Lead Sled
Sitt'n on the throne...
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2004
- Posts
- 2,066
There is really no such thing as "THE BEST AIRPLANE" at any given price or price range. Every airplane is, at best, a group of compromises - let's face it, $3 to $4 million will buy you a lot of different airplanes from executive configured ex-airline B707's, B737's, and 727's to brand new CJs and 1001 different makes and models in between. The trick is to find the airplane that most closely matches your needs, wants, and most importantly, your budgets - purchase and operational. If you've got 40 people to move around buy a Boeing. If you've got 6 people and you don't have to fly very far then get a Citation. However, the effeciency of a Citation comes at a price - if you're going to fly more than a handful of coast to coast trips a year in any of the CJs or straight winged Citations in his stated price range, the boss isn't going to be very happy. 100 knots on the nose takes a real toll on those airplanes on the west-bound legs.
The whole idea is to find the airplane with the least number of compromises for your given mission, operational, and budgetary constraints. Knowing that there's an airplane out there that will fit your mission and operational profiles perfectly is nice to know, but totally meaningless if your budget limit is $4 million and the airplane in question costs $4.1 million. How many of you guys know guys who lost their jobs because the boss over bought? It's happened to me and I know that it's happened to plenty of others. As a group, we have a tendency to try and steer our employers into getting what we want to personally be flying. If you're flying a single there's a big tendancy to, regardless of the merits, recommend a twin. If you're operating a twin, you're probably going to be real tempted to recommend a turbo-prop. A turbo-prop, then a jet...
Sometimes, if you are honest with yourself, the proper airplane might be something "less" than what you are currently operating. Funny thing though, I've never heard of anyone making that recomendation.
What he really needs to do is to make an honest evaluation of his employer's needs, then take a hard and subjective look at what's available in the marketplace at fits within your budgetary constraints. In our case, the boss wanted one more seat. We could have got it, but doing so would have either cost at least $5 million more, or essentially doubled our direct operating costs, or forced us to relocate to a different airport with a longer runway. Granted our airplane is a compromise, but it works for us and most important - the boss is comfortable with it.
LS
The whole idea is to find the airplane with the least number of compromises for your given mission, operational, and budgetary constraints. Knowing that there's an airplane out there that will fit your mission and operational profiles perfectly is nice to know, but totally meaningless if your budget limit is $4 million and the airplane in question costs $4.1 million. How many of you guys know guys who lost their jobs because the boss over bought? It's happened to me and I know that it's happened to plenty of others. As a group, we have a tendency to try and steer our employers into getting what we want to personally be flying. If you're flying a single there's a big tendancy to, regardless of the merits, recommend a twin. If you're operating a twin, you're probably going to be real tempted to recommend a turbo-prop. A turbo-prop, then a jet...
Sometimes, if you are honest with yourself, the proper airplane might be something "less" than what you are currently operating. Funny thing though, I've never heard of anyone making that recomendation.
What he really needs to do is to make an honest evaluation of his employer's needs, then take a hard and subjective look at what's available in the marketplace at fits within your budgetary constraints. In our case, the boss wanted one more seat. We could have got it, but doing so would have either cost at least $5 million more, or essentially doubled our direct operating costs, or forced us to relocate to a different airport with a longer runway. Granted our airplane is a compromise, but it works for us and most important - the boss is comfortable with it.
LS
