G_LCDH ...the ultimate private plate ? who else ?

[lebesset]

I don't think david coulthard ever owned a jet , am pretty sure that when he was in a crash at lyon backin 2000 it was rented

he flew out of farnborough [ mecca for biz jets ] and after an engine failure the pilot misjudged the emergency landing and he and the co-pilot were killed when the nose broke off when it ploughed into the runway
coulthard , his then girl friend ,and his personal trainer escaped with a few bruises

[xwz]

David Coulthard had chartered the Learjet from Northern Executive Aviation Ltd. Unfortunately the pilots had to deal with a scenario they had not been trained for - accident report: http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2000/g-ri000 ... 00502a.pdf

G-LCDH (Lewis Hamilton's Challenger 605) is owned and operated by TAG Aviation.
With TAG Heuer sponsoring Mercedes AMG and LH acting as a brand ambassador, there's likely some sponsorship involved. (not sure though if TAG Heuer ist currently still owned by the TAG group)

[xwz]

http://www.airliners.net/photo//Piaggio ... 1044672/M/

Piaggio P-180 Avanti, the Scuderia Ferrari business aircraft (Piero Ferrari has been involved with Piaggio Aero Industries since 1998)

edit: link edited for reasons of copyright

[Manoah2u]

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-p ... 044672.jpg
Piaggio P-180 Avanti, the Scuderia Ferrari business aircraft (Piero Ferrari has been involved with Piaggio Aero Industries since 1998)

PIAGGIO ?

Well darn. Here I was thinking they only built some mopeds and three-wheeler pickup 'vans'

[xwz]

PIAGGIO ?

Well darn. Here I was thinking they only built some mopeds and three-wheeler pickup 'vans'

Piaggio's history is indeed colourful. Rinaldo Piaggio, having started out with ship building, produced locomotives and railway carriages, when during WW1 he built a bomber plane.
Only after having designed and built about a dozen different types of aircraft, and forced to discontinue military production after WW2, Piaggio came out with their first scooter, the Vespa.
(Which btw got designed by the same guy who constructed the first modern Agusta helicopter - MV Agusta motorcycles started as an offshoot of an aviation company as well.) Today, Piaggio and Piaggio Aero are separate and independant companies, the latter being co-owned and presided by Piero Ferrari (son of Enzo Ferrari and vice chairman of Ferrari S.p.A)

[SidSidney]

Hamilton will have leased it, rather than splashing $30M cash for a new 605, so a down payment of say 5%-10% plus an annual lease/interest fee. Think that's not true? Even 100% financing is possible if you are liquid:-

http://www.bjtonline.com/business-jet-n ... -financing

Leasing is better for Hamilton as he can offset the lease cost as a business expense to reduce his tax bill. Doing it like this is much better for him from a tax and cashflow standpoint than outright purchase.

As to whether he runs it himself, the answer is no. You can easily look up the registration, which is with TAG Aviation in the UK, not to Lewis Hamilton directly.

http://www.tagaviation.com/

Yes, that's TAG as in Techniques d'Avant Garde, as in Akram and Mansour Ojjeh, as in key shareholders in McLaren.

TAG Aviation will handle all the financing, management, maintenance, and chartering to third parties on behalf of Hamilton. He might well charter it, it's easy money that offsets the lease costs, it's really common in jets and high end yachts, e.g. you could rent Flavio Briatore's superyacht for 250K a week (http://www.yachtcharterfleet.com/news/m ... n-2972.htm) - at least until the Italians seized it for alleged tax fraud earlier this year... But then again, with his schedule, he may need the thing constantly.

As to whether he left it on the tarmac at Dubai, it looks like it stayed on the ground between 17-24 November, although this particular record may be incomplete:-

All flights from this aircraft (latest 25)
Contacted [UTC] Callsign Flightnumber Routing Registration Operator Type
2014/11/26 06:56 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/11/25 06:27 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/11/24 16:21 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/11/17 17:09 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/10/20 17:51 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/10/19 20:19 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/10/19 20:19 -------- -------- - G-LCDH unknown airline CL60
2014/10/18 07:02 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/10/17 10:58 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/10/13 16:09 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/10/12 20:54 -------- -------- - G-LCDH unknown airline CL60
2014/10/12 13:55 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/09/13 07:18 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/09/12 17:10 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/09/07 17:44 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/09/03 19:08 -------- -------- - G-LCDH unknown airline CL60
2014/09/03 10:05 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/08/31 10:16 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/08/29 06:53 -------- -------- - G-LCDH unknown airline CL60
2014/08/29 06:20 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/08/27 13:41 -------- -------- - G-LCDH unknown airline CL60
2014/08/27 08:00 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/08/24 15:46 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/08/07 14:17 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/07/27 17:27 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60

Again that DB may not be complete as I am sure the plane was at Singapore, several spotters mentioned it on blogs.

One thing to say - drivers and team bosses often share rides to carry out meetings en route. So the fact that he doesn't take it to every event is not surprising, he might be on Lauda's jet with Toto and Niki one week just to get some face time.

[FW17]

This one is grounded

[lebesset]

Hamilton will have leased it, rather than splashing $30M cash for a new 605, so a down payment of say 5%-10% plus an annual lease/interest fee. Think that's not true? Even 100% financing is possible if you are liquid:-

http://www.bjtonline.com/business-jet-n ... -financing

Leasing is better for Hamilton as he can offset the lease cost as a business expense to reduce his tax bill. Doing it like this is much better for him from a tax and cashflow standpoint than outright purchase.

