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#31
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Cost of ownership????
On Mar 25, 5:56 am, Mike Spera wrote:
A far worse injustice is leveled on many airplanes. Namely, the owner cannot really afford the plane so they choose to buy gas to fly around and then skimp on the maintenance. He/she then demands a ridiculous selling price for their run out dog when the HAVE to sell. Well, nobody is forced to pay a ridiculous price for a run out plane. The seller can ask all he wants, but the buyer can simply go somewhere else. Eventually the market will take care of the price. I consider it my responsibility to keep an airplane in good shape (repairs, upgrades, etc.). Many people (especially in my home America) have a hard time with this concept. Repairs, absolutely. Upgrades? I'd rather see owners skip that GNS430 install and use that money to fly across the country three times and visiting places. Of course it would be nice to do both, but most people had to choose one vs. another. A lot of owners chose to be a curator instead of an aviator. The problem with GA isn't people not taking care of old planes. It's people not flying enough. Unless your plane is a P-51, I don't see anything wrong with old plane gets used up and eventually goes to junkyard if it's used up for good reasons, like 20,000 hr on the wing spar. The problem with GA isn't people not taking care of old planes. It's people not flying nearly enough. If GA flying hour is 10x of today and all the old planes get used up in about 10 years, we'll have a much healthier GA industry and the new planes are likely to be less than half of what they cost today because of the large volume production. |
#32
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Cost of ownership????
On Mar 25, 6:56 am, Mike Spera wrote:
The worst thing you can do as a owner is to let the maintenance cost eat up all your gas money, and you ended up keeping a hangar queen for the next owner, one with a rusty engine no less. There's nothing sadder than that. A far worse injustice is leveled on many airplanes. Namely, the owner cannot really afford the plane so they choose to buy gas to fly around and then skimp on the maintenance. He/she then demands a ridiculous selling price for their run out dog when the HAVE to sell. In either case, if you have to ask, you likely cannot afford it. Good luck, Mike I've allways loved to hear that line. It makes me think of all the people who buy a house and end up in bankruptcy. I suppose these are the same people who didn't ask either. Unless you have milions comming out your ass, what kind of person wouldn't find out ahead of time what the entire cost of somthing is ahead of time? After all, who is dumb enough believe that they are just going to make the payments without getting the maitenance cost? Oh thats right, the person who didn't ask. It seems to me, if you have to ask, your smart enough to own it, not dumb enough to buy it and not be able to take care of it. Plane or otherwise. Lou |
#33
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Cost of ownership????
What kept me from buying at first was the idea that if I didn't fly at least
100+ hours a year, owning didn't make sense. I never flew 100+ hours a year as a renter because paying the hourly rates discouraged me from using the plane for anything other than local flights. Once I OWNED the plane, the 100+ hours per year came naturally because it became a hobby and a social thing, flying with the guys out to breakfast every weekend and taking long flights occasionally to visit relatives, go to Osh etc. If you love to fly you practically owe it to yourself to own a plane. You just need a plane and a plan that fits your budget, whether it's a simple one shared with someone else or a complex one exclusively yours. -- Best Regards, Mike http://photoshow.comcast.net/mikenoel Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. "M" wrote in message oups.com... On Mar 21, 6:20 am, "Lou" wrote: I (like everyone else) am considering purchasing a plane. I've looked up the cost of ownership in this group and came up with some good information. However, I'm looking for a spreadsheet that I can plug the numbers into. Forget the spreadsheet. The single most important thing you should do as an owner is to fly a lot. 150+ hr a year. 200+ hr is even better. Do that for a few years, and if your funds is getting low, sell the plane and you can say to youself that you had owned a plane once, flew to many interesting places, and it didn't cost you more than renting, and you were able to make trips that a renter won't be able to do. Mortgage your house if you have to, but you *must* keep flying a lot of hours a year as long as you own it. It's worth it. The worst thing you can do as a owner is to let the maintenance cost eat up all your gas money, and you ended up keeping a hangar queen for the next owner, one with a rusty engine no less. There's nothing sadder than that. |
#35
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Cost of ownership????
