Cost of flying

[RobertGerace]

Bob, I think before long you'll need a second pilot to fly your "spares" around with you.

I got stuck in the north east one day during a ground stop as 'W' was on his way home to see his Dad.

At that time I learned that TWO Airforce 1's and TWO Marine 1's go everywhere he does.

Now, THAT's redundancy of equipment!!!

 

[wsuffa]

When people post stuff like, "I spent $xx,xxx" on flying last year...I don't look at it as bragging...I look at it as a self-sanity-check. Am I crazy? Is this what it takes? Am I getting ripped off? Is there a better way? Could I be doing this more efficiently? Could I spend less and be safe and have a reliable dispatch rate?

Bob, Not crazy at all. It does take money to do it right. You have a complex bird. It costs more money than a fixed-gear trainer. That's just how it is. Multiply by about 3 times to get to the cost for burning kerosene.

Flying for business is different than poking around the patch every couple of weekends.

At some point, if you fly enough, you end up with a relationship with the mechanic. And after a couple of years, you know your bird very well. That'll tell you what to focus on and when. It really does take that much time to fix up a plane when the prior maintenance was less than stellar. Either that or you put a mechanic on retainer.....

 

[Dave Siciliano]

No Bob, it's not crazy. I'm on here to because there's a lot to learn and sometimes maybe I can pass along a tip that comes from experience and having some grey hair. Sometimes folks talk in specific dollar amounts. As we all know, it's all relative. If one has a salary equivalent to one in an early job, one amount is costly. If one is more established, more should be affordable. For every person I know, there is a plane that can be costly to them.

For some of us, we know when flying becomes affordable, it's time to move up or purchase a more complex aircraft!!

Dave