As to whether he runs it himself, the answer is no. You can easily look up the registration, which is with TAG Aviation in the UK, not to Lewis Hamilton directly.

http://www.tagaviation.com/

Yes, that's TAG as in Techniques d'Avant Garde, as in Akram and Mansour Ojjeh, as in key shareholders in McLaren.

TAG Aviation will handle all the financing, management, maintenance, and chartering to third parties on behalf of Hamilton. He might well charter it, it's easy money that offsets the lease costs, it's really common in jets and high end yachts, e.g. you could rent Flavio Briatore's superyacht for 250K a week (http://www.yachtcharterfleet.com/news/m ... n-2972.htm) - at least until the Italians seized it for alleged tax fraud earlier this year... But then again, with his schedule, he may need the thing constantly.

As to whether he left it on the tarmac at Dubai, it looks like it stayed on the ground between 17-24 November, although this particular record may be incomplete:-

All flights from this aircraft (latest 25)
Contacted [UTC] Callsign Flightnumber Routing Registration Operator Type
2014/11/26 06:56 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/11/25 06:27 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/11/24 16:21 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/11/17 17:09 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/10/20 17:51 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/10/19 20:19 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/10/19 20:19 -------- -------- - G-LCDH unknown airline CL60
2014/10/18 07:02 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/10/17 10:58 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/10/13 16:09 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/10/12 20:54 -------- -------- - G-LCDH unknown airline CL60
2014/10/12 13:55 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/09/13 07:18 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/09/12 17:10 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/09/07 17:44 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/09/03 19:08 -------- -------- - G-LCDH unknown airline CL60
2014/09/03 10:05 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/08/31 10:16 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/08/29 06:53 -------- -------- - G-LCDH unknown airline CL60
2014/08/29 06:20 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/08/27 13:41 -------- -------- - G-LCDH unknown airline CL60
2014/08/27 08:00 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/08/24 15:46 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/08/07 14:17 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60
2014/07/27 17:27 GLCDH GLCDH - G-LCDH Business Flight CL60

Again that DB may not be complete as I am sure the plane was at Singapore, several spotters mentioned it on blogs.

One thing to say - drivers and team bosses often share rides to carry out meetings en route. So the fact that he doesn't take it to every event is not surprising, he might be on Lauda's jet with Toto and Niki one week just to get some face time.

if you look you will see that TAG don't list this aircraft as their property so you are undoubtedly correct that this is on some form of lease /buy back scheme and operated for him by TAG
but tax??? for a monaco resident who is not french ???

notice a clip on Utube refuelling at gander .....about half way to LA if I remember correctly

[SidSidney]

but tax??? for a monaco resident who is not french ???

Monaco has taxes, just not personal income taxes. I am certain Hamilton does what any wealthy sportman does - incorporate, at minimum for personal liability reasons e.g.

LEWIS HAMILTON LIMITED
LEWIS HAMILTON MOTORSPORT LIMITED

Those are defunct now, he probably moved it all to Monaco. But the corporation can bill for his services and pay expense like the jet, management fees, staff etc while keeping his personal tax affairs really simple.

[lebesset]

but tax??? for a monaco resident who is not french ???

Monaco has taxes, just not personal income taxes. I am certain Hamilton does what any wealthy sportman does - incorporate, at minimum for personal liability reasons e.g.

LEWIS HAMILTON LIMITED
LEWIS HAMILTON MOTORSPORT LIMITED

Those are defunct now, he probably moved it all to Monaco. But the corporation can bill for his services and pay expense like the jet, management fees, staff etc while keeping his personal tax affairs really simple.

well lewis hamilton ltd is an IT company and nothing to do with him , last time I looked it was still operating ; can't say if he has wound up his hitchen comany , but I suspect he has as there is zero corporation tax in monaco now he is resident there and doesn't operate companies outside the principality

[Radley]

The NASCAR guys all have planes. Of course they do 36 races a year. I saw a piece on tv a few years ago about how the NASCAR teams have quite a few jets. The crew members would take one jet, the drivers another, the senior engineers another and then the team principles another. If you Google NASCAR jets you will see quite a bit.

[bill shoe]

The NASCAR guys all have planes. Of course they do 36 races a year. I saw a piece on tv a few years ago about how the NASCAR teams have quite a few jets. The crew members would take one jet, the drivers another, the senior engineers another and then the team principles another. If you Google NASCAR jets you will see quite a bit.

It's my understanding from team engineers that the "Aviation Departments" of the top 3 or 5 NASCAR teams are larger than whatever they call the departments of people that create and run the racecars. Av depts. include pilots, mechanics, ground crew, stewards, managers, etc. They could lease the plane time from various companies (FlexJet, etc.) but apparently the scale of the flying activity makes it more economical to keep it in house.

The size of Av depts. relative to Racing depts. may seem odd or undesirable at first, but when you take a step back it means that NASCAR is somehow keeping control of put-cars-on-the-racetrack expenses in a way that F1 is not. And I don't think this implies F1 is higher level either.

[Aesto]

According to Timo Glock (who mentioned it on German television (RTL)), Charles Pic came to races during 2012 in his own private jet. Rather ironic, given the financial situation Marussia was in. That being said, I'm guessing that Pic didn't actually own the plane himself, it was probably his father's.

[xwz]

This stylish gentleman pilotet his airplane 40 years ago, and continues to do so.
source: http://www.t-online.de/sport/formel-1/i ... dern-.html