Just some stuff I want to share with you
Buying a plane isn’t just about finding the right aircraft. Once you’ve found “the one”, the real work begins: negotiations, paperwork, and a fair bit of uncertainty. Now that we have found a Robin that we like, it was time to try and actually buy it.
We have started negotiations with L’Union Aérienne Lille Roubaix Tourcoing (UALRT) to convince them to sell the F-GSBM to us. Next to price, we also had to come to an agreement on work to be done before handover. This was the first time we were negotiating with a French flying club - something completely new to all of us.
Read full articleRobin DR400s with a 180 hp engine don’t come up for sale often. So, when two showed up on PlaneCheck at the same time, we dropped everything, cleared our calendars, and set off on our next road trip.
We were lucky that we could plan to visit both planes on two consecutive days. Both are in France, but there’s 300 km between them. Let’s go!
Read full articleWe made up our minds and decided to start searching for “our” Robin DR400. Time to power on the computer and browse to PlaneCheck to find out what’s available out there. There were a few Robins that got our attention and we contacted the sellers for additional information; some didn’t bother to respond; others came with a short “it’s already sold” response. It’s clear that we need to act fast when a new plane is put up for sale!
Then Bas warned us: even when everything looks great on paper and on the website, once you stand next to the plane, you may find that you either love or hate it. We need to get on the road and start to visit some of these beauties.
Read full articleThe financial analysis we did back in October made clear what we already suspected: owning a plane isn’t cheap. But having the numbers on your screen in a spreadsheet was confronting and made us wonder if we were willing to put that much money into our hobby.
Some time has passed and we have had some time to think things over. The dark and cold months are behind us, and the good weather is getting closer. At some point we have to stop thinking about it and decide which plane we are going to fly this year. So, let’s have dinner, discuss and see if we can come to a conclusion.
Read full articleFlying is great fun, but it’s not a cheap hobby. Renting planes from a flying club is usually the best option to keep the cost under control. That is exactly what we have been doing for years.
But there’s a downside to that: the availability of the planes. And that is how we ended up with the idea of buying a plane. Before taking that step, let’s figure out if we can afford it.
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