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I am officially out engaging with Chip on any level.

I know what I know and have zero interest in arguing with Chip of all people. I will spend my money the way I choose and he can spend other people’s money the way he chooses.


Mike

Brian,You are 100% correct.

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Mike, thanks for the edit.

I still can’t figure out the accusations about me using gold plated shops and wasting my clients money.

We don’t manage airplanes. We manage airplane purchases. When we take an airplane to a shop, my client is paying the flat rate for the inspection, that flat rate is fairly consistent amongst all shops. I’m not sure how my client is wasting money, even if the flat rate is a little higher. I’ve never had a client complain about the cost of the flat rate.

Do seller’s complain about the bill, yes sometimes, especially if their airplane has been lightly maintained.

Where we take the aircraft for prepurchase is always a component of the negotiations, my job is to protect my client, one of the ways we do that by having a competent shop find discrepancies, and we expect the seller to correct those discrepancies at their expense.

If I didn’t save my clients money, we wouldn’t have the business that we have.

If I didn’t set proper expectations with sellers in regards to what this stuff cost, I’d be dealing with upset sellers and having deals fall out of prebuy.

In business for 8 years and every single airplane we have taken to prebuy has closed. We’ve never had one fall out because I allowed something to slip through my initial inspection that was caught at prebuy and I’ve never had a seller back out because they thought the shop was screwing them. I did have a couple of owners of older King Airs that were pretty upset, but I reminded them I told them what to expect and we were within that.

It comes from you telling others I can't be doing what I am documented doing, that I am making up numbers, that my input is skewed, etc.

You can't argue you know how to cheaply operate these planes at the same time arguing I can't be cheaply operating mine.

There seems to be a significant part of the legacy Citation ecosystem that you don't seem aware of since you question its existence.

Mike C.

Gold plated electrical contacts are marketed as higher quality.
A gold plated lead coin is a fake.
Gold plated seatbelt buckles in airplanes are showy, flashy and unnecessary (I'm looking at you, N5LC.)
Gold plated silver jewelry gets you all of the shine for a lower cost - but it isn't the real thing.

Which gold plated are we talking about?

I don't think Chip's question was answered. Even if everything Mike said was true, it still doesn't answer the question.

Since my purchase, Chip has not made any decisions about my maintenance shops or practices. It's not up to him, it's up to me. He's nice enough to continue to answer a bunch of high-level questions I keep throwing at him, but I decide where, when and how my plane is maintained.

I just reviewed a plane that I didn't buy based on Chip's advice. I paid less for the off-market plane that he found me, and my plane has appreciated $300-400k more than the plane I didn't buy. The savings are indisputable.

I don't understand why people say he wastes his clients' money.

I think you will find you’re hitting your head on a brick wall. Or an engineers mind. Where nothing matters but the numbers. And his numbers. Skewered? Not necessarily. But omissions that would detract from the numbers; like engine times. There was a time when these planes were essentially worth what their engines were worth. And those times will return. Like training costs vs a TP. And most importantly, which is crazy ironic when we talk about how fast and time saving these planes are, is the cost of time. To clients of Chips, time is much more precious. To engineers like Mike C, who spends countless hours adding up the numbers, time is irrelevant if one’s adding up the numbers. Mikes numbers are awesome. But going back to the good ole days of the SF50 debates, leave out a bunch of other stuff. It all comes down to YMMV. But that’s unacceptable to someone where only the numbers matter.

Slight shift towards the original subject - but a different angle.

Attended a business meeting today where some of the subject included the significant investments being made to decarbonize buildings. $$ that even a few years ago was unthinkable.

I'm no tree hugger - but I thought of this thread while listening today. General aviation has seen just a few attacks on it's carbon footprint. It's inevitable that pressure will increase in some way.

This thread is riddled with "I'll just burn twice as much fuel for the same performance and be OK with it." I get the financial math and don't disagreed with it nor am judging it's impact..

It's a lot easier and less costly to burn gas to heat a building. Those days are coming to an end sooner than we think.

So, in 3 years, or 5 years, or 10 years - will it be OK to say "I'll just emit twice as much carbon to move from point a to point b because it works for me?"

Jets vs Turboprops, Twin Turboprops vs SETP. There might be other considerations sooner than we think?

Shhhhh… you said the quiet part out loud.

There are so few turboprops and private jets in the world, that I hope they’ll just leave us alone… but alas you are probably right.

