When a hangar, an airport leasehold, or an aviation business is the subject of a dispute, the valuation evidence has to survive cross-examination and persuade a judge, a jury, or an assessment board. Valuation Takes Flight provides the independent analysis, the report, and the testimony behind it.
Most valuation experts who take aviation matters are generalist commercial appraisers working outside their usual property type. The issues that decide these cases, ground lease reversion, FAA grant assurances, airport minimum standards, and the difference between a leasehold and a fee interest, are the specific subjects of Dr. Carter's doctoral research and published textbook.
Matters we take
Engagements fall into six recurring categories. Each turns on a different valuation question, and the scope is defined with counsel before work begins.
- Condemnation and eminent domain: just compensation for hangars, airport land, and leasehold interests taken in whole or in part, including inverse condemnation and avigation easement claims.
- Ground lease termination and reversion: what a tenant's improvements are worth when a lease ends, is not renewed, or is terminated early.
- Property tax litigation: assessment appeals that escalate past the county board, where the assessor's cost-table methodology needs rebuttal on the record.
- Insurance coverage and replacement cost: disputes over the value of a damaged or destroyed hangar and what the policy actually covers.
- Partnership, shareholder, and marital disputes: valuing closely held aviation businesses and hangar interests when owners separate.
- FAA Part 16 and rate disputes: whether an airport sponsor's rents and fees are reasonable, self-sustaining, and consistent with grant assurances. The twenty authorities these disputes turn on are collected in our FAA regulations reference.
Testifying and consulting roles
We take both. As a testifying expert, the work product is a signed report, deposition, and trial or board testimony. As a non-testifying consulting expert, the work stays inside the privilege and is used to shape valuation strategy, test your own expert's assumptions, and prepare cross-examination of the other side's.
Rebuttal is a frequent assignment. Where an opposing appraisal has already been served, we review the methodology, identify where it departs from accepted practice or from aviation reality, and quantify the effect on the conclusion. Reversion treatment, comparable selection across airport tiers, and capitalization rate support are the three places these reports most often fail.
Bring us in early where the schedule allows. Involvement before disclosure lets us frame the valuation questions, preserve the right discovery, and identify the other side's weak points while there is still time to use them.
What backs the testimony
Dr. Carter holds the DBA, MBA, MS, CFA, FRM, CAIA, and CIPM designations and serves as Assistant Professor at an aeronautical university in Daytona Beach, Florida, where his doctoral research addressed hangar valuation. He wrote Valuing Aircraft Hangars, the reference textbook in the field.
Opinions are supported by published market data rather than judgment alone. The firm publishes the GA Hangar Rent Index, the quarterly market-rent benchmark for US general aviation hangar storage. Two public trackers document how these matters have actually been decided: the Hangar Eminent Domain Tracker and the Hangar Valuation Case-Law Tracker.
Frequently asked questions
These answers cover the questions counsel ask most often when evaluating a valuation expert for an aviation matter.
Will an academic hold up against a working appraiser on the stand?
Aviation valuation disputes turn on issues a generalist appraiser rarely addresses: reversion, grant assurances, airport tier, and the interest actually held. Dr. Carter researches those questions, teaches them at an aeronautical university in Daytona Beach, Florida, and wrote the textbook opposing experts cite. On cross-examination, command of the subject is the advantage.
Can you serve as a consulting expert without testifying?
Yes. Consulting engagements are common, particularly for rebutting an opposing valuation or pressure-testing your own before disclosure. The role is agreed at engagement and can be converted to a testifying role later if counsel decides to designate.
Is a local appraiser more persuasive to a local jury?
Local familiarity does not substitute for command of the asset. When the property is a hangar on leased airport land, the expert who can explain to a jury why the building is worth less than it cost to build, and why reversion drives that, is the one who moves the verdict.
How are expert engagements billed?
Expert work is billed hourly at a rate stated in the engagement letter, with a retainer against fees. Fees are never contingent on the outcome, which is both the professional standard and the answer you want available on cross-examination.
How early should we retain a valuation expert?
Before disclosure deadlines wherever possible. Early involvement lets us shape the valuation questions, direct discovery toward the lease and airport records that decide the number, and evaluate settlement posture from a supportable figure rather than an estimate.
Discuss a matter
Send a short note describing the asset, the forum, and the schedule, and we will reply with availability, a conflicts check, and a proposed scope.
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