notes from 4/8/2009 meeting

[James Carlson]

Bob I. says "thank you" to Jim and Mike for the mailing list and
spreadsheet work that's been done.

In reviewing the spreadsheet numbers, we decided we should stick with
market prices for fuel (rather than discounted) and that oil should be
$7/qt.

Steve has modified the spreadsheet to take a percentage down and
figure that into the buy-in.

Bob I. reports that Tim wants a club on the field and is willing to
work with us to make that happen.  If it's not 976, he understands,
and is open to that.

Is the $20/hour maintenance figure that Sean quoted from $20K overhaul
divided by 1000 hours left?  (2000 TBO minus 1000 SMOH?)  Jim notes
that this isn't the right way to account for it, as the SMOH should
just come off the total cost of the airplane.

Bob M. and Bob I. note that it's better to charge a little too much
now, and then have to charge less in the future than to run into
financial problems.  After looking at the current numbers, we agree
that bumping the per-hour cost to $20 (versus the current $10) is a
good idea.

Steve says he wants to stick with a strict hourly/fixed separation,
and to round the numbers up to pad a bit.  There's no disagreement.

Bob M. says that surprises in maintenance are common.  He just had to
put $5K into tail work.

Bill asks about the warranty on the engine.  We don't know, but we
need to find this out.

Bob M. says that the cheapest annual he's gotten is $1200 and the most
expensive was $1800.  Bill says that the number should be closer to
$2200, and that $1500 is cheap.

Bill would like us to consider adding a Garmin 430 for $10K to the
panel.  (It would be interesting to see how that works into the cost.)
Bill says that avionics are very important to him.

Bob I. says that Tim's idea for 976 is for the club to pay off the
note (12 to 18K), we get the plane, and then we pay off his equity
over time.  If he has to do work on the engine, IFR certification,
that might be more.

Bob I. had Vref numbers of $21K as-is for 976, deducting for lost
logs, new transponder, and other bits, but not including engine.  With
fixes, it was $46K.

Bob I. and Steve note that the note pay-off would be as much as $1800
per-person buy-in, and that'd be a bit steep.  We could finance this
part separately.

If we're buying, do we want low or high wing?  There's no clear
preference in the group.  Bob I. would like to have 177, though.

Bob I. checked with Eagle, and they're ok with us using their name for
the club.  The facilities upstairs are also open to us.

So, is it 976 or otherwise?  Todd says no if it's not fixed.

Bob I. noted that Tim would like to be a member.  Nobody's sure if
they're interested in just flying it, or if they'd want to use it for
instruction.  We discussed instruction in the plane and agreed that
for non-compete reasons, we don't want non-Eagle instructors used in
it, and we don't want any members with a CFI giving instruction.
[Ed. note: we didn't cover yet another variation: one member giving
instruction to another.]

Todd suggested letting Eagle use the plane for instruction if we can
use their planes at our rates.  Jim said that our fixed costs were
different from theirs, and that this probably is a little too
complicated.  We agree that this is jumping the gun right now.

We agreed that we need to find out what the other members are
interested in doing, and see how many would want to join with concrete
numbers and a plane.  Bob M. noted that we should start with a small
number of members -- say 10 -- and then grow if it seems to work.  The
alternative -- starting with too many members and then having to kick
some out -- is far too difficult.

Bob I. suggested having a low (40K), middle (50K), and high (60K) set
of options.  After discussion about the options available, Bob
I. volunteered to look up two or three representative "real" planes
that we can put side-to-side in the spreadsheet, and offer the
prospective members a simple list: plane, buy-in, monthly, and hourly,
and then get a vote.  Bob I. noted that the planes we pick might not
still be available when we're done, but Jim says that these would at
least be more tangible, because the plane itself is a big factor to
him, even if we have to select a different one later.

Steve will do the numbers and send the request for a selection to the
rest of the crowd via eefc-interest at workingcode.com.  [Ed. note:
zoomerang.com has free "basic" surveys and would probably work well
for something simple like this.]

Bob I. will also talk with Tim to get updated numbers for 976 and give
those to Steve.

Next meeting not yet decided.  Next weekend is Easter, and some are
away the next week.  We need to meet after we have the new numbers
from Tim and the survey results so that we can choose the way forward.

[We should probably discuss the next meeting on the list.  Once we
have the data needed, we can ask for available times.]

-- 
James Carlson         42.703N 71.076W         <carlsonj at workingcode.com>