I believe a big part of the problem is that Chip is trying to give out general advice which by definition needs to be broadly applicable and generally correct. In that vein he has a bias towards big-name shops because they are safe. They carry insurance, stand behind their work if they break something, hit the dates they quote, and (like a chain restaurant) give you a consistent level of quality regardless of location. You will pay more (perhaps much more) doing it this way but it will work. If you have a business need for the aircraft such that these costs are written off and you need the quicker turnaround of a larger shop then that is certainly a valid path.

However that does not describe a decent chunk of people on BT. A lot of us are DIYers which is why we fly ourselves around in the first place. Also a lot of us fly for fun and not for business which is my use case. I do not have any place that I need to be and so I am happy to wait for my local mechanic (who is excellent yet only charges $100/hr) vs going up to Yingling or even IJS. I also do a lot of my own work as I assist with all maintenance on my plane. I do the mundane things like pull floor panels, remove aft baggage panels, coil up passenger oxygen masks, fetch tools, you name it.

At the end of the day, there is nothing special about a jet vs a piston. You might have a good shop that lets you help with annuals, use yellow tag parts, etc. (and you want to spend your personal time to do those things) or you could take it to West Star or some other big name shop. The former will clearly cost you fewer dollars than the latter.

There are a number of us that are operating jets using the former method. I think everyone is clear that our method involves a good chunk of personal time to do correctly. But the facts are that we're doing it and so far it is saving us money. I will NEVER overhaul my engines so accruing costs for that doesn't make sense. HSI costs are all over the place. But I run my engines 20C below MCT and hopefully they will go a long time before needing something major. If/when that occurs I will deal with that when it happens. My folks at RBR may be able to fix it or I'll call Tarver up and see how the JT15D vending machine looks that day. Again, this isn't different than a piston. Going into an annual you might get out for just labor, need a cylinder or two, or a whole new engine. Now I believe that I will see my engine performance degrade over time so I can start preparing for a new turbine wheel, have a borescope done so maybe the blades can be regrown before they get too bad, etc. I don't think it's very common for an engine to just grenade.

Another way to look at it is like Accounting methods. You can use cash or accrual basis. Both are correct as long as you are consistent. Mike C is using cash basis accounting. He has shown what he has spent. Those are facts. Chip likes to use accrual basis accounting. He is accruing costs for future events that haven't happened. Those accruals are estimates of both time and amount. In the corporate world, they like accrual as it smooths out their costs and . As an individual it doesn't make sense because it's not real.

Anyway, my point is that they're both correct.

Someone mentioned optics. I am a pretty low profile person, certainly no paparazzi, but I have to say that I do feel more comfortable in some arenas walking out to my little prop plane. While much of the world thinks any plane is an excess, walking out to a little prop plane has better optics for a lot of people than hopping into a big jet... Especially when you are flying solo. Interesting with all the greening of the world, this will become more of an issue. But even as a business owner, I would rather have a picture of me standing by my little prop job than a twin jet. Even if the twin jet costs a lot less, it doesn't look that way. I like being able to tell people I have a little prop plane. Even if it can travel coast to coast and fly at 30,000 feet, it is just a little Cessna to most.

I am not an over the top environmentalist, but do believe in being environmentally conscious in places where it makes sense, and is not overly burdensome.

Offering another way of agreeing with this statement - Chip already stated earlier in the thread he is really not talking about the same things as owners. He is a buyers’ agent. His interaction with shops is to get an inspection done that finds the most issues for his client, the buyer, the repairs for which are then paid for typically by the seller. So he is spending money that is not his client’s.

Ongoing maintenance of an owned aircraft is a different ball of wax and presumably has different strategies.

Everyone is just talking past each other.

This is the elephant in the room. It already has a name: Flight shaming. Elon Musk, the Kardashians and others are having all their flights tracked and published on some websites. While this trend hasn't appeared in Texas - yet - it is alive in well in Europe and ROW. Bernard Arnault, CEO of luxury brand LVMH, sold his jet last year due to this issue.

https://www.businessinsider.com/bernard ... ur-2022-10

I have been looking at acquiring a plane for a while. Despite the current economics of some older jets, I am steering towards highly capable older turboprops, for the lower fuel consumption - both real and perceived. I hope I'm wrong, but I fear private aviation has a target on its back. It's just a matter of time.