Palm Springs / Pond lawsuit settled

[k5083]

From last Saturday's Desert Sun:

http://www.mydesert.com/article/2010053 ... -dismissed

Good to know that the parties have resolved their differences and cleared the way for the Pond airplanes to continue to be maintained, with a view to eventually being flown again. However, if the museum is only a few annual $250K payments into the $10M price to buy the aircraft, many of us had better lay off the donuts if we want to live to see this great collection airborne again.

August

[tulsaboy]

Wow. Good news, August. But let be make sure my math is correct. First, that entire lot of aircraft for a cool $10 million? I'll bet some other folks might be interested in buying that collection for that price (if I correctly understand what is in the collection that belongs to Pond.) Second, 250k annually towards 10m? Doesn't that mean that the aircraft won't fly for 40 years??? I would sure think that the annual maintenance required to keep a fleet of 60+year old aircraft in flyable condition over a 40 year period, with the ultimate aim of sprucing them up and flying them around when they are 100+ years old might be daunting to say the least. Not to mention a bit costly. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I would sure want to work something in there, if I was the director of the museum, so that as we made progress on the 10m we were able to progressively return portions of the collection to flight. Unless I really never wanted to fly them again.

kevin

[k5083]

The article says the Pond aircraft -- listed in the box in the upper right corner of the article web page -- were "appraised" at $16M. The article mentions "donation" which could be a way of characterizing the discount that the museum is getting.

My arithmetic on the time period is the same as yours; hence my comment about laying off the donuts.

I have no knowledge of the purchase/donation agreement. If I were the museum I certainly would want it structured the way you describe, but I just don't know how it was done.

August

[ZRX61]

If I read that article correctly... someone with deep pockets could *fund* the museum debt & have everything flying PDQ....



.... eyes the lottery tickets... what's tomorrow nights jackpot?