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How BG-242 found it's way to
Jacksonville Navy Flying Club
Ed Maybury
(3/2/2006)
Since Jax NFC lost both of its T34's
(N20685 was flared too high, stalled and impacted it's right wing -
no one hurt, but the scratched aircraft went to Pensacola, and
N20684 was the one being ferried out to North Island when she went
down in a Louisiana bayou) we have been trying to find a way to get
T34's back in the club. A big issue was finding a way to pay for the
AMOC, as other clubs have found this is a difficult issue. Although
our club is big and vigorous, the transition to MWR funding has made
it even more difficult for the club to fund an AMOC even if we had
an aircraft, which we do not.
We discussed a number of ways to try to
get club owned T34's back in the club, but couldn't make it happen
for a number of reasons. Since I really miss flying the T34, I
formed a LLC with the intention of purchasing a T34 and putting it
into the club for leaseback, as is done with a number of Cessna and
Piper products on our flightline. I searched for almost a year
before I found N134Y. I was looking for an aircraft that was
mechanically sound but cosmetically imperfect. My goal was to get an
aircraft with as low a hull value as possible, as the major cost of
lease back in the Navy system is the insurance. The insurance is
based on the hull value, so a 300K aircraft would cost significantly
more to insure than a 100K aircraft. The Navy requires an obscene 25
million in liability insurance, and that drives the monthly
insurance rates on an aircraft in the 300K region to over 2K per
month! An aircraft with a hull value closer to 100 K has a monthly
insurance rate of closer to 1K per month. Our T34's were
historically renting for 20 to 30 hours per month when we had them,
and the hourly rates we used were in the $65 to $70 per hour range.
Of course since they were Navy assets, the insurance cost for a two
seat aircraft with no hull insurance (we didn't need to pay for hull
insurance because since the T34's were Navy assets on loan to the
flying club you couldn't pay for insurance for the hull for
government property) was minimal per month. So, in order to be able
to insure the aircraft for a reasonable price and thus make the
hourly rental rate somewhat affordable, the type and price of T34 I
was looking for was very narrow.
At the time I was looking, the AMOC, wing spar uncertainty, etc. was
hitting it's peak, with consequent adverse effect on the price of
T34's. I found an T34B for sale by Chuck Wahl, a Sacramento air
traffic controller who is well known in the T28 community for his
pristine golden wrench T28. He lives at the same airpark as Julie
Clark. Chuck really had the plane for a short period of time, having
obtained it from an individual in Arizona. The story gets real
interesting before that. The best I can piece together, the
gentleman in Arizona had restored an aircraft (a C113?). The Marine
Corps Museum had an unrestored C113. A deal was arranged for the
restored C113 to be traded to the Marine Corps Museum for an
unrestored C113, N134Y, and a couple of engines and a jeep. N134Y
had ended up in the Marine Corps Museum after the Navy struck it
from recruiting duty in 1993. The best I can understand, the Marine
Corps museum got their C113, the gentleman in Arizona got the T34,
but before he got the unrestored C113 the Marine Corps backed out of
the deal when a Marine procurement officer got wind of the deal and
declared it null and void. Needless to say a messy suit followed,
and N134Y was in limbo for a period of time while it was all sorted
out. The guy in Arizona had N134Y, but the JAG guys in Quantico had
the aircraft's logbooks in their safe. Chuck sorted it all out
before I bought the plane, after John Shaw helped point us to the
logbooks in Quantico which we thought didn't exist.
Having sorted out the paperwork to my satisfaction, I flew out
commercially to Sacramento with one of the flight instructors from
our club and we flew the aircraft back to the Jacksonville. We had a
good adventure. It took a lot of paperwork, etc. to get the aircraft
into the club on leaseback status, but as of 15 December 05 the
aircraft has been in the Jax NFC as a rental aircraft. We rent the
aircraft out for $115/hour wet. The aircraft is flying, but the
status of the AMOC now being in question after the 240 extension is
the main cloud on the horizon for continued use in the club. I read
that there are questions about even the Saunders strap, which was to
be my fallback solution if we were not able to get the 240 hours
extended. Currently the aircraft is flying about 15 hours a month,
but the usage is steadily increasing each month and I anticipate
that it will fly 20 - 30 hours a month. That makes the insurance and
hourly rental rate work financially, but it burns up 120/240 hours
pretty quickly.
Anyway, that is the short form on the aircraft. I have the full
story written, and you may see it at some point in the future. You
can pass this on if you want to. I am going to try to attach a photo
of the aircraft when we first got it and how it looks today to this-
very much a work in progress, but we have make some progress on the
low lying fruit!
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