On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 11:17:11 -0400, "FLAV8R"
wrote: "Tim" wrote in message... "If you have to ask..." It costs a lot. The airshares program seems to be reasonably set up. At first glance it seems expensive though. They did the work for you/everyone. Check out their pricing. If you can't afford at least a third to half of that program, you probably have to walk away or find more co-owners. http://www.airshareselite.com/airpor...escription.pdf It is a commitment to own a plane. Wow! If I did my homework correctly, it would cost over 70k for the first year to fly for only 100 hours. Buy an older Bonanza and you can fly it for about 6 years for that. Around there that wold cover all costs, fixed and variable. Comparing that to my average rental cost of a new C182 with G1000 I would be able to fly over 600 hours in that same year. At 130 hours a year the Deb runs about $85 to $95/hr with today's gas prices. A some what newer F33 might be a bit less expensive to run per hour due to maintenance but would cost more up front. You should get back the cost of the airplane later on. The SR22 is expensive and the insurance is quite high. Local couple were paying about $9,000 for insurance. They are now on their second plane as they put over 700 hours on the first one the first year. They should have about a year on the second one so I don't know what their costs would be now. I looked into the airshares program and iy appeared I could operate a new A36 for less than it would have cost me to stay in that program. I guess I'll wait till I win the lottery. David Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member) (N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair) www.rogerhalstead.com |
#36
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Cost of ownership????
On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:42:12 -0400, Jon Kraus
wrote: Lou, It varies tremendously but the one constant is that airplane ownership is EXPENSIVE when compared against renting. That is unless you fly 200 hours a year (most pilots average 50-75 hours a year). I don't know about other folks but I have owned for only 3 years so I don't have much experience but here is what I found. For a 2 way partnership in a 100k Mooney it costs me about 1000 a month to fly 5 hours a month. This includes all my fixed costs of $575 (plane note, hanger rent, XM weather subscription and insurance). We charge ourselves $85 per tach hour wet. This includes engine reserve, fuel and some cash put back for annual inspection expenses. Our first 3 annual's averaged $5000. We have had several times in the How many hours are you putting on that thing? flying over a 130 hours a year my annuals averaged about $500 to $600 with one being close to $5000 due to a bunch of ADs all coming due the same time as well as the heater crapping out, a flame cone giveing out and some other things. Prior tot he cost of gas going up I was runing about $76 or so an hour. Gas has gone up less than a dollar a gallon here, but at a one dollar increase that'd be $90 per hour. That cost includes everything including annuals and $10 toward a major which is getting close. I may have to raise that to $15 toward the major. BTW that also includes over $8,000 fo a new 3-blade hartzel prop exchange and labor. last 3 years where we have had to shell out $1000 here and $1000 there for things that broke. We like to keep the plane squawk-free so this could have been cheaper. I run a progressive maintenance program which is probably why the annuals have been relatively inexpensive. Here is the sad part. For me I have come to the realization that I don't want to shell out this much cash for flying anymore and am offering my partner the buy-out deal of a lifetime. I am going back to renting but will probably take a break from flying all together. Good luck with whatever you do but realize that it will cost you a LOT more money to own than to rent. That is just a plain and simple fact. That I don't believe, but it depends on how much you fly. At 100 hours a year it's cheaper for me to own the Deb than rent a 172 around here.The Deb is paid for but I do not take any credit toward what I might get out of it some day. That means when I do sell it I can average that over the hours I've flown and deduct that from the cost per hour. Jon Kraus Lou wrote: I (like everyone else) am considering purchasing a plane. I've looked up the cost of ownership in this group and came up with some good information. However, I'm looking for a spreadsheet that I can plug the numbers into. Has anyone either made this or know where to download one? It's probebly not hard to do but I thought I would look here first. Anybody? Anybody? Anybody? Lou Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member) (N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair) www.rogerhalstead.com |
#37
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Cost of ownership????
