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*** UPDATE ***
I have gotten the invoices all posted into the accounting system and reviewing them for accuracy. I will be mailing statements out on Monday June, 30th or sooner. At this time you should confirm accuracy of the statements. I have several people that has
asked for information about both N-8208A and N-4349L. I am also contacting the other club members that owe the club a balance. I feel very confident that if I can sell the two aircraft and collect the monies owed to the club that all can be
resolved. I am asking and begging for your patience and understanding. Again I did not intend for the closing to cause any members any longterm harm. My desire is to see this not just to go away but to be resolved. Some club members
are moving forward with legal proceedings and I do understand the concerns. I also realize that they are simply reacting to a bad situation the best way that they know how. I am not moving forward with any bankruptcy procedures and do not fore see that as a step unless more
choose to exercise that action. I am asking that everyone stand with me as you have and allow me to try to liquidate the assets of the club and collect unpaid balances. I do want a speedy conclusion but with an uncertain economy the sell is
not going as fast as I would like.
Thank you,
Billy Tebo
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Dear Club Members and Instructors;
I am very sad to inform you that after more than five years the Flying Club is now closing.
I want to thank all of the loyal members that have passed through our club. You all have really made it a real
joy for me to be a part of general aviation at the Columbus Airport. One of the things that I have enjoyed so
much about the club and its members over the years was your diversity, but once the members were together there
were no divisions. We have had so many wonderful meetings and trips over the years. I know that I will miss
the club and its members very much. I have reminisced about different ones and situations in my mind this week
and found myself sometimes in tears and sometimes in laughter as I relived these events. As I recounted the years
I discovered the Club has put over one hundred men and women in the pilot seat with their license. I am extremely
proud of the accomplishments of the Club over these last years. I feel that the club has been very instrumental
in bringing General Aviation back to the forefront of our airport. I believe that you would be hard pressed to find those kinds of results from any other present or past flight schools in our area.
I also want to thank Jerry Miley, our chief flight instructor, and the other flight instructors that have passed through our midst over our history. Jerry has been a true friend to me and brought to the club a long carrier in aviation and has served this airport for years as the designated examiner. He was actually the examiner when I received my license years ago. I thought it was very special that many years later he would become our chief instructor. We have had several other instructors build their time with us and are now currently flying in a sundry of jobs from Airline Pilots to Commercial Pilots to Charter Pilots. The latest instructors to venture away from kcsg is Clarence Coicou who is taking a job with Com Air and Ben Hedstrom who is entertaining a couple of options. I think they both will do great wherever they go. The Club Instructors have always conducted themselves professionally and at the same time have been friends to the members and me.
Gene McCain has been such a help and a blessing to me when things started getting hard a few months ago. I actually took another job to pour additional revenue into the club as an effort to save it. Gene was a valuble friend and confidant during these trying times while I was unable to be there during the day to day operations. A very special thanks to you Gene.
I want to personally thank Jeff and Jason Tate who have been with me from the beginning and were very instrumental in the early years when I was deciding to open an old fashioned flying club. I still value their friendship today and respect their opinions in aviation. Our prices were so good that it soon became apparent that someone could save a considerable amount of money while they were getting their pilot’s license. Because of this price savings the club grew quickly. We enjoyed a lot of different personalities over the years. I have never wanted to raise prices on the club members so over that time frame we had only one $5.00 price increase even though our fixed cost increased several times over the years. I struggled through and kept the cost to the members low and always maintained no minimums for members who would take a plane on extended cross-country flights (which is unusual in the aviation world).
Our mechanics deserve a big thank you also for keeping our planes in airworthy condition. A lot of times it was a full time job and they sometimes worked into the night because of the frequency that N-8208A took the departure end of runway 24 and soared with sometimes an experienced pilot on board or a giggly newby on their very first discovery flight setting out to explore a brand new world that many dream of but few get to experience.
