At a nearby FBO, they are quietly disassembling a C-150 and an older Skyhawk (I'd say a C-172 K model and about a 1960's era C-150). Going into a Container for shipment to Russia. Some guy (rumor mill only info) paid $50K for the pair, had an annual inspection done, painted over the US markings and is paying the shipping cost from Baltimore. Gonna be in a flight school in Russia. They were VFR planes with Cessna ARC radios.
I had mixed feelings - having my intro flights in a venerable C-150 with 40 degrees of barn doors for flaps, I'm kind of hurt to see another of our number disappear. I've watched a few planes at our field get totalled and this pair makes the fifth and sixth planes that I've seen disappear to a foreign land. I saw two almost brand new C-172's go to Brazil. Saw a nice C-310 go to Argentina (but in some kind of exchange program, the pilot brought a twin Comanche home - just joking the commercial pilot did fly airplanes both ways for two different customers). Then a guy who got his rating at our field, purchased a C-182 and took it to Germany.
The other part of me says good. Free market economics at its best. Every plane taken from our market raises the value of all the other planes left and creates a void for new ones to be built.
So how do you all feel? Sad or glad?
There was one other ominous part to the rumor grist at the airport - one of our number warned that this was just the beginning - that the Russians are now in a position to offer "international" flight training since non-US citizens are going to have such a hard time in this country. First they offered fighter jet rides, then round trips to outer space and now they'll accept cold, hard cash in lieu of an INS passport check??? Do you think the government needs to stop this like computers going to Iraq? And is this a security issue or an economic one? Do we have to create a Florida & Arizona economic incentive program since we may lose all our foreign flight training in those states to Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic?
Just thinking out loud......
I had mixed feelings - having my intro flights in a venerable C-150 with 40 degrees of barn doors for flaps, I'm kind of hurt to see another of our number disappear. I've watched a few planes at our field get totalled and this pair makes the fifth and sixth planes that I've seen disappear to a foreign land. I saw two almost brand new C-172's go to Brazil. Saw a nice C-310 go to Argentina (but in some kind of exchange program, the pilot brought a twin Comanche home - just joking the commercial pilot did fly airplanes both ways for two different customers). Then a guy who got his rating at our field, purchased a C-182 and took it to Germany.
The other part of me says good. Free market economics at its best. Every plane taken from our market raises the value of all the other planes left and creates a void for new ones to be built.
So how do you all feel? Sad or glad?
There was one other ominous part to the rumor grist at the airport - one of our number warned that this was just the beginning - that the Russians are now in a position to offer "international" flight training since non-US citizens are going to have such a hard time in this country. First they offered fighter jet rides, then round trips to outer space and now they'll accept cold, hard cash in lieu of an INS passport check??? Do you think the government needs to stop this like computers going to Iraq? And is this a security issue or an economic one? Do we have to create a Florida & Arizona economic incentive program since we may lose all our foreign flight training in those states to Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic?
Just thinking out loud......