REFLECTOR: sabbatical

Douglas Holub doug.holub at tx.rr.com
Mon Feb 19 08:48:25 CST 2007


Grigore,

It's against the law to build Velocities for a living. The FARs allow 
individuals to build their own airplanes for "recreational and educational" 
purposes only.

And I could be wrong, but I don't think I'm going to feel like building 
another one after I'm finished with this one.

Doug Holub
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Grigore Rosu" <grosu at cs.uiuc.edu>
To: "Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list" <reflector at tvbf.org>
Sent: Monday, February 19, 2007 5:58 AM
Subject: Re: REFLECTOR: sabbatical


Doug,

If you managed to convince your wife that a finished certified Velocity is 
worth $50k more than the collection of parts and since you like building so 
much, then why not changing your self-employment area into a Velocity 
builder forever.  It is said that starting with the second or third Velocity 
built, one can significantly reduce the time it takes to build.  People at 
the Velocity Center said (when I was their in the head start program) that 
they can now probably finish one airplane in 6 months.  So here is the 
business plan :-)

1) buy 2 kits from Velocity a year
2) finish them
3) sell them for a total profit of $100k
4) go to 1

I'm actually only semi-kidding.  My father is about to retire in Romania and 
he is already getting bored to death, he needs to do something.  I'm 
thinking of bringing him to the US and give him airplanes to build.  I think 
that fastbuilt Velocity kits are the fastest to complete on the market. 
Anybody has already thought of this?  Is it worth doing?

Grigore

________________________________

From: reflector-bounces at tvbf.org on behalf of Douglas Holub
Sent: Sat 2/17/2007 14:36
To: Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list
Subject: Re: REFLECTOR: sabbatical


Irving, Texas

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Terry Miles <mailto:terrence_miles at hotmail.com>
To: 'Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list' <mailto:reflector at tvbf.org>
Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 1:29 PM
Subject: Re: REFLECTOR: sabbatical


Well said.  Where are you located, Doug?

Terry




________________________________


From: reflector-bounces at tvbf.org [mailto:reflector-bounces at tvbf.org] On 
Behalf Of Douglas Holub
Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 12:41 PM
To: reflector at tvbf.org
Cc: susie.holub at tx.rr.com; Leigh Klettke
Subject: REFLECTOR: sabbatical



I bought my third-hand, 50% completed Velocity kit 7 years ago. I became 
self-employed 6 years ago, partly so that I could have more time to work on 
the airplane. It turns out that I had been getting more done while working 
an 8 to 5 job than I was getting done while being self-employed. Years went 
by with nothing getting done. Then we had that Velocity symposium in Sherman 
last year and that got me motivated again. I've been working at least a half 
day on the airplane every week since last March.



And now it occurs to me that I am due a sabbatical. I've worked hard as a 
self-employed electronics engineer for 6 years, and I'm not getting any 
younger. (I'm 51.) So starting next month, I'm taking a year off from work 
to try to finish building this airplane. Wish me luck!



You know, you can always make more money, but how much do you really need? 
It seems like no matter how much money you have, you don't feel very secure 
unless you're always making more. But I'm not falling into that trap. I want 
to build this airplane, and I'm going to build it. And if my net worth when 
I die is $50,000 less because I took a year off to build an airplane, so be 
it. Who cares? Not me.



How does my wife feel about this? (We have 3 kids: two in college and one a 
junior in high school.) She is actually very supportive. She enjoyed 
traveling around the country when we owned a Tri-Pacer 15 years ago, and is 
looking forward to being able to do that faster and in more comfort. And 
I've convinced her that the Velocity will be worth about $50,000 more when 
it is certified than it is as a collection of parts. So that, even though 
there is no cash flow benefit, I will still be doing productive, profitable 
work this year. Plus we have some residual income from the work I've been 
doing so that we shouldn't need to dip into our savings too much as long as 
we keep our expenditures down.



Carpe diem!



Doug Holub


________________________________




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