Many events have happened in the recent past that has caused us to make some very difficult decisions. The first several years the club had a cash flow of around thirty to forty thousand dollars per month. Then about a year ago in an uncertain and declining economy that cash flow dropped to less than a third of that. Because of the decline in the economy, several pilots fell behind on their account. The club currently has almost twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000.00) outstanding on account. I have tried repeatedly to collect this money but to no avail. I still consider this money due to the club for services rendered and will continue with more aggressive collections. So as a result with all of our fixed costs continuing to climb, with fewer new people joining and that some of the existing members not paying for services, caused us to make the decision to close the club. Another hardship on the club was a problem with our security badges. All of our badges were revoked because of the action of one member doing something that was not within security regulations. The club has always acted as one body, if one messes up then the club messed up. Holding a security badge at a secured airfield in America is not a right but a privilege. For us to get our paying members to the airplanes, the airport’s solution was to set us up on a visitor pass system and use the small side gate by our office. The problem and the hardship that this would have caused the club was insurmountable. In order for us to monitor such a system we would have had to hire two full time employees and one part time employee, resulting in approximately one thousand five hundred dollars ($1,500.00) per week additional payroll. Our lease on our building was also up in October 2007 at which time the lease was supposed to go to fair market value. Kelsey Kennon who holds the master lease on our building has been negotiating new terms of the lease. He has informed me that apparently the negotiating was complete and that they have tripled the rent that he is paying and thus our rent would also be tripling. This again is a hardship that the club cannot absorb.
So as a result of all of these things happening in such short order the club is forced to close our doors. I will keep every one up to date on this website as a club forum for you to get up to date news of what is happening and a timeline of things to happen. The next thing to happen is that we are producing statements for everyone and will be mailing them out the last week of May or the first week of June. When receiving your statement please review them for accuracy and email me any discrepancies to info@columbusflyingclub.com. I also would like any members that have a balance due to the club to make payment immediately so as to not delay the refunds that are due other members. I am also making arrangements to liquidate assets to do everything in my power to mitigate the damages of any individual club members.
I am so sorry that the club has ended in this manner. I poured everything into the club over the years. My heart and finances have been with the club and its members. I trust that most would remember the club for the good that it produced at our airport: the many times that I gave free flights to help another member have a plane for a trip that he or she had to take because of some tragedy that had befallen them, the times that at my expense and the club’s expense we sent an aircraft to a destination two states away to pick up a stranded member, all of the many pilots whose lives were changed and enriched by their new avocation, the good times that we had together in club meetings and club trips to TRACON, the Maule Factory and even the Bahamas, the good times we had when members just stopped by to talk and watch TV together, the Thursday night cookouts with Chuck and the other pilots. The list goes on and on.
I have been moved and touched by all of the responses that I have received in the form of phone calls or e-mails from old and new members alike and other pilots on the field. As they come in perhaps I will post some of the comments that have come in. I would also like to inform everyone that still had a solo shirt hanging on our wall that I was very careful to remove them and have them stored in a safe place. If you would like to receive your shirt please email me at info@columbusflyingclub.com and let me know where I can send it. If you are interested in purchasing either N-8208A and/or N-4349L please email me at info@columbusflyingclub.com. If someone is interested in reviving the club and keeping the club a viable part of the Columbus community please let me know. I am open to all suggestions. I would love to see it continue but I will see it from a distance.
Again I am truly sorry and I want to see a speedy resolution to the outstanding debt that certain members have to the club and the debt that the club has to certain members. I did not see this coming even when we accepted the last member into the club. Be blessed in all that you do in the future and remember that when one door closes another door opens. I am sad that I am closing this Flight Plan for the last time.
Sincerely;
Billy W. Tebo
President, Founder, Office Manager, Bookkeeper, Office Cleaner,
Maintenance Manager, Plane Washer, Promotional Director, Accounts
Payable Clerk, Accounts Receivable Clerk, Event Coordinator, Public
Relations Manager.
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