Aircraft operating costs

count up all the money in your checking savings and investments. everything. the equity in your house(s) car(s) and property.

That is how much it will cost.
 
If the aircraft has a type club, that's a good place to start. In the absence of that, use Tony's formula.
 
PlaneQuest (www.planequest.com) has a database of operating costs for a number of GA aircraft. It is a little out of date, but can be used as a starting point or as a basis for comparison.

Bruce
 
Buy one and operate it for about 5 years/1000 hours, whichever comes last. But if you want a pretty good idea of what the ownership costs are for a simple, light single-engine aircraft, email me (that's email, not PM, not post, not carrier pigeon, not ESP) and I'll share a paper I wrote on the subject.
 
Attached please find a zip file that contains spreadsheet that will help you calculate the true cost of ownership per hour.

Open at your own risk.

Len

P.S. the file is zipped not due to size but because .xls file types are prohibited from being uploaded.

P.P.S. note that the calculation for engine overhaul cost includes a formula that takes into count not just hours on the engine but calendar time as well.
 

Attachments

  • Operating Costs Spreadsheet.zip
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Put everything for it on one credit card. Do not use that credit card for anything else. Look at your year end statement. Divide by hours flown. There's your operating cost.

I don't buy into the engine reserves and avionics reserves. Why? Because the measly $10 or $15 per hour you put in will mean nothing if your radios or engine pukes 30 hours after you have your plane. How do I know? I had my radios puke out about 30 hours after I had my plane. Lets see...30 hours x 10/hr = $300. Which left me about $12,700 short of filling my reserve.

This year my operating cost was $107.85/hr for a Cherokee 180. I'm glad I figured out my costs because I had around 40 hours of tax deductible time.
 
Ed that is exactly why when I bought my plane I made sure I had the cost of the plane AND a reserve in the bank. BTW I got hit with an AD ($$$) and a new vacuum pump in the first six months of ownership. Glad I had the extra dough
 
smigaldi said:
Ed that is exactly why when I bought my plane I made sure I had the cost of the plane AND a reserve in the bank. BTW I got hit with an AD ($$$) and a new vacuum pump in the first six months of ownership. Glad I had the extra dough
Click to expand...

Yep, same here. Well, it wasn't IN the bank, but I knew what I had coming in within 2 months. Of course there's always the fun ADs that pop up out of nowhere. Does anyone have an AD reserve in their calculations?
 
EdFred said:
Put everything for it on one credit card. Do not use that credit card for anything else. Look at your year end statement. Divide by hours flown. There's your operating cost.
Click to expand...

One of the two reasons I got the AOPA card in the first place. That's now gone....
 
EdFred said:
Does anyone have an AD reserve in their calculations?
Click to expand...

I don't have it in the spreadsheet I posted but I do have an unexpected maintenance reserve. It would be easy to add or change what is in the attached spreadsheet.

Len
 
Capt Kirk said:
I don't have it in the spreadsheet I posted but I do have an unexpected maintenance reserve. It would be easy to add or change what is in the attached spreadsheet.

Len
Click to expand...

Do you set aside money for a $500 AD? $1000 AD? $5000 AD? $10k ? $25k?

So you set aside money for a $5k AD, and get hit with a $25k AD. What exactly does that reserve accomplish. Pretty much nothing, which is why I think the whole "reserves" scenario is, well, stupid. Just have a significant amount of ready to go, and forget the whole reserve fund. As Scott, and I both know, that reserve fund doesn't do squat, because rarely are you going to have a $200 or $300/hr reserve fund as he found out with his cylinders, and I found out with my radios.
 
wsuffa said:
One of the two reasons I got the AOPA card in the first place. That's now gone....
Click to expand...

AirBP

5% Back on all BP purchases
2% back on all other fuel purchases (I think)
1% back on all other purchases
Best part about the card:
NO LIMIT

Every time you rack up $25 in rebates you can either get a check sent to you, or a $25 gift card. I take the gift cards, put them in my truck and use them for auto fuel.

There be rebates here Cap'n!
 
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