Warbird Information Exchange

I could have bought a T-6 for $6500. in 74, I wanted to.

Maybe it is just me ... but I would think that the shared or fractional ownership only truly works with the "lower end". It was stated here.... if you have the money to burn on the gas of a sabre you probably have enough to buy it. Not only that, but the sabre and others are becoming rare and i am not sure i would want someone i did not know flying my sierra hotel aircraft. I would already know that he / she cant afford to do it on their own and then to grant acces to my collection (that I would bab, I would have no idea how they would treat my aircraft that I may own a fraction of, but still I take better care of my car than some people I have to assume the same is true in aircraft ownership...... ontop of that If they cannot afford to buy their own jet, how do you keep current and safe.... thus ensuring you can still stand the insurance sticker price?????

I would think you would be better off to visit places like thunder city or something... Why would you want the expense of owning when you could probably fly more times in someone elses aircraft and probably more often.

I would think the two seat L-29 - 39 /t-33 37 jets would be the way to build you toleance for the fuel pain and experience to move into your own jet.

http://www.warbirdalley.com/fly.htm

Well I got my answer. No-one else seems to be interested in something like this, at least not tonight. I suppose I will have to find another way.

If I start a museum, would anyone contribute to it to "keep em flyin"?

Didn’t the T-34 Lima Lima Flight Team start that way?

Steve

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"Any excuse is good enough if you're willing to use it!"

If you get a trainer like a T-6 or fighter with two seats, then you can start out all the owners with an instructor until they are compitent and safe in the plane.

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Live to fly, Fly to live.....

I think that was Barry Hancock with Worldwide Warbirds. Not sure it went anywhere, but they are also trying to form a "syndicate" around a Mig-29...

I was (temporarily) part of a Tiger Moth syndicate when I was working in Australia, and it worked out great. However, here in Texas we tried to do it with a Pitts S-2B, and it imploded.

For a syndicate like this to work out, it really needs to be managed by a full-time business, like an FBO or restoration shop, even if that means they charge the group a fee. Trying to have a bunch of guys manage it in their spare time is a recipe for disasater (unless you can find some retired CPA with nothing else to do). Invariably, some people will lose interest and/or get behind on the monthly mx fees, which creates a sticky situation - especially if one of them is a friend of yours. Or, the plane goes down for a long time with some expensive problem, and people drop out. It doesn't matter if the plane is a Cub or an F-104.

I think if you could get such a syndicate well-established (with a decent cash reserve in the bank, and committed members) it would work, but getting to that point is difficult.

The 1000/500 requirement is FAA minmum. It would be hard to find an Experimental Aircraft Examiner that would be willing to issue an F-86 Experimantal Rating to a low time guy. It would be equally difficult to get a low level waiver issued for airshow performances. As previously mentioned it would be very difficult, if not impossible, and so expensive that you would not believe it to get a group of pilots insured for such an A/C. If that minimum time was in a select few high performance A/C with very good instruction and in a controlled environment (i.e. military) it MIGHT yield enough experience to safely qualify an individual to fly the F-86 without the absolute guarantee of him busting his ass.

In today's general aviation world the type A/C being used and the instruction given in no way even starts to prepare a pilot to fly these types of A/C. The J-47 engine is comparable to a fuel dump valve, consuming somewhere around 6000#/hr at full power. With jet fuel costing as much as $7.26 per gallon today it would be impossible for anyone but the wealthiest to afford to fly one and maintain currency.

Sharing this type aircraft with multiple other pilots is also the best and fastest way to create monetary and personal conflict and destroy the A/C. I don't mean to "piss in your Post-Toasties", but if you want to fly a jet fighter type A/C it would make much more sense to save your money and go buy some dual time in the ones available with experienced instructors. You would be able to afford to do more flying than if you owned one.

The financials of doing a deal like this are pretty simple. You figure out what you need to operate, add in an extrapolated value for powerplant and airframe maintenance, split it up in shares, and then find your next 7-10 wives or husbands to go into it with you.

