Wanted: One airplane, preferably mine

First, there's the lottery. It doesn't have to be the biggest jackpot, just enough to buy the de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver on floats for my fishing adventures. Although, if it were a large jackpot, I could use a bright pumpkin-orange Cirrus SR22 with a vanity N-number for quick trips over all the celebrity homes on my way to Carmel-by-the-Sea, California for a little afternoon tea and shopping.

The lottery hasn't turned out in my favor yet, so I've turned my attention to airplane giveaways.

These seem promising until you discover entry fees are typically $100 a pop. Suddenly, I'm doing the math. How many entries would it take to improve my odds?

Of course, there's the AOPA Sweepstakes Piper Archer. I'm already a member, but working here rules me out. Apparently, interviewing aviators, researching, and writing about aircraft doesn't entitle you to take one home. I've reviewed the employee handbook several times and can confirm there's no "Airplane Christmas Bonus" hidden in the benefits package.

Would I be better off taking my accountant's advice and putting the money into a high-yield savings account instead? At 4 percent, it'll take a while, and time is not something I feel I have every time an airplane takes off from Santa Monica Municipal Airport and flies over Hotchkiss Park. My neck cramps from looking up so often that the only medical remedy appears to be airplane ownership.

So, I've started to look for the holy grail: a genuinely free airplane. No purchase required, no entry free, or obscure conditions requiring me to buy a year's supply of something I don't need. Who knew fuel dipsticks came in bulk?

Surely somewhere in the United States of America, the land of the free, there's a generous benefactor desperate to give away an airplane. Should I be given one, though, the government would likely be very interested in reminding me that "free" and "tax-free" are not synonymous.

Which brings me to the possibility of having a long-lost uncle.

There has to be a wealthy relative in the family tree whom I've never heard of. One with a substantial trust fund who, after searching for a worthy heir, discovers that I have an interest in aviation.

Naturally, I'm left with everything, along with the devastating loss of an uncle no one has ever met. It's up to me now to carry that burden around. The grief of losing my imaginary uncle may be too much to handle, so I move on to another idea: the disgruntled retiree.

The retiree is a complaint-driven aviator who thinks aviation went downhill after the invention of GPS and ADS-B. I bring him coffee, listen to his stories, and occasionally remind him that we probably shouldn't buzz his ex-wife's house. By the final act, he's passed down his knowledge, and I've helped him reconcile with his wife, who it turns out was the better navigator all along.

Then, just before he signs the airplane over to me, he dies.

That's when I realize he's actually the long-lost uncle I described earlier, and suddenly I'm right back where I started, carrying the burden all over again.

Scrapping that plan, I move on to my next scheme: the abandoned airplane.

We've all seen them sitting forlornly at the back of the airport, tires flat and slowly sinking into the ramp. I imagine opening the door of the one parked in the southeast parking area of the Santa Monica airport. It's red, sun-faded, and dusty.

Perhaps the owner disappeared, fled across the border to Mexico, or got halfway through a restoration project in 1987 and simply never came back. That is until one day I discover the truth: The airplane is haunted, and its ghost has been waiting all these years for someone foolish enough to finish the job.

Enter me.

At first, it's subtle. The cabin door mysteriously swings open. A navigation light flickers even though the master switch isn't on, and strange noises come from somewhere behind the instrument panel.

The ghost proves unhelpful. He or she turns switches on and off at random, fiddles with the radios, and has yet to hand me a single wrench. Still, the airplane is mine, I remind myself. That is, until I realize that a ghost capable of manipulating physical objects is also capable of starting the propeller. That's a level of haunting I frankly don't have time to deal with.

There are, of course, more conventional ways to fly. Sensible, economical options such as joining a flying club. Except the clubs around me have waiting lists so long that I might as well have opened up that high-yield savings account and waited it out instead.

Then there's renting, an arrangement with which I'm already familiar. Renting means climbing into an airplane and spending valuable Hobbs time adjusting the seat from the giant who flew it before me, or figuring out the specific combination of key jiggling, handle pulling, and gentle persuasion required to get the baggage door open. A good slap is often part of the procedure. It's like borrowing a friend's car and having them tell you, "Oh, you have to hit the dash twice to get the radio to work."

Beneath all the lottery tickets, raffles, imaginary inheritances, haunted airplanes, and elaborate schemes, I really do dream of owning an airplane. But first I need to focus on earning my certificate and stop letting other priorities get in the way.

Like manifestation.

NOTE: There is, in fact, a sun-faded red-and-white airplane parked in the southeast parking area at Santa Monica Municipal Airport. Any references in this article to hauntings, ghosts, or cross-border escapes are purely the product of the author's imagination and should not be interpreted as statements of fact.

That said, if you happen to be a wealthy long-lost uncle or a cantankerous retiree looking to pass along an airplane, DM me.