Adam,

The video makes a great point about time. But it isn't necessarily a new luxury (although it can be). For the entrepreneur time, like confidence, are the great off balance sheet assets. When you run out of it your time becomes incredibly valuable. Saving time, or creating more productive time, is the number one reason I own my aircraft. Sometimes the trip taken in the TBM isn't hugely faster than flying commercially, but the couple of hours it does save create time leverage. Leveraging time can have the same multiplier impact that leveraging money can.

The other benefit of flying privately for the entrepreneur pilot though is the pleasure of flying. There is a time overhead for training and planning which taken against the time saved by flying may wipe out the advantage (in other words to really max out time savings flying privately you probably need a pro pilot so you can skip the training, planning and management time overhead like the guy in the video) but I think it's important to factor back into the equation passion and pleasure. For me flying is both and it's a free time activity even when flying on business because I can never get enough of it.

Great photos John! Especially the one of you and Kenny with the airplane. Love it

Adam,

The video makes a great point about time. But it isn't necessarily a new luxury (although it can be). For the entrepreneur time, like confidence, are the great off balance sheet assets. When you run out of it your time becomes incredibly valuable. Saving time, or creating more productive time, is the number one reason I own my aircraft. Sometimes the trip taken in the TBM isn't hugely faster than flying commercially, but the couple of hours it does save create time leverage. Leveraging time can have the same multiplier impact that leveraging money can.

The other benefit of flying privately for the entrepreneur pilot though is the pleasure of flying. There is a time overhead for training and planning which taken against the time saved by flying may wipe out the advantage (in other words to really max out time savings flying privately you probably need a pro pilot so you can skip the training, planning and management time overhead like the guy in the video) but I think it's important to factor back into the equation passion and pleasure. For me flying is both and it's a free time activity even when flying on business because I can never get enough of it.

Thanks Tony! Being the company pilot sounds fun but you are right, I won't likely have enough time to do that so I'll hire another pilot.

I do, I keep it on fan but maybe it isn't working right??

Excellent point Alex! Perhaps the best time saver of all!

I'd be curious to learn how others do this. I've been using several pro pilots on a per diem basis for $500/day plus expenses for several years. This has worked fine so far but to use the plane even more having a pilot employee would create even more flexibility but at a potentially higher cost. Where is the break even in terms of utility (not expense)?

I'm only using a pro pilot about 15 times a year. But if I had an employee I would be tempted to have the plane flown a lot more. Jason has well made the point many times that the first hour each year is the expensive one and after that it gets cheaper and cheaper.

Alex, I'd love to come down and visit sometime! Maybe a surfing trip with Mr Penman?

Towards your point, I just finished a trip where we were able to create a big (positive) paradigm shift with a new strategic customer and (in addition) get them to accept a delay. To do this we had to attend two meetings in different places within a short timeframe. As soon as we finished these meetings, we headed off to another customer site to be there the morning they lost some features in our service that they really enjoyed - I like to be there in person when bad news comes down (in this case we didn't cause it) - we shared some news about upcoming features and created some love then we raced off to San Diego to drop off a key employee that I needed for 2 of these meetings (he scheduled Friday off and I needed him so I offered to drop him off where he would have spent Friday driving to), I also arranged to see a customer in San Diego while there (I was pushing things a bit by scheduling a Friday afternoon meeting and of course we had big headwinds so I was sitting there on the flight wishing I could go even faster (it never ends....)).

This was a perfect trip to justify an airplane. We finished the week with big wins and those wins wouldn't have been possible without private aviation!

I also need to thank BT for this. Without this forum I wouldn't have met the other entrepreneurs in my same position that are doing this. I don't know if I'd have had the guts to buy an airplane like this without this influence.

Wonderful to hear how well this is working out for you John. Hope it continues to pay personal benefits and business dividends!

Good point Tony. I certainly intend to incorporate the use of a private pilot that can deliver team members when it behooves me to be somewhere else.

John, run your TCAS in ABOVE/BELOW. You have it set to ABOVE. That does not do anything for you at 450. If you need to do an emergency descent from 450 you want to see traffic below beyond 3000’.

John, run your TCAS in ABOVE/BELOW. You have it set to ABOVE. That does not do anything for you at 450. If you need to do an emergency descent from 450 you want to see traffic below beyond 3000’.

Thanks Tony! Being the company pilot sounds fun but you are right, I won't likely have enough time to do that so I'll hire another pilot.

John,

Awesome looking plane Wishing you many hours of safe flight and productive business ventures!!!




Matt

I could have suggested John push the left power up by .6 and get another knot or two of speed.

But no one is judging here.