To The Skies We Travel

As The Crow Flies

We are taking to the skies over Maine. There has been hints and pieces of information given and posted in many places as to thing to come with us, well, here it is. Gypsie and I are in the beginning steps of opening a small family owned business right here in Blue Hill Maine.

I totally blame her for all of this. It all started with asking what do I want to do for a career, more to the point what would I want to do every day for the rest of my life, what kind of job would get me out of bed every morning excited about going to work. Money aside, what would I do with the adage "if you love what you do you will never work a day in your life."It took a while to think of it but I remembered something that I always wanted to do since 4th grade (thank you Dr. Luzetti).

I want to fly.

Phone calls were made, and information found, bad news. There is little to no chance of some type of meaningful career in aviation in Maine working for someone else. Not to be dismayed by this, I thought more and figured, if I can not work for someone, I wil work for myself, I will create a meaningful career for myself.

So here we are today. We will be starting As The Crow Flies, a seaplane based, air tour and charter company operated here in Blue Hill. Again, credit it goes to my amazing and inspirational wife for the name. We will have unique features not offered anywhere in the area. Mainly, the ability to land/take off from either water or land, seating for 6 passengers. There are a couple sea plane tours in the state, but much further south, in the Portland area but mostly operating in the lakes region, there are other air tours some what nearby, but they can only take 3 passengers. There are other charter services in the state but they are either too small to have a decent useful load carrying capability or they are on the other end, the elite, ultra expensive corporate type. We will fill that middle area nicely with our intended plane, a Grumman G44A Super Widgeon.

Isn't it just beautiful?
 Yep, that is what we will be flying (ok maybe not that specific plane, but it's the same make/model)

These are some of our services offered:

• Take-off from and return to Blue Hill Bay
• Air tours of 30 min or 60 min.
• Sunset air tours with option to land at uninhabited islands off the Maine coast for viewing
• Lunch tours to islands
• Light House Tours
• Penobscot Bay
• Schoodic Peninsula
• Stonington Lobster Boat air tours
• Acadia Park and Mountains
• Fly-Stay packages with local Inns: Pick up passengers, fly in to area (even right to the back door of the Inn in some cases) to stay at Local Inn, booked offered through the Inn (i.e. Bar Harbor Inn) limited to a 300-500 mile range. 

•  Charter service, passenger or cargo.
• Charter Services available to a 500+/- mile range including Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York,  Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Washington D.C. Northern Virginia (in the first year, allowing for expansion to a larger service area as the business grows)
• Fly-Stay Packages to include ski resorts, hunting, fishing etc throughout Maine limited to 300-500 mile range. 

At some point, maybe a couple years after opening we also plan to give back to the community as much as possible. We would like to start a little side non-profit business teaching kids (adults too) at a drastically reduced rate, how to fly. This opens up a world of opportunity that, if they had to pay full price, would never be able to do. Yes we live in a touristy area, but there are many towns and many people around here who just get buy, or worse. What kid if given the chance, wouldn't want to learn how to fly? Once they have that first license, they can go anywhere with it. We want to make this opportunity affordable.

As you can see these are some very ambitious plans we have made. Right now we are just in the beginning stages and (re)writing our business plan. Once this is done we will be very actively seeking funding to get this going. This really is a massive undertaking and will be more work than we can probably imagine right now just to get it going but I always have had a few lofty goals tucked away for myself.

Yes there is an obvious question I can hear you all asking, "Eric, since when do you know how to fly?" Well, I dont, not yet. That is all part of our plan. I will be getting all the required flying credentials over the next year. So this is a long term plan, nothing that will be happening anytime really soon but we do already have some good feedback from a couple local inns that are eager to see us operating to take part in the fly/stay packages. 

Our goal is to be a family run business and eventually having Gypsie and  the minions all flight trained to join in the family business and keep it going as long as possible.

As for funding of this, we are at 0 right now, we are going to be hitting up indiegogo and other venues, private investors, awesomely generous folks and financial institutions. So if anyone out there knows someone who is interested in helping start a business, we are always willing to give in return as well. There is quite a bit to be done, we are on the right path, but just taking the first steps now to get As The Crow Flies off the ground (sorry, had to put that one in there).

If you can, or if you know someone who would, please help us make this happen here: As The Crow Flies
Thanks!

And Away We Go...

Greetings! Ok so the last time you read anything going with me was back at the beginning of January, I have been slacking, really. Big things are (almost) happening here. I am successfully unemployed (seasonal job, blah blah) but am looking to move on to a more lucrative career, maybe even one that pays. That is the small stuff. The next I blame on my dearest, my sunshine of my life, my wife who some of you may know around these parts as Gypsie over there at thewanderinggypsie. Maybe not directly, but I blame her for planting the seed for this. While discussing future careers the question was put to me "what would you love to do, what would you want to get out of bed every day excited about doing?" There is something that I have wanted to do since about 4th grade or so (no I am NOT saying how long ago that was). I made a couple phone calls, asked (too) many questions and discovered that career opportunities for this just plain do not exist here in our little corner of Downeast heaven. Dismayed, but not giving up, I thought, why not hire myself, be my own boss, and not work for someone else, but for myself. Well fast forward about a month or so to today. We met with a great guy named Ed at S.C.O.R.E. [Service Corps Of Retired Executives] with our first draft of a business plan. Yep, that is what the first steps are for starting your own business, the idea, some basic info, then a business plan. Scary? YES! We have never done one of these, there seems to be no end of "how to" advice on-line for these, so what did I do? I took a basic outline given to me of what one should be and went from there. It was most certainly flawed, missing key pieces of info, too much info in the wrong place, but over all, not all that bad. Time for Business Plan 2.0. With a little less info where it is, and more info where there isn't any, but that will take some digging and "market research" for what we want to do. Oh, I also had a job interview today too, that went well, but the better news there was it was at the same place that we plan to work with as a business. The general manager was extremely excited about my proposal and even sent me to another facility that they partner with to suggest the same. The result there may not have been as exuberant but still a positive reception to the proposal. So a very productive day today. Frankly, our plans are HUGE, I mean, for a small business, these are really REALLY big. There is a disgustingly large amount of capital needed just to open the doors, but with a bit of luck and begging, and lots of smiles and hand shakes and talk it up, I think we can get it and get this thing going. We have so much to learn about this but it will be as fun as it is hard too. I am not really going to say too much about what exactly it is, as of right now, (and if you know don't say it please) but I will put this out there; 2 areas of business, the first will be seasonal for the tourism season, the other will be somewhat tourist and somewhat professional, but year-round. Also, I have nominated, seconded, and voted unanimously that my dearest, the sunshine of my life, my wife, be the owner, not because I don't want the headache, but for a myriad of other reasons and a few "because she is better at it" reasons too. I will be the work horse of the business until we "promote from with-in." This is a family owned and operated business that can (no, WILL) grow with our family.
We are off to a good start, a good solid plan and each other for support, what more do we need? Oh, right, investors, yeah, they would be great, we need them.
So here is to doing what you love, being your own boss and working your ass off to live a dream, and with that, I am off to bury myself in research for writing Business Plan 2.0.