What's one of the first tasks you set for yourself when thinking about buying an airplane? How to justify the costs and responsibilities of ownership, of course. You may not need convincing, but chances are that others close to you do.
There's no lack of help available to mount a persuasive argument in defense of owning — articles, books, and even software programs extolling the economic and other virtues of flying your own aircraft.
One of the latest and most sophisticated of such software programs is called Travel$ense. Developed by the National Business Aviation Association, Travel$ense provides its corporate flight department users with a remarkably detailed and thorough cost and benefit analysis of using the company airplane versus chartering or taking the airlines. What's most interesting about the program is that it takes a rigorously objective view of what is the best means of transporting company executives on a particular trip. It does so by comparing the actual dollar cost of each method of flying and the time involved — and may the most efficient win.
Each user provides the raw material for the analysis — the cost of operating the company aircraft, and even the salaries of the executives who use it — and that information is stacked up against actual, current airline ticket costs for the specific trip in question.
More often than not, the dispassionate Travel$ense shows the company aircraft to be the best choice. No surprise there, but the program doesn't cheat. It might cost more in out-of-pocket dollars, but flying corporate also saves a great deal of time compared with the airlines. And time is worth a lot of money, especially to highly paid executives. (The slogan used to market Travel$ense is "Time has value.") Airlines adhere to an inflexible, often inconvenient schedule, and in most cases it takes longer to make the same trip on the airlines than in a corporate aircraft. Time spent in a private, comfortable corporate aircraft cabin also can be far more productive for executives, compared with the confined, crowded, very public environment of an airline cabin.
Unfortunately, we don't have a Travel$ense for light, personal aircraft. You could plug figures for, say, a Cessna 172 into Travel$ense, but on a time and cost comparison, the 110-knot Cessna would lose out to a 450-knot Boeing too often.
Which brings me to my friend Brad. Brad is a walking, talking version of Travel$ense, except that he compares flying in a small airplane to driving. Brad is a manufacturer's sales rep for the state of Florida, and he does a lot of driving around the state. For many years Brad has dreamed about learning to fly. He even took a few lessons once, but for all the usual reasons failed to stick with it. He has kept up his interest, however. He follows general aviation and knows a lot about small airplanes. He watches more Wings programs than I do. He goes to airshows, buys computer flying games for his kids, and really seems to enjoy flying in my airplane. He still has the fever.
About a year ago I started working on him to buy into an airplane as a partner. I figured that it was the best way for him to get off the dime and finally learn to fly. And, I thought, he could easily justify using an airplane to make his sales rounds. At first he was interested, but in the end he declined to take the plunge. He's still piloting his Volvo wagon.
A New Englander by birth, upbringing, and temperament, Brad casts a flinty analytical eye on the notion of becoming an airplane owner. Yes, it would propel him toward his long-standing goal of becoming a private pilot — but, no, it would not make sense in his business. Driving is simply too efficient, he says. The hour or two that flying might save on a particular trip would be far outweighed by the hassle of getting from the destination airport to his customer's place of business. Besides, it would cost more to fly than drive, he says, and as an independent rep, his costs of doing business come out of his wallet.
I'm sure that his analysis is correct — he knows his business — but I also think that he takes too narrow a view of flying. I'm convinced that he would discover ways he hasn't thought of to use an airplane. Perhaps he could expand his territory, see customers more often, and even get new customers who are pilots and like to do business with other pilots. Perhaps not.
The point is, Brad will never have a set of airplane keys to call his own if, in his mind, he has to justify ownership in the cold, harsh light of practicality. Lots of airplane owners can truthfully say that a personal airplane does indeed save them time and money in pursuit of their business. And lots of airplane owners cannot make that claim. Yet, they somehow justified buying an airplane. How?
Let Brown Smith, who has owned a Cessna 182 for a number of years, explain it. "Forget all the economics of airfare and automobile costs," Smith recently wrote me. "There are many intangibles afforded to those of us blessed with the ability and inclination to fly. I have found that general aviation is populated with many people who love flying for its own sake and are most helpful, kind, and supportive ... the farther you are from home, the more helpful they are. True, it is not cheap, but neither are bass boats, ski trips, or mountain cabins."
Brown says that his Skylane is the only aircraft he has ever owned, and it "has afforded me much pleasure and expanded my world in many ways. I have been transferred a couple of times with my job and my airplane always goes with me …. The airplane has provided me with an introduction to a high-quality circle of friends in new places, so how do you place a value on that?"
When I read Brown's letter, I immediately thought of my friend Brad. Whereas Brad tries to strip away the emotion of flying and owning an airplane, Brown has learned to embrace it.
"Anyway, owning and flying your own airplane is a great experience," Brown says in his letter. "It will teach you many things besides how to fly and maintain the aircraft. The airplane will teach you much about yourself that you will never know by renting some oil-stained bird at the local FBO. There is a certain poetry and rhythm involved in this type of travel. It puts things in perspective."
And, in what reads like a conversation with Brad, Brown reveals that "I argued with myself for years before I finally coughed up the money for the 182. It was one of the best decisions I ever made — although on the day it was delivered, I stood on the ramp and just looked at it and wondered, 'What the hell was I thinking?'"
Are you listening, Brad?
