When Joe Sobczak was once on the lookout for a brand new house in Groveland, California, his precedence was once distinctive: he wanted a assets that might space his airplanes.
That is when the 69-year-old check pilot discovered a residential airpark on the Pine Mountain Lake Airport. In 2017, Sobczak purchased a 3-bedroom, 7-bathroom, 5,000-square-foot house with a three,600-square-foot hangar for $698,000. He has a loan of $4,000 a month.
“It is a exceptional social surroundings as a result of you’ve gotten a direct workforce of people that have not unusual pursuits,” Sobczak tells CNBC Make It. “The services and products are rather restricted, however the trade-off is well offset via the serenity and peacefulness of [the community].”
There are about 90 houses with hangars that experience deeded get right of entry to to make use of the taxiways and runway on the Tuolumne County airport within the residential airpark. In his hangar, Sobczak helps to keep a Beechcraft T-34 Mentor aircraft he purchased with any other pilot for $175,000.
Sobczak purchased the home for $698,000 and has a per thirty days loan of $4,000.
Katie Tarasov. Picture via CNBC Make It
The 2 of them cut up the price of keeping up the plane. They lower your expenses on maintenance as a result of Sobczak is an FAA-certified A&P mechanic, so he incessantly does the paintings himself.
As a check pilot, Sobczak works essentially out of the San Francisco Global Airport (SFO). As an alternative of doing the three-hour force, he jumps in certainly one of his airplanes and takes a 45-minute flight to within sight San Carlos Airport and drives quarter-hour to SFO.
“The explanation I think more secure within the aircraft is as a result of I’ve overall keep watch over of my surroundings, versus using a automobile the place it is me and the 5,000 different vehicles that cross me via on how one can the Bay House,” he says. “Within the aircraft, it is all underneath my keep watch over.”
Sobczak normally flies all the way down to paintings on the San Francisco Global Airport in his Beechcraft T-34 Mentor aircraft.
Erin Black. Picture via CNBC Make It
Fueling the aircraft prices about $1 extra in step with gallon than a automobile, he says. He will pay round $120 roundtrip for jet gasoline, so the associated fee is similar to what he would spend using his automobile to and from paintings.
Since the Tuolumne County airport has no keep watch over tower, citizens of the airpark use a not unusual site visitors advisory frequency so pilots can broadcast their place and meant flight trail.
“I do not actually have to inform any one if I am going flying. All I’ve to do is taxi out and take off,” Sobczak says. “It is by no means loud …. It is so quiet that it is noisy.”
A part of Sobczak’s deed contains get right of entry to to the Tuolumne County airport.