In article m,
Richard Kaplan wrote:

Agreed... except it takes 100-150 hours per year of flying before owning an
airplane even slightly approaches being cheaper than renting and probably
200 hours before owning definitely is cheaper.

And I'd guess that very few renters fly 100-150 hours/year. So if you
fly your own plane enough to 'break even' versus renting, odds are you
are spending more in absolute terms than you would have as a renter.
You just get to fly more.

It's almost impossible to justify owning based on cost. What I did was
work out how much I thought it would cost per year, all told, and decided
I was willing to spend it. At around 100hr/yr many 4 place singles come
in at around $100/hr. If you are willing to spend $10,000/yr on flying
then you can probably be a happy owner. And remember that's going to be
lots of relatively painless fuel receipts and a few bills like maintenance
and insurance that will top $1000-2000.

--
Ben Jackson

http://www.ben.com/