refer you to "maybe"......

If I'm so dumb compared to you, why aren't you so much richer than me?

Could be because he didn't have rich parents like you.

Do I have to seperate all you guys?

We're just rough housing papa!

OK, from a practical point of view...

How do we get as rich as you, Hedley? Let the secret out of the bag! I know you have an engineering degree, but lots of engineers are only mildly upper-middle class. You must have something else going on.

I would like to be rich and fly cool planes. I'm sure many people here also would like to do that. Tell us how you did it, and maybe you can get a couple more Pitts' in your formation! And this info could be good for aviation in general, warbird restoration, etc.

Not trying to be sarcastic, though I am really proud of my Schwinn- I made the rack on it myself.

Being wealthy is not a crime. Excluding others from the secrets of it should be. And don't just say, "hard work" because we all know Bill Gates put in just as many hours as every other business owner.

Many people are jealous of the Hedley lifestyle. That's natural. Jealousy is a very human trait. I'm putting my jealousy, and asking as one pilot to another- no hatred, mocking, emotional stuff, or diminishing of character.

Who knows? You could be a role model, Heddster!

If your advice gets me rich, I'll let you take my Spitfire for a flight. That's an ISTP promise.

Your ever-lower class, till I figure out the trick,
istp

I will try to answer your honest question with an honest answer.

You're kind of missing the point, and I think I know why. You're probably a young person, and young people can be obsessed about money, because they think that money defines success - they think that money is both necessary and sufficient for success, which just isn't true.

It's not about money, it's about achieving balance in your life.

You can have a crapload of money, and buy the neatest toys, but unless you simultaneously put in the years of effort learning to operate them to the limits of their abilities - not yours - you will never be worthy of the fine machinery that you own.

I could give you a Pitts S-2B or an open-class liter bike today, and solve your money problem. Ta-da! But you'd probably kill yourself if you tried to operate either of them to anywhere near it's capabilities.

I should also mention that youth is critical. At the age of 40, after you've earned a crapload of cash, if you take up flying or riding sportbikes or playing guitar, with years of hard work, eventually you will gain a level of competency. But you will never be as good at it, if you had started at 15 years of age. Most of the riders on the MotoGP circuit probably started riding at 10 years of age, or likely less.

So, the trick is to generate adequate cash to purchase and maintain the toys that you want, but also to simultaneously have the time to get really good at operating them. This is hard to do, especially if you ever want to get married or have kids and be a half-decent parent.

Do you know what a Venn diagram in? It's some intersecting circles. In one circle, are rich guys. In another circle, are guys who can operate machinery very well. The intersection of the two circles is quite small, and that's probably where you'd like to be.

Frankly, getting the money is the easy part. Any Liberal in Ottawa knows how to siphon off a few million. NASDAQ during the tech boom was a really, really great place to be before the crash in '01. The oil industry is a pretty great place to be right now.

Money is necessary, but not sufficient. Go to Kissimmee, FL sometime and fly the TF-51 there. Poke around, and you will see a whole crapload of beautiful airplanes, owned by a really rich guy in New York. He flies down in his jet once in a while, but each time he comes down, he needs to take some dual to get safe again on his toys, according to the instructors there.

Now, this guy has a crapload of money and toys, but is he successful? Well, not really, because he has failed to achieve balance in his life - he's not so good a stick. He didn't make it to the intersection of the circles.

I will give you a hint: all of the successful, self-made millionaires I know, have an amazing collection of characteristics in common:

1) they are hyper. Poster children for ritalin. Go, go, go. The average north american, I am told, spend 5 hours a day watching TV. Not these guys. They can't sit still on the toilet, fer chrissake.

2) they are not necessarily intellectual geniuses, but they are pretty smart, and understand the business they are in, to a great level of detail

3) they enjoy what they do. This is really important. You cannot hate what you do, and get really good at it - at least, not for long.

I suspect these people were just born this way - they didn't go to a secret school or anything to learn how to be successful, they just naturally went out and did it. They likely were NOT successful at the first thing they tried, but they learned from their mistakes, they were persistent, and had confidence in themselves, and didn't give up.

Define success for yourself. You might be surprised what I define success as: me, my family and friends being healthy and happy.

It's not all about the cash. If it was, let's say I offer you a billion dollars for both kidneys. Would you take me up on the deal? I doubt it ... mind you, I would probably counter-offer with $500 million for one

How can you change your life? Well, it's all about choices. People don't often like making difficult choices, or doing the hard, unpleasant stuff that needs to be done, to achieve things. They would rather slack off, drink a beer and watch 5 hours of TV that evening. And that's ok, you've made your choice, just recognize that you live with the consequences of your choices.

With the awful weather of late i have time to kill......

It was nice of you to give a kind honest answer, respect mon. No one is saying you don't know how to use your "toys". Family always should come first and a successful family is a good way to define success.....ironically it is the poorest people of the world who have the best grasp on this. Love isn't shown through materials. IMHO if people with money want to be successful why not help the less fortunate out, and not through tax deductable charities (because these are pretty well fraudulent), but set up scholarships or something for young people who want to become aviators.....set up a NP flying school. To get back to aerobatics, see to it that you lobby TC to designate space around different area's. But also understand that because you have money doesn't give you the right to do em' wherever you like because you can afford it and screw everyone else, so long as you get your thrills. These things are real charity, and it would be donating them in a field in which you seem to be in love with. The point is if all the rich folk in the world shared thier cash around they could create amazing things for the poorer people to enjoy as well. But the truth is they are too bloody selfish and want to look after all thier needs and allow everyone else to rot. Ironically these are the same people who go to church and worship prophets who gave thier lives for others........ I am not saying let your family starve but, maybe instead of three boats cut it down to one and give a poor kid the chance to love aerobatics as much as you do. Yeah you worked hard to get your money, but not everyone has the oportunity and luck required to do this, so admit that there was some luck to it and give back.