What do I mean about wives and husbands? Think of the household you operate now. Think of how smoothly it runs, how good communication works between you and your spouse, how clearly both of your goals are stated, and how easy it is to change course a bit to adjust to different circumstances. Every partnership I have seen, and about five or six come to mind, worked like a marriage. If the people in the mix were clear headed, understanding, of the same mind when it came to maintenance, liked the same radios, enjoyed the total companionship of each other, and were able to work out quarrels about the airplane, the partnership worked smoothly. Otherwise, it went to lawyers and hurt feelings quickly. I have seen a partnership blow up because an engine needed new baffling in an annual, a couple hundred dollars. I saw one where the one person took such great care of the airplane and the other partner was such a slob that the first one quit because he sat in a wet seat from a soda spill. I saw one where the two partners were getting cheated so blindly by the third and didn't want to admit it, and then got bought out at signifigantly less money than they had in the airplane because the airplane needed so much work that the third partner lied about and said was done.

We considered doing a partnership between our family and a friend of mine. We talked it over extensively and in the end decided that it was not the best thing. During the course of that discussion, I had time to really think about joint ownership. My conclusion was this- I really believe that you have to be closer to your airplane partner than to your spouse. Otherwise, you wll be very disappointed. I don't think this is a function of bad human nature. I really think it is a function of widely varying expectations by people involved in General Aviation. Those people are so involved in their flying experience at such a personal level that it is hard to separate their experience from the realities of ownership. This is specific to the US, but I also think that people are so attuned to individual ownership of everything today that the compromising nature of joint ownership is foreign to most.

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REMEMBER THE SERGEANT PILOTS!

I believe there are several books on airplane partners. It seem that I recall an ideal size is 5 members. There's three groups/clubs here that seem to work well enough, Mooney, C172, and Decathalon. I beleive there was, may still be a fighter partnership in California that has worked for years. I have tried myself to find a partner, but had limited success, one serious person was an instructor with tailwheel time and heavy jet time, he came up and flew with me and did well enough, but could not get insurance coverage without them requiring a lot of high performance piston time. I think in your situation it could be done in the right place with the right plane( not a complex jet) , and an excellent and detailed written agreement. The problem is that honest people don't need to have everything covered, and if you get people without integrity, there is usally some hole in the agreement they can exploit. Also you can check hours and currency well enough, but so much of flying is about judgement and that is harder to evaluate when you don't know the person well.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

I'm trying to follow the logic of why someone would put up $5000+ and $25/month for an aircraft they don't get to fly??

We operate our T-6 as a partnership. We have 4 people and all fly the airplane. If anyone ever wants some intel on how we do things, feel free to contact me. Our partnership has lasted 3 years and is going strong.

One thing I will say about insurance, most underwriters I have spoken to are unwilling to write more than 5 or 6 people in a situation like this. It seems like that is insurance "critical mass". Now, I can only speak for me and my partners, but 4 people on a T-6 has worked out well financially.

One other thing to consider is that having 4-5 people means the airplane gets flown instead of sitting around which is ultimately better for the aircraft. Between us all we put about 125 hours a year on her.

Hope this helps.

Mike Hogan
mike.hoganlandmarkaviation.com

IF anybody is interested in buying 25% of a Jet Provost Mk 5A that Prince Charles, hisveryownbadself, Solo'ed in, I can connect you up.

SERIOUSLY

It is hangared and operated out of Brazoria, TX. LBX, where the runway is long and the JET fuel is about as cheap as you are likely to find it.

Get your jet jollies!!!

SPANNERmkV

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Support Your Local Warbirds! KBO!
The only reasons the airplanes matter is what the veterans did with them... and why.

When I was 16 I joined a flying club. I would prefer my FULL ownership of a FRACTIONAL warbird! I have seen a few great partnerships, but usually it is an ugly affair.

Pirate Lex
http://www.BrewsterCorsair.com

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An ego is no match for gravity.

There seems to be a bit of a discussion in two different tangents here: one on behalf of the partnership concept and one on behalf of the fractional ownership concept.

