FastEddieB
Touchdown! Greaser!
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2013
- Messages
- 11,543
- Location
- Lenoir City, TN/Mineral Bluff, GA
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Fast Eddie B
I just took a few moments to go over my 2017 expenses related to my ELSA Sky Arrow.
Good news: Total for the year was about $5,500.
More good news: It only cost me about $35/hour to fly the plane, excluding fixed costs.
Bad news: factor in those fixed costs, and it works out to just over $200/hr.(!)
The whole story:
Some notes and observations:
1) I think this was the fewest hours I've ever flown in a year. Over 10 years I've accrued 500 hours in the Sky Arrow, so you do the math. No real reason for the low hours this year, just other priorities getting in the way and no long trips at all this year - we generally do at least one.
2) I assigned no value to my time - several days spent on the Annual Condition Inspection plus other minor maintenance over the year.
3) I did not factor in "Opportunity Cost". Sure, $75k could have been invested and earned a return, but those funds were always flagged for fun, not investment.
4) I also did not factor in depreciation. Hard to know exactly what my plane is worth, but it may not be much less than I paid for it, with new ones going for about double that now.
5) Nothing in there for overhaul reserve. Plus every fifth year there's added expense for rubber parts replacement for the ROTAX.
6) Our hangar serves double duty as a storage unit. If we did not have it for the plane, we would certainly need to rent a storage facility, so there would be some expense regardless.
So, lots of other things that could have been factored in and weren't. Still, being an airplane owner for about what some people make in car payments makes it worthwhile. For me, anyway.
Hope someone finds the above useful.
Good news: Total for the year was about $5,500.
More good news: It only cost me about $35/hour to fly the plane, excluding fixed costs.
Bad news: factor in those fixed costs, and it works out to just over $200/hr.(!)
The whole story:
Some notes and observations:
1) I think this was the fewest hours I've ever flown in a year. Over 10 years I've accrued 500 hours in the Sky Arrow, so you do the math. No real reason for the low hours this year, just other priorities getting in the way and no long trips at all this year - we generally do at least one.
2) I assigned no value to my time - several days spent on the Annual Condition Inspection plus other minor maintenance over the year.
3) I did not factor in "Opportunity Cost". Sure, $75k could have been invested and earned a return, but those funds were always flagged for fun, not investment.
4) I also did not factor in depreciation. Hard to know exactly what my plane is worth, but it may not be much less than I paid for it, with new ones going for about double that now.
5) Nothing in there for overhaul reserve. Plus every fifth year there's added expense for rubber parts replacement for the ROTAX.
6) Our hangar serves double duty as a storage unit. If we did not have it for the plane, we would certainly need to rent a storage facility, so there would be some expense regardless.
So, lots of other things that could have been factored in and weren't. Still, being an airplane owner for about what some people make in car payments makes it worthwhile. For me, anyway.
Hope someone finds the above useful.
