How Do You Find the Resources for Flying

This is one of life’s big problems.

I learned to fly when I was 19, but then couldn’t afford to fly for 17 years. I was dead broke, always borrowing money from family and friends. I was like the joke. As I finally got more successful in my career, moved countries for it etc, the financial situation improved. Today I earn a good living as a freelancer. I spend close to 50% of my earnings on flying. I also get sad when they see me as the “rich bastard” – I’m not and I’ve worked for every single hour I put on my plane. Nothing was given to me for free.

But this is why I’m so in favor of new technology and electric propulsion solutions. We need to get the cost of flying down, but without losing utility. That’s more important than anything else. And what I mean by that is that the ultralight or microlight world, although a great entry point, is not the long term solution. We need aircraft that can actually fly places and have good utility and still be cheap to operate. That is the challenge. And until that’s here, aviation can not grow or even try to get back to it’s old numbers. But perhaps with this new technology, we have the opportunity to do so, eventually. I’m positive about the future. I do think we actually all will be in flying cars that cost as much as cars do to operate.

A great thread

I have a little and many would say boring business in electronics (industrial datacomms) which I have been running since 1991.

Before that I was in another one from leaving univ in 1978 but got pushed out by the other (2/3) shareholders in 1991, and never made any real money there because we had up to 35 employees so together with a sales office in France with two smooth salesmen (which was a p1sstake and a booze-up from beginning to end) the cash was disappearing as fast as it could be made. Actually I found the CV of one of the salesmen on Linkedin the other day and fell over backwards reading it

So that’s it really… as with nearly all successful businesmen I was lucky to be at the right place at the right time with the right product and built on that. Even now, many years later, it makes enough to allow me to fly as much as I want – any more and I would get sick of it. Mostly unwittingly I have structured the business and my life to keep stress to an absolute minimum.

I can fairly easily get a couple of days off, or maybe four over a weekend, but I don’t like to be away from my GF for that long regularly because we get on very well. I was away for 25 nights in 2014 but to be fair half of those were away with her. Sometimes she is away on some course for the weekend so that is an ideal time to go away. I need to be always in contact with the office and be able to phone back any tech enquiries within an hour or two – except obviously when in the air – but that is a small price to pay for the freedom, and we get very few such urgent queries. So weekdays are best for me because I am not away at the weekend, which is unfortunately the opposite of most people.

I started learning to fly only after getting divorced – it could not have been done before that for various reasons. But also the business started to make decent money only some years after that point.

use your genitals only for fun (the biggest money saver of all)

Luckily my partner is of the same attitude and my flying buddy’s sexual inclinations preclude anything else which has the dual benefit of freeing up funds for flying with and someone in the same position to enjoy flying with.

Time is often the biggest constraint to flying, or at least balancing this with spending time with partners and other social commitments, which is why we are beginning to look at the possibility of a larger aircraft so that we can take them along on some shorter trips.

Work is less of a problem as having been with the same organisation for nearly 15 years I am trusted sufficiently to ensure that my work commitments are met rather than being required to be in and out of the office at particular times.

I am fortunate as I am able to fly for work a lot. This is a deliberate choice and I am able to make the decisions wrt that. I think in life there are many things that we choose to devote time and financial resources to. Flying is expensive but achievable for most but it is usually down to priorities.

I long ago decided that I would work hard but make sure I enjoyed myself along the way. The trade off is that I am always on call. But I set my own hours to be in the office.

When I found out that my work wouldn’t support the kind of flying for long I was most interested in – rather technical flying with complex aircraft (starting at 500 Euros per hour) – I decided that instead I needed to get paid for doing that. For some years I spent my money on more licences until they actually would pay me for flying. Compared to my previous work as aerospace engineer it is rather poorly paid, but now I have more money left at the end of the month because all the expenses required to go flying have gone away

As associate professor in a university, I have an income higher than most, but not exceptionally high. More important is that my wife also has a well-paid job. Also, being an academic means that my work hours are very flexible. When I don’t have teaching obligations I can just as well work on evenings and weekends as workdays.

This is why the 50+ generation is so dominant in the “going places” GA. At that age, people tend to have both money and time.

Yup. When I was single or dinky I had both money and time. Getting children meant that I lost both, so I quit flying when I was 35 or so. I then started again at 53, when all but one of my kids had left home. Fortunately, my wife likes flying, too. She had a PPL and quit at the same time I did, but haven’t started flying again.

Working in the aviation business as an employee didn’t give me enough financial resources to do the flying I really wanted except from the average spam can rental….Working in the aviation business as a self employed changed all that…. I believe that I am quite lucky to be able to both, flying as prerequisite to do my business…Though honestly with any business opportunity outside aviation I would seek an incentive to fly…

Am in the 50++ category, and also work as a freelance instructor with some AOC duties. I drive an old car, so this helps the flying budget. Used to fly complex/airways for business, but this was before the lo-cost network became Europe-wide, with resultant drop in airfares for most sectors.

Vintage tailwheel two seaters on a permit remain very accessible and will allow plenty of flying. An Aeronca (or Airknocker as it was affectionately known) Champ or Chief in good condition can be bought for £15-20k, or even less. Cessna 120, Luscombe, Taylorcraft, Jodel, Vagabond also fall into this bracket. Insurance around £900 p.a., hangarage £1,200-1,800. Maintenance (self maintained plus inspection) with engine reserve £1,000. Fuel mogas at around 15 litres per hour. Typical usage in a syndicate of two or three about 150 hours, for flying costs of around £45 per hour.

The Super Cubs tend to be CofA, and are more expensive to buy – and will have higher fuel consumption with the 150HP engine.

Legacy complex aircraft do suffer from un-reasonable inflation for spares, and in certain cases non availability of some components at an economically viable price. Hence suggesting keeping it simple. One type I fly which is legacy has just had an AD where a relatively simple mechanical linkage has to be replaced – the simple metal component will cost £950 before VAT and labor.

When I was younger and learnt to fly almost 30 years ago (gulp, that long?) the primary concern was money, today it is time or rather time in which conditions allow flying.

I took up flying after a 10 year hiatus in 2009 again, due to a small inheritance and finally a reasonable salary I was able to re-start my activities and aquire a well equipped now 50 year old Mooney with plans to use it for leasurly VFR travel. To soften the financial impact, some of the pilots who used to fly this airplane while it was part of a flight school continue to fly it. Like that, the aircraft does sufficient hours to be worthwile.

What I found most challenging in the last 5 years was that suitable weather and time off hardy ever coincide. Where I am based is just north of the alps and a lot of desirable destinations for my flying are south of them. That has prevented many trips from happening as the Alps create extremely unreliable weather conditions on either side. The very unstable weather conditions in the last years particularly in the summer season have prevented more trips even when the Alpine region was not involved. Equally, the unstable conditions prevented several trips of longer duration as even if (rarely) the weather was suitable for departure, it was not for the projected return day.

Post mortems of cancelled flights (over 100 in the last 5 years) found that about 20% of them were cancelled in vain, that is they would have been possible after all, but 80% of the cases, the cancellation was justified. I found my personal dispatch rate in VFR, which is restricted by time and weater to be below 10% of all planned trips.

So after long deliberation I took the quite costly decision to upgrade the airplane to IFR and am now in the process of revalidating my IR which has lapsed a long time ago. We’ll see what this will do. Flight hours have initially risen quite well. I hope it stays that way.