Airplane repo-man (NYTs)

[DemoTex]

Foreclosing on a Plane, Then Flying It Away

Ken Hill’s last business trip took him through eight states in January and netted him 12 planes. His current one is a 30- to 45-day trip for 27 more planes, his biggest ever.

Mr. Hill is an airplane repo man, one of the best and busiest in the business. With the economy sinking and the general aviation industry suffering, Mr. Hill is working flat out as he makes his way from one airport to another, carrying just a few basic tools — a propeller lock, a portable radio, hand-held GPS device and a fanny pack stuffed with hundreds of keys. “I’m busy, always on the move, up early in the morning, late to bed at night,” Mr. Hill said in a telephone interview from his hotel in Knoxville, Tenn., between repossessions in January. “My wife never asks me where I’m going. She just says, ‘Call me when you’re there, and tell me where you are.’ ”

A career plane dealer and licensed pilot, Mr. Hill, 66, estimates that he has repossessed hundreds of aircraft since his first propeller-powered Piper Cherokee 180 in 1969. Friends call him the Grim Reaper, an image he seems to alternately relish and detest.

Whether times are good or bad, the costs of owning a plane are considerable.

Besides the purchase price, there are maintenance, hangar, fuel, catering and insurance costs. Many owners help pay the bills by chartering their airplanes, but demand is shrinking in this economy. (More ..)


Ken Hill, who repossesses aircraft for loan holders, in Santa Barbara, Calif., with some of the planes he has recovered.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/business/14repo.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

The repo-man cometh, and then he goeth off, off, off into the wild blue yonder!

[lapfog_1]

1. There will be a glut of small planes on the market

and the manufacturers will be put out of business. The banks will never get back their loans, storing the
planes isn't an option either (less so than a repo'd house).

The banks and the loan people are going to kill the United States ( and themselves to boot ) by taking a hard
line with borrowers (dead beats, bad debtors, etc).

Oh well.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

4. I'm thinking about buying a Piper Malibu if the price is right

[tangent90]

16. The propjet Meridian? A fair plane but for that money you can get something

a lot better like a Socata or Pilatus (my preference)
:D

[Lucky Luciano]

8. Yep...look at the stock price for TXT (Textron makes Cessnas).

Totally hammered over the last year!

[tangent90]

14. I should have waited to buy my Cessna 310!

But I got a great deal, actually...picked it up when av gas was 6 bucks a gallon and the owner was in a major panic. Now it's back to about 2 and I can afford to fly it. Some.
:D

[Hassin Bin Sober]

2. It's kind of a risky job. Isn't it? I mean, flying all those unfamiliar aircraft.

My father-in-law tells me how he helped out on a few repos. He described the scenario where he would sometimes have to hop in to an unfamiliar aircraft and get off rather quickly after a quick review of the manual/emergency procedures.

My FIL, like this guy, has probably flown just about everything with a propeller attached to it.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

3. a friend did a Gulfstream repo a few months ago,

They bribed the deadbeat owners pilots who were going to be unemployed anyways $25,000 each and a first class ticket home to fly the plane to the UK from where they picked up the plane and flew it back to the US.

[cloudbase]

5. Another advantage of owning a glider. n/t

[TahitiNut]

7. Or a ...

... hot air balloon. :shrug:

[lame54]

6. I thought it was a poll - I'd pick Airplane...

though Repo-Man had a better soundtrack

[lib2DaBone]

9. I guess that's all that is left of Gen Aviation...what a shame...

I think about the thousands of jobs flying charters and freight ..the backbone of up and coming pilots.

Does anyone in this country realize the devastation G.W. Bush and the Republicans have caused?

Will the last one out of America please turn out the lights... thank you.

[tangent90]

13. Sadly the new administration is making things worse with proposed user fees

and more privatization of aviation services. Actually, general aviation is one of the very few industries Bushco didn't fuck up.
(except indirectly by encouraging fuel price gouging)

[Occam Bandage]

10. That sounds like a pretty fun job. nt

[lib2DaBone]

11. Ya..know what you mean. I thought so too....

..But flying a bunch of different aircraft that you are not familiar with... is a recipe for death.

Hey.. I got a nice Dash-8 you can repo.. just be careful when you disengage the auto pilot in a snowstorm.... it has a tendency to rock from side-to-side and stall....

[tangent90]

12. So how does he repo a jet without a type-rated copilot?

:shrug:

[DemoTex]

17. The pilot-in-command must have the type-rating, and be current in the aircraft.

My guess is that repo-man has a list to call from .. free-lance pilots or off-duty pilots (lots of FlightSafety instructors do this) who are type-rated on whatever the repo target of the day is. Unless repo-man himself is type-rated in the particular jet (say, a GulfStream-V), he is indeed the co-pilot (second-in-command). I'm sure the lien-holders and their insurers insist on a by-the-book FAR 91 operation.

The one-time flight insurance for a repo-flight (ferry flight) is probably very expensive, even with a qualified crew. If there were an accident and a hull-loss, the insurers would look for any excuse not to pay. Lack of proper crew qualifications would be such excuse, and a damn good one. Someone would then be left holding a $40-million+ bag (in the case of a G-V).

Also, I would think that some of these repo aircraft are not in perfect mechanical shape and can't be repaired on site. That would necessitate FAA ferry permits. In that case the FAA would look very closely at crew qualifications and the insurers would probably increase the premium for a flight dispatched under a ferry permit.

[tabbycat31]

15. can we send the guy to AIG's HQ?

and take some of their corporate jets away??