cost of ownership

My low estimates were about $7000.

Then you should do it.
Also, remember that it is "likely" that your aircraft will appreciate in
value. While that isn't guaranteed,and should be treated as a bonus,
it is highly probable.

But the main reason to buy is that it changes your mission profile.
Example - I used to rent, fly around for 90 minutes and land. It was
never worth actually landing anywhere nearby, as my FBO charged 3 hours
minimum if ever the aircraft was out over 3 hours, regardless of how
long it flew.

Now on a weekend, particularly a bad weather one, I'll fly 30 minutes to
an airport where I will land, meet several friends, have coffee and BS
for an hour, then fly toward home for 15 minutes, land and do it again,
then fly home.

Total flight time less than 60 minutes.
Total time - all day.
Total aviation value - priceless.
Total cost - Variable costs $30.00.
Fixed costs I pay whether I fly or not.
So now I fly lots. Like you I agonized over the cost.
Once I bought I kicked myself for not doing it a long time ago.
And as an aside, there is a certain comfort in always finding the plane
as you left it, with your stuff in it, and knowing that it wasn't abused
on its last flight.

My advice is to do it - you'll find many benefits that you hadn't even
considered.

Tony



Tony Roberts
PP-ASEL
VFR OTT
Night
Almost Instrument
Cessna 172H C-GICE

Thanks Tony,

This is exactly the kind of thing I've been agonizing about, too. Not just
day trips, but what if I want to take a two or three hour trip to see
friends, and then stay for a week?

I don't want to pay a three hour per day minimum for seven days, when the
plane will probably only fly six hours total!

Thanks!

The Weiss Family wrote:

This is exactly the kind of thing I've been agonizing about, too. Not just
day trips, but what if I want to take a two or three hour trip to see
friends, and then stay for a week?

I don't want to pay a three hour per day minimum for seven days, when the
plane will probably only fly six hours total!

Again, if money is an issue, look at buying your first plane with a partner.
You'll have someone else to share the initial cost, the ongoing work and
fixed expenses, and if your partner is more experienced with planes, you'll
also be able to avoid a lot of the expensive, newbie-owner mistakes that I
(and probably many others) make. If you're at all serious about travelling,
renting isn't a realistic option.

I wasn't able to find a partner around Ottawa when I was first looking (I
cared about IFR and the other people I talked to didn't want to spend the
extra money), and I'm managing OK as a sole owner now, but the first 18
months or so were a little hairy. If you can remember what it was like when
you moved from an apartment to your first house (as owner), and suddenly you
were expected to know about how to deal with contractors, what quotes were
fair, what weeping tiles were, how to grade a lawn, building codes, property
taxes, etc. etc., you'll have a good idea of what it will be like at first
owning a plane -- just multiply all that by 10.

When you're getting close to buying, come back to the list and you'll be
able to find a lot of advice (more than half of it good). Here are a few
easy, generic checklist items for any kind of plane:

1. How much weight can it carry with full fuel? How about with fuel at
tabs? Is that enough for your family now? What about three years from now?
Since you have a family, useful load probably matters more than speed.
Flying with fuel at tabs might not be practical for IFR, with the
requirement for an alternate and extra reserves, so pay close attention to
the full-fuel load if you're an IFR pilot or are likely to become one soon.

2. How many recurring ADs are there for the make/model, and how much do they
cost to carry out? For example, an older Cherokee with a front-mounted oil
cooler will need to have its oil hoses replaced every 8 years, which is only
a couple of hundred dollars; other recurring ADs, however, can cost
thousands. Don't wait until you've already put down a deposit and paying
for a prepurchase inspection to find out about these, since you can easily
research them online from your desk while leafing through Trade-a-Plane.

3. What avionics do you need? It's a *lot* (ie. 50%-75%) cheaper to buy a
plane with the avionics you need already installed than to buy and install
them afterwards. If you fly IFR and think you're going to want a Stormscope,
autopilot, and/or IFR GPS, look at planes that already have those
(personally, all I really wanted for IFR beyond basic NAV/ADF/DME was a
Stormscope, which I had installed last month).

4. How close is the engine to TBO? Most people seem to prefer an engine
that is about 50% of the way along -- that way, any problems from the last
overhaul are already worked out, but you still have a long time until the
next one. The plane's price will be adjusted accordingly.

5. Have fun looking.


All the best,


David

The Weiss Family wrote:

I know this has been asked a million times, but I have to ask just one
more time. I would love to know your real-world costs of ownership for
your fixed gear single. A 172, cherk 180, etc. I'm trying to figure out
how much renting I have to do before it becomes plausible to own. Any
advice as to insurance, fixed and variable costs, etc.

I bought my own airplane in December 2002, so I'm still a fairly new owner.
You've already had lots of good replies about costs, though I'd caution you
that you'll probably need to plan on paying at least double your average
yearly cost the first year, mostly in parts and maintenance: you'll be
flying the plane differently (causing some borderline parts to fail sooner),
you'll have a fresh mechanic looking at the plane, and you'll have different
needs (such as a second nav radio that actually works).

The main point, though, is that there's no point comparing the costs with
renting, because the renting and owning are entirely different. Renting is
for flying local flights, same-day cross-countries (say, to have lunch or
shop in another city a couple of hours away, or visit a friend), and the
occasional overnight trip. Depending on an FBO's policy, longer trips (say,
a week in Florida) are either forbidden or highly inconvenient, requiring
booking weeks in advance (maybe months in advance for the summer) and paying
for a few hours every day when the plane is on the ground.

