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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