just a matter of choice and budgeting. Our last boat fell into that category - between the payment, the insurance, the slip fees, and upkeep, we had another mortgage on our hands. But for us, having a boat is a priority, so we adjust our life accordingly. We weren’t rich, although since selling that boat and using the proceeds to buy another one for cash, I now see how strained our budget was.
Anyway, I can see a pilot making choices so he could afford his plane. Maybe renting a cheap, small place, not eating out, driving a beater… Or he could be rich. Either way.
You don’t have to be rich to own a plane (I’ve known a couple of people in my lifetime who have owned small planes), but if you’re not rich then flying would have to be a passion, as you’d probably pour a lot of your money and free time into it.
samclem: Thanks for posting that. I thought this was going to turn into one of those ‘There is a dead man in a field. He has no clothes. There is a broken matchstick next to him. What happened?’ puzzles.
My MIL & her then-husband owned a small plane in the 70’s & 80’s, and they weren’t rich. He was already a kick-ass pilot, and they used to fly all over CA for business. It was hella cheaper than flying commercial at the time.
Of course, he wasn’t a very smart businessman… they bought a boat… :smack:
Does anyone else see the irony here? He may have been rich, except that he bought a plane and then a boat… Of course, what do you do when you’re rich but buy expensive toys, aka boats and planes. My mind is whirling.
(I know you don’t have to be rich to have a plane. Two planes and you’re pushing it, IMO, unless you live in one of them. I refuse to talk to crazy boat people.)
Right. When Piper stopped making the PA-18, Frank Christensen (of Christen Eagle fame) designed the Husky to do what it could but with more power and fewer limiting quirks. They do look very much alike.
Airplane ownership is affordable if you want it to be. You may have to settle for an older car and a cheaper house, and fewer restaurant meals, to make the budget ends meet, but those are the kinds of tradeoffs everyone has to make with their incomes. If it’s important to you, you can make it work.
Now that you post it, I remember. I briefly thought about looking up what it was before it was Aviat (remembering now that it was Christen), but didn’t pursue it.
An old g/f used to say, ‘It’s all what’s most important to you.’
Let’s see… he was in an airplane with some sky divers and the plane was going down and there was one parachute too few and they drew straws and he lost and so he looked down and he thought he saw a lake he could dive into so he took off his clothes and jumped out except it wasn’t a lake and he went squish. Plus, aliens.
