Investments in Flight: The Value of Aircraft Ownership

Flying for me has always been about passion—not about profit. Oh yes, I have made my living in and around flying machines of many types—for most of my adult life—but as I used to say about my colleagues and myself in the heady days of the Space Shuttle program, most of us would have worked there for a sandwich and a cot. We loved the challenge and the achievement, and that someone would pay us enough to live while doing it was a bonus.

But flying machines have also always been about business—they have value, get used to make money, and have enabled the global economy ever since someone figured out how to carry more than the weight of one skinny man off the sands of Kitty Hawk. Fortunes have been spent—and some made—with airplanes in the more than a century of powered flight. Fortunes have also been lost, leading me to sometimes speculate that if you added up all of the money spent on aviation since the dawn of flight, and then added up all the money made in that same time period … I am not sure you wouldn’t come up with a net loss. Most aviation businesses run on credit, after all, and someone always ends up without a chair when the music stops.

But let’s step back from the global, macroeconomic point of view and look at airplane ownership on a personal level. The first airplane to have my name on the registration—a worn-out Grumman AA-1B—cost me $4,900 in 1983. I spent a lot of money fixing that machine up in the 20-plus years I owned it, and I think I recouped about $30,000 when I sold it. Some might say I made money—until they looked at the rate of inflation and amount of money I put into a new engine, avionics, paint … and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. But I would say that for me, it was a net gain—over 2,000 hours of time in my logbook, instrument and commercial ratings, tons of experience, and many destinations entered into memory. It’s hard to put a price on all that—and no one should ever really try.

My RV-8 came along as a finished airplane in 2005 after an 18-month build. By the time it was painted in mid-2006, I had totaled up $115,000 in expense to make an airplane I loved and planned to keep forever. At the time, that was a lot of money to spend on an RV—but it was full IFR and had nice lines. I never thought I overspent. A total of 2,280 hours and 21 years later (just last month), it flew off to its new caretaker (I am not sure that we truly ever “own” our machines—we simply take care of them while they are in our sphere …) with my bank account richer by a bigger number than I had spent. Again—there is no way that the value kept up with inflation, there was no way that money couldn’t have been invested on a low-earning CD and grown to a larger value … but I was so enriched by that machine that I couldn’t consider the investment anything but a plus!

Airplanes truly give us things that are financially intangible—we give them our time, money, and a bit of affection and they give us back the experience of sunrise above the clouds with a mountain peak sticking out. They give us the magic of breakfast on the West Coast and dinner in Oshkosh, surrounded by friends. They give us the joy of looking down on the world while inverted at the top of a loop—and the satisfaction of flying that approach to minimums with the light ladder flashing its way to the pavement. Nope—I can’t put a price on any of that, and I don’t really want to try. My investment counselor would look with tears at what he could have done with that money over the years—but I don’t care. For me, the investment will always be positive.

Now my little jet—an airplane I built about seven years ago—is flying off with its new owner soon. I’ll miss the bird, but I’ve had my fun with it. It’s time for its new caretaker to enjoy the same things it has given me. Again, I know what I spent, and I got just about that much back out of it—a poor financial investment, for sure … but a wise one in terms of an aviation life and experience builder.

The proceeds from the jet will join those from the RV-8 in my broker’s ledger, and we’ll see what he can do with the money until some new siren comes along — the lure of flight and experiences yet to come. Truth be told, I have a new machine already taking the place of the RV-8—my Rocket named “Myst.” The new machine cost money, yes—the bank ledgers went down again, but the ledger of the soul is fuller for having it in my life. Performance—thy name is a Rocket … and there are places to go and things to see. Investing is building for the future—and the success of investments are not all measured in dollars and cents.

Let’s climb over that mountain and find the music and the value in the sky!