I’m Buying An Airplane Company

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One of my secret ambitions has been to own an airplane company and I think I’m about to realize it. Not to reveal too much about my personal finances, but I’m about to come into a lot of money. I mean a really, huge, stupid amount of money.

I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails from sincere-sounding African princes and a couple of serious European banker types promising large sums of money if I’ll just provide them with certain financial data so the funds can be transferred.

So far, the total promised is just shy of $500 million and I expect it will be wired to me any day now. For example, Mr. Ifeanyi Onuora is sending $2.5 million via wire transfer for the mere fee of $65, which he has generously agreed to accept via credit card payment. He seems like such a nice man, that I might find a place for him in my new company. Then, Mrs. Tessy Bongara, whose husband recently died in a tragic mining accident, commits to sending $7.5 million, for which she only wants a 10 percent processing fee, provided up front. Looking at my current accounts receivable, that’s a mere bagatelle. I can’t believe my good fortune. I feel so blessed.

Of course, all of us in aviation know that the only thing to do with crazy money is to invest it in some kind of aviation product or service, knowing as we do how wildly high the returns are likely to be, especially in China where more than a billion beating hearts are filled with an uncontainable desire to slip the surly bonds and…aviate! Can you imagine the potential?

Now it’s just a question of deciding what company or product to invest in. Perhaps a light sport that doubles as a bass boat? No, I think that’s already been done. Still, bass fishing in China could be a clever market play that no one else has thought of. Are there bass in China? Could you pivot it to a flying carp boat?

I was thinking Beechcraft would let me buy the old plans for the Starship; I think the Chinese would love that! But then since they crushed all of the airplanes, I guess they burned the drawings, too. Pity. But that’s the thing about crazy money, I guess. People are just afraid to connect it to really good ideas. It’s that old fear-of-success thing, I suppose.

Or how about a new, clean-sheet engine? I’m kind of warming to that idea. If I’ve got almost $500 million to spend, it would take, what, only 15 percent of it to bring a new engine to market. I could figure on selling 30 or 40 a year and I think I’d clean up. (That’s how crazy money works, by the way. The math is much different than with regular money. It has something to do with algorithms.)

I’m hoping that nice Mr. Onuora has some ideas; he did identify himself as a marketing executive in Nigeria and the way things have been going, I figure anyone there knows as much about the airplane business as people selling the damn things elsewhere. So what the hell, I’ve got money to burn.

So if you’ve got an airplane company to sell, be sure and get in touch with me soon. I’ve already picked out a site for my new aviation business and tomorrow, I’m placing an option on a bridge so I can get to it.

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