With a partnership, meaning 5-6 people in cahoots with one another, it can go great or be very messy... I can't add much more than what has been noted here to that.

However, in the arena of fractional ownership... at least in how it relates to high end corporate jets, it is quite a bit different than a partnership.

As it was originally concieved, fractional ownership was a way for an owner to fly an aircraft for a "fraction" of the cost of outright ownership by owning a share (say a 1/16 share in a Gulfstream IV). This entitled them to a certain number of hours per year in the plane and because you "owned" a share, you could depreciate the aircraft for tax purposes (which couldn't be done if you chartered a plane).

This pooling of funds allowed operators like NetJets or Flex Jet, to pool funds and have better "fleet" buying power... thereby purchasing a fleet at a discount and having enough to operate and give a basic guarantee in availability should an owner request it. There were additional operating costs per hour levied that would cover various variable costs like fuel, pilot pay, and fees.

One of the great parts of this concept was including the "interchange agreement" clause into it, thereby enabling an owner to schedule a different category of jet if needed for a tradeoff of hours on the "owned" jet... for example, trading two flight hours of CitationJet time for one hour of Falcon 50 time.

As it would relate to warbirds, I see fractionals only being feasible under a certain set of conditions:

1) Have a fleet of aircraft that can support availability and access proportionately to the number of pilot/owners (meaning, as the pool grows, the fleet must as well to maintain dispatch standards). This limits the aircraft out there to more common warbirds such as L-39's or T-33's in jets... and T-6's, CJ-6's, or even P-51s or T-28s.

2) As the fractional world is now more regulated due to the FAA ruling on fractional authorization, additional details of maintenance programs and insurance requirements would need to be ironed out. Also you'd need to consider a training standardization program.

3) Share pricing needs to be set at a level that sets a bar that acts as a hurdle to entry for a reason... You can't just promote $5000 shares and expect people to pay that religiously each year. At a low entry cost, someone might be able to do it for one year, but then next year they may not. If this happens enough, then the viability of the entire program in in jeopardy and the airplane might not operate... thus enraging other owners. Leads to lawsuits I am sure. If you set the initial share price high enough, it assures the people that are grabbing a share have the income to support it and the dedication it will take.

For examples of where an owner/pilot fractional works... take a look at AirShares Elite: http://www.airshareselite.com/ . They use high performance aircraft and guarantee availability around the US.

Additionally, (and our friends from Canada could elaborate) doesn't the Canadian Harvard Aircraft Association operate similar to a fractional ownership? I may be mistaken, but if someone could elaborate?

I had a thought on how a fractional could work for a single plane... in fact, a case study with a B-17 was concieved (around when Fuddy Duddy was for sale).

Imagine four regional museums... in similar size to museums like Warhawk Air Museum (Northwest), American Airpower Museum (Northeast), Wings Over Miami (Southeast), and War Eagles Air Museum (Southwest). All having 501c3 certificates, could use a revenue-generating plane like a B-17 to market and offer rides... but each museum lacks the funding to approprately operate and maintain a plane like a B-17 on their own.

Each museum secures a 1/4 "share" in the plane and with it, are given a set number of display days and flight hours per year. They arrange a schedule whereby the plane will operate on behalf of each organization in a manner that they choose... be it for static display, revenue rides, or airshows. The aircraft bases where it is most advantagous to operations... such as summers in Northeast and Northwest, Winters in Southeast and Southwest.

The museums offset share price for the revenue from flights and shows... thereby allowing them to have a flagship aircraft for display for at least 3-4 months each year. The fact that the plane would be so visible would create momentum in marketing the plane as it toured each year.

Just my .02.

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Ryan Keough
Stow, MA

A couple of years ago a guy here in Illinois set up some sort of club with a T-6. He sent me a flyer on his deal.
I honestly thought it wouldn't work. But it did. He was able to make it happen. But then fate stepped in. I believe this gentleman was diagnosed with a terrible illness and the plane had to be sold.
My point is that it can work but it requires a lot of dedication.