"It's a four-year lease, with $12,740 down, $1,248 per month, and a management fee of $850 a month," said William McKelvey of his Seneca Vs. "Then you're entitled to 40 flying days per year at $184 an hour, wet." McKelvey, interviewed by Editor at Large Thomas A. Horne for this month's article about the Seneca V (see " New Piper Seneca V: Tough Bird," page 68), runs a fractional ownership operation — Aviation One LLC — out of the Marshfield, Massachusetts, airport, featuring two Cessna Citation Is, two Citation IIs, and two Seneca Vs. Of his 10 fractional shareholders, three enjoy the luxury of flying the Senecas themselves — thus avoiding a $1,570 monthly pilot fee that saddles those who fly in the Citations. As Horne points out in his article, that's just one more reason why piston twins continue to find a place in the new-airplane market.
"Like matrimony, buying an airplane is an act of irrational optimism," says author Stephen Coonts. After an ill-fated buying expedition last spring (see " The Art of the Deal," page 120), Coonts and his partner, Mike Rinaldi, "finally scored." They purchased a 1953 Cessna 170B. "Our new flame spent a lot of time in the shop this summer as we installed a new radio, rewired the panel, overhauled the altimeter, and replaced the tailwheel spring and battery," says Coonts. "Although her owners are poorer and wiser, she flies great. Come join us in the sky."
Author Rich Karlgaard's bio reads like a who's who of American publishing. The publisher of Forbes, considered the world's leading business and financial magazine, Karlgaard has co-founded two companies (Garage Technology Ventures in 1997 and Upside magazine in 1988), is a regular guest on Fox television's Forbes on Fox and has appeared on ABC's Nightline and CNN's Digital Jam. He also writes a monthly column, "Digital Rules," for Forbes. While he may keep company with the likes of Steve Forbes, Gore Vidal, and Caspar Weinberger, Karlgaard had to earn his instrument rating just like the rest of us (see " To Hell and Back," page 107). "I was humbled," says Karlgaard.
Santa Paula Airport, 45 nautical miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, is home to an abundance of unusual and fascinating airplanes. On the first Sunday of each month, owners open their hangar doors and invite visitors to view the treasures that lie within. During one such open house, author Barry Schiff discovered "the most beautifully restored Culver Cadet I had ever seen. It was as alluring and exciting to me then as it apparently was to pilots of the early 1940s and beyond. I found its owner, Carl Walston, slowly, pridefully polishing his machine. One could see his fondness for the aircraft with each stroke of the rag, a process I was reluctant to interrupt but did. The result of that conversation and my desire to reacquaint myself with an airplane that I hadn't flown for 46 years is ' Culver Cadet: America's Sweetheart '" (see page 88).