On Thu, 22 Mar 2007 09:26:23 -0700, "RST Engineering"
wrote: There are very few absolute truisms in life. I believe I know two of them: 1. If it flies, floats, or fornicates it is far cheaper to rent. 2. If it has tires, tits, or testicles it will eventually give you trouble. Having said that, you don't need a $100K Super Bugsmasher as your first airplane. There are tens of thousands of elderly 150s, 172s, Cherokees, and the like that may not have the sex appeal of a 200 knot bent-gear aircraft, but they will not eat your pocketbook for lunch either. You don't need a hopped up 172 with a 200 horse twisty prop to get you to your Sunday fly-in. The elderly 150 may not get you there in fifteen minutes ... might take half an hour ... but 90% of the fun of a fly-in is getting there. Same with most of life. Just as a addition to this part. A 172 Hawk XP and I took off from 3BS at the same time It's 50 nauticle miles to HTL from here. I had just turned off the runway when he called into the pattern. So, unless it's long distances it matters little whether you are traveling at 200 MPH or 130 and if we go that far it should make little additional difference if only traveling 100. Depending on whether you are a low wing wimp or a high wing manly guy, you can start off with a Tripacer (Piper's Milkstool) and work your way up Kinds fancy there. I started in a Colt. through the ranks over the years to what you can afford. You may have the milkstool your whole career. That's the way it goes. Same with a 150 (or a 120/140 if you are a tailwheel kinda guy) and work your way up through the 170/172 series. For a two passenger I'd just as soon have a cub although they do get a bit chilly up here in the winter. Yeah, after 40 years of the 120-170-172 gig I've got a 182. It keeps me on the edge of poverty, but it is what I can afford. Do I drool at 210s? Sure. But I didn't jump into a Citation while the ink was still wet on my private. There's a reason I'm flying a 47 year old Beech instead of a 20 year old. Jim "Jon Kraus" wrote in message .. . Lou, It varies tremendously but the one constant is that airplane ownership is EXPENSIVE when compared against renting. That is unless you fly 200 hours a year (most pilots average 50-75 hours a year). Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member) (N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair) www.rogerhalstead.com |
#38
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Cost of ownership????
On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 12:56:23 GMT, Mike Spera
wrote: The worst thing you can do as a owner is to let the maintenance cost eat up all your gas money, and you ended up keeping a hangar queen for the next owner, one with a rusty engine no less. There's nothing sadder than that. A far worse injustice is leveled on many airplanes. Namely, the owner cannot really afford the plane so they choose to buy gas to fly around and then skimp on the maintenance. He/she then demands a ridiculous selling price for their run out dog when the HAVE to sell. In either case, if you have to ask, you likely cannot afford it. Those using spreadsheets and trying to calculate this down to the dime may want to consider that airplanes don't require cash according to a schedule. If you don't have $5k - $10k laying around at all times (and not in the form of a loan), you are going to have a tough time making ownership work out. Most airplanes will develop an average or ball park figure for a particular make and model for the cost per hour against the number of hours flown per year. OTOH there is no guarantee that any single airplane of the same make and model flown the same hours per year will come any where near that figure. I could easily go out and even with a good pre buy inspection end up with one that cost double the average figure, or I *MIGHT* get one that is considerably cheaper and I have to emphasize the odds against that. Airplane ownership is NOT like a car or boat. You are not an owner, but a temporary steward of an increasingly rare object. I consider it my I think the same way about my cars, cameras, radios, and other objects I own. responsibility to keep an airplane in good shape (repairs, upgrades, etc.). Many people (especially in my home America) have a hard time with Upgrades are something else. If you own an old airplane it may be worth more in the original condition than upgraded. Even though the Deb has been heavily modified I've had two museums want the thing. They are willing to give me one whale of a deduction, but I don't need deductions, I need cash. Besides it's the only airplane I've owned outright and I've kinda developed an attachment to it and really don't want to part with it. For me to sell it some one would have to want it a lot worse than I do and I seriously doubt that's going to happen, so yes, I did purchase my lottery ticket for tomorrow night. this concept. They are accustomed to buying things and then throwing them away when they become old or inconvenient. Good luck, Mike Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member) (N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair) www.rogerhalstead.com |
#39
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Cost of ownership????
Matt Barrow wrote:
"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in message ... Marco Leon wrote: You're welcome. FYI, I stopped using it because I didn't like what it was telling me. "Lou" wrote in message oups.com... Thank you, that is exactly what I was looking for. Lou I had some how missed that site. Good work. I pluged in the numbers based on 601XL I'm building and I break even at 26.9 hours/year. That makes me very happy. Do you use yours for business at all? Yes, I'll be using it to travel for business some. |
#40
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Cost of ownership????
Mike Spera wrote:
In either case, if you have to ask, you likely cannot afford it. You know I always hated this answer. Those that aren't in the habit of examining the costs of things they purchase are seldom ever going to be in the position to purchase an aircraft. |
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