Owning gives you the freedom to fly where you want, when you want, but also
the responsibility for taking care of the thousands of individual (and
expensive) parts that people screw and rivet together to make airplanes. If
you plan to fly mostly cross-countries, especially longer ones, there's
really no option: you have to own. If you want to be able to decide on
Friday that you're going away for a weekend in the summer, you have to own.
If you want to have some control over the safety of the airplane (say,
using better quality oil hoses that won't melt and start a fire, or
replacing the muffler before the shroud corrodes through and starts sending
CO through the heating system, etc), you have to own.

That said, if you're not going to be flying enough hours to justify sole
ownership, you can go in with a partner or two and massively reduce your
fixed costs. For example, if you're paying $1,000/year parking, $2,000/year
insurance, and $3,000/year parts and maintenance, you can pay all $5,000
yourself, pay $2,500 with one partner, or pay $1,670 with two partners.
Partners can also share the large amount of work involved in owning.

Personally, since I fly an inexpensive plane (a Piper Warrior II) for well
over 120 hours/year I am a sole owner, but I am very open to joining a
partnership if I start flying less often or if I need to move up to a bigger
or faster plane. Just having someone else to take turns cleaning and waxing
the plane sounds like a nice idea ...


All the best,


David

In article , "The Weiss Family"
wrote:

I know this has been asked a million times, but I have to ask just one
more
time.
I would love to know your real-world costs of ownership for your fixed
gear
single.
A 172, cherk 180, etc.
I'm trying to figure out how much renting I have to do before it becomes
plausible to own.
Any advice as to insurance, fixed and variable costs, etc.
Thanks

Adam


I've had my cherokee 140 since 1994. There have been years where
total cost for inspections and repairs for the year were less than
$1000. Most years total cost for inspections and repairs for the year
have been less than $2000.

And then there was the bill for an engine overhaul, coupled with
other problems and "while you are at it"... I stopped keeping track
when the cost passed $23,500. The total was probably a bit higher
than $30,000. For that, everything firewall forward was removed
and overhauled or replaced with new.

And of course there have been panel/radio improvements. I've
replaced both navcoms, overhauled the ADF, added a DME, autopilot,
engine monitor, and strikefinder.

--
Bob Noel

"Bob Noel" wrote:

And then there was the bill for an engine overhaul, coupled with
other problems and "while you are at it"... I stopped keeping track
when the cost passed $23,500. The total was probably a bit higher
than $30,000. For that, everything firewall forward was removed
and overhauled or replaced with new.

Ouch!
I definitely couldn't afford that right away on top of all the other
expenses.
This limits the field of potential aircraft to low-time (or mid-time)
engines.

The Weiss Family wrote:

Ouch!
I definitely couldn't afford that right away on top of all the other
expenses.
This limits the field of potential aircraft to low-time (or mid-time)
engines.

Not necessarily -- if the market is working correctly, the difference
between the cost of a plane with a new engine and a plane with a run-out
engine should be about equal to the cost of an overhaul.

From what I've seen on these lists and heard talking to other pilots,
low-time engines can be a bad idea, especially if the previous owner did a
quick, cheapie overhaul to help sell the plane. Doing your own overhaul on
a run-out engine is probably better, but you're assuming the risks of all
the early problems that show up afterwards. I chose mid-time, and I've been
very happy with that.


All the best,


David

David Megginson writes:

The Weiss Family wrote:

Ouch!
I definitely couldn't afford that right away on top of all the other
expenses.
This limits the field of potential aircraft to low-time (or mid-time)
engines.

Not necessarily -- if the market is working correctly, the difference
between the cost of a plane with a new engine and a plane with a
run-out engine should be about equal to the cost of an overhaul.

From my experience the market isn't working w.r.t. discounting the
price of an airplane with the engine near TBO. When searching for my
airplane, I found two very similar models to the one I eventually
bought, and rejected them both when the owners wouldn't discount their
selling price because of the engine time. I found an airplane with a
low time engine (done by a very well known overhauler) for just
$2000-$3000 more than what the other two wanted.

Bob Fry wrote:

From my experience the market isn't working w.r.t. discounting the
price of an airplane with the engine near TBO. When searching for my
airplane, I found two very similar models to the one I eventually
bought, and rejected them both when the owners wouldn't discount their
selling price because of the engine time.

Presumably, they'd already built the engine time into their selling prices.
Unfortunately, a lot of owners seem to have pretty exaggerated ideas of
what their planes are worth. They probably had to drop their prices
eventually, or else they gave up on trying to sell.


All the best,


David

when I bought my current plane, I went after a low time factory reman. engine.
Any engine with over 600 hours on it (I have a 1800 hr TBO on my engine) I would
not even look at, but I was seeing planes with engine at or close to TBO where
the owners wanted the same price as one with a new engine.
when I did the prebuy, I also had an oil analysys done to make sure the engine
was still in good shape.

David Megginson wrote:

The Weiss Family wrote:

Ouch!
I definitely couldn't afford that right away on top of all the other
expenses.
This limits the field of potential aircraft to low-time (or mid-time)
engines.

Not necessarily -- if the market is working correctly, the difference
between the cost of a plane with a new engine and a plane with a run-out
engine should be about equal to the cost of an overhaul.

From what I've seen on these lists and heard talking to other pilots,
low-time engines can be a bad idea, especially if the previous owner did a
quick, cheapie overhaul to help sell the plane. Doing your own overhaul on
a run-out engine is probably better, but you're assuming the risks of all
the early problems that show up afterwards. I chose mid-time, and I've been
very happy with that.

All the best,

David