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With a twist, could you actually make your dream a reality? Would it potentially be worth it for you?

Now me I grew up with a little too much Tailspin and other Disney cartoons, so one of my childhood goals was to get a flying boat, preferably a PBY Catalina or a Grumman Albatross, and run cargo and passengers in the Caribbean.

Well a couple of my mates and I were kicking the idea ball around, and between us, we actually have the talent group required to probably pull that off, including a machinist who can manufacture repair parts, experienced flight crew/mechanics (raises hand), and at least one guy with a basic pilot's license. Not that upgrading to commercial is an easy task but I'm elbow deep in FAA charts plotting max range circles from various origins for various airframes under consideration (mostly various Grumman frames) as well as matching them up to a Divemaster buddy's "hot spots" and hard to get to locations as a potential service for tourists. So depending on what we end up charting out for feasibility with local laws and regs and of course the big ticket, initial investment, which is hangar space/a docking slip, moving ourselves down there, and of course the bird herself and at least a year's operating expenses.

So am I likely to be rocking a tropical shirt and khakis till I finally die of old age on a beach somewhere? Probably not, but it's interesting to see something like that at least be technically feasible even if the gods of finances and red tape prevent it in the end.


For those of you unfamiliar, and those of you who want a nostalgia trip quick...

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Not that upgrading to commercial is an easy task

Actually, getting the commercial license is the easy part of this plan. The testing standards you have to meet are pretty reasonable if you've logged enough hours to qualify (and haven't been screwing around without ever trying to improve your skills), the hardest part is paying for it. The training itself isn't too expensive, but you need to have about $50-100k worth of hours in your logbook before you're eligible. But if you can afford that or your pilot friend has been flying long enough to have the minimum hours already you have four huge obstacles:

1) The FAA (or local equivalent) requirements to run a business, especially one carrying passengers, include a lot more than just the license for the pilot(s)*. And the FAA has very little tolerance for people interpreting those rules incorrectly, no matter how "reasonable" their interpretation seemed at the time. Before you invest any money in this plan you need to hire a good lawyer to go over your plan and explain exactly what you need to do. Researching it yourself is not a substitute for a lawyer, it's just an easy way to get yourself into a lot of legal trouble.

2) Depending on what the lawyer says you may discover that you're running an airline and not just a charter service. That means your pilot(s)* need the ATP license, not just the commercial, which has tougher testing requirements and a 1500 hour minimum instead 250. And all of the other laws get stricter in similar ways.

3) Forget about having your machinist make spare parts. Unless your plane is certified as an experimental aircraft (many warbirds are, but that means no paying passengers allowed) you have to get official FAA-approved parts. Your only way around this would be to do all of the paperwork and testing to register each new part for general use on that type of airplane, which is not even remotely practical. Oh, and to do any maintenance or repair work more complicated than an oil change (and maybe even that, depending on the plane) you need an aircraft mechanic's license.

4) Forget about the Catalina, they cost a stupid amount of money and the few that are available for sale are probably registered as experimental aircraft and not available for commercial use. The flying boats in general are probably pointless anyway, even if you find one you'll probably have ridiculously high operating expenses for the number of passengers you could carry. And then you'll have to pay for a type rating, and if you want your insurance costs to be less than the GDP of a small country you're going to need a lot of experience in that plane. A normal seaplane is what you want, not a giant flying boat.


*Yes, that's probably pilots with an 's'. A lot of planes that size require a second pilot, and that's a legal requirement.

Whilst one would love to actually be a Ghostbuster, one suspects the cultural and theological implications of the existence of an afterlife might well , at the very least, make it much less exciting driving around in a refitted ambulance.


... But I'd get the pole to slide down at the very least and thanks to advances in technology it'd be much easier to have a theme tune play as we saved the day.

 Peregrine wrote:
Snip

Yep. All on the table. The PBY wasn't an actual consideration, I'm pretty sure I'd be lynched if I put one of those old birds to work.

If you can't manufacture parts, what do you do with older aircraft that need new parts? Also aware of the mech certs. Pretty sure you can't even do the oil check without your A&P in the civilian world, much less and oil change.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
If you can't manufacture parts, what do you do with older aircraft that need new parts?

Three options:

1) Hope that there's enough of an inventory of spare parts to support it. Easy to do with stuff like engines or other standardized parts, not so easy with structural damage. This is part of why older aircraft that don't have significant historical value aren't worth as much money.

2) Hope that someone cares enough about the type to manufacture new parts. If it's a popular plane they can pay off the cost of certifying the new parts with the expected volume of sales, or even buy the original type certificate and manufacture new copies of the original stuff.

3) Certify it as an experimental aircraft and do whatever you want with it (as long as you're willing to be the test pilot). But that's only worth it if you're trying to keep a beloved aircraft in flying condition since the experimental certification means you can't carry passengers.

Also aware of the mech certs. Pretty sure you can't even do the oil check without your A&P in the civilian world, much less and oil change.

There's some limited stuff you can do without the A&P, but only with at least a private license and only on an airplane you own or operate that is not used commercially. Here's a summary if you're interested: http://www.aopa.org/Pilot-Resources/PIC-archive/Aircraft-Ownership/Preventive-Maintenance

Back when I was about half way through collecting GW & DeAgostini lotr magazines, I had the dream of one day fielding a fully painted army.

These days, I am the proud owner of a mostly grey and silver horde of lotr, 40k, and infinity. My most painted army is probably either urukhai or lotr high elves. Those two armies are about a third painted of what I have.

Also, I got one of those old red and blue lego tackleboxes around somewhere. Its stuffed to the brim with the random blisters from the magazines that I never assembled. Got to do that someday.

Dropbear Victim wrote:
Back when I was about half way through collecting GW & DeAgostini lotr magazines, I had the dream of one day fielding a fully painted army.

These days, I am the proud owner of a mostly grey and silver horde of lotr, 40k, and infinity. My most painted army is probably either urukhai or lotr high elves. Those two armies are about a third painted of what I have.

I was in a very similar situation about last September, I had every issue of that magazine and various other LotR metals and plastics, a good chunk of which was damaged or very poorly painted. Since then, I've been on a non-stop LotR painting spree and now got probably 60% of it done to a standard I'm at least happy with. All my Rohan, Elf and most of my Mordor and Isengard are done, with the biggest missing links being the Fallen Men stuff (which I will focus on next month) and the Goblins (in a large state of disrepair, I may fix them up but it's not a priority). The other day, I put out everything I had done in the last few months (around 200 models all told) on the shelves, and I can't deny there was a certain sense of achievement to having made such progress on something that began all those years ago.

Still, plenty more to do.