How realistic are these ownership costs

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injb

Pre-takeoff checklist
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I was pretty surprised when I saw this, as he claims you can own and operate a plane for a lot less than I assumed. He has another video where he does a similar breakdown for an Aeronca Champ and he comes up with an even lower cost. Tldr version: he reckons you can get the total cost down to around $50/hour if you buy a $15K C150 and fly for 100 hours a year.


Just wondering how this compares to peoples experience here? Thanks!
 
weilke said:
You can. Right up to the moment that you have a stuck valve or there is a puddle of oil under the engine.
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But is there nothing you can do about that kind of thing before you buy? I don't know if it compares at all, but I have some experience with classic sports cars and while a lot of people get burned, the fact is that with a good inspection by someone who knows what they're doing, there is very little left to chance, even with the engine internals. Is it not like that with planes?
 
injb said:
But is there nothing you can do about that kind of thing before you buy?
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yes there is, buy the best condition aircraft in the market for that make and model.
 
injb said:
But is there nothing you can do about that kind of thing before you buy? I don't know if it compares at all, but I have some experience with classic sports cars and while a lot of people get burned, the fact is that with a good inspection by someone who knows what they're doing, there is very little left to chance, even with the engine internals. Is it not like that with planes?
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Ain't no such thing as a sure thing.
 
injb said:
But is there nothing you can do about that kind of thing before you buy? I don't know if it compares at all, but I have some experience with classic sports cars and while a lot of people get burned, the fact is that with a good inspection by someone who knows what they're doing, there is very little left to chance, even with the engine internals. Is it not like that with planes?
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For some reason its not like that with planes. An unbiased competent inspection can guard you against many things like:
- buying a plane with corrosion
- buying a plane with unrepaired accident damage (e.g. a wrinkled firewall)
- buying a plane that is misrepresented
- buying a fabric plane with fabric at the end of its useful life

It can't protect you against:
- a cylinder cracking
- an engine case cracking
- a stuck valve
- an alternator or starter drive fail
.
.


Some of these things are an 'easy repair' (= all it takes is money). Some can get to a point where particularly with a lower priced plane, it is just not economically wise to repair the plane. Thankfully, the really expensive stuff is uncommon, but you always have to budget for some money to cover those oopsies. At all-in cost of $50/hr you are not going to have much room in the budget to to cover this.
 
weilke said:
For some reason its not like that with planes. An unbiased competent inspection can guard you against many things like:
- buying a plane with corrosion
- buying a plane with unrepaired accident damage (e.g. a wrinkled firewall)
- buying a plane that is misrepresented
- buying a fabric plane with fabric at the end of its useful life

It can't protect you against:
- a cylinder cracking
- an engine case cracking
- a stuck valve
- an alternator or starter drive fail
.
.


Some of these things are an 'easy repair' (= all it takes is money). Some can get to a point where particularly with a lower priced plane, it is just not economically wise to repair the plane. Thankfully, the really expensive stuff is uncommon, but you always have to budget for some money to cover those oopsies. At all-in cost of $50/hr you are not going to have much room in the budget to to cover this.
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This. Those 50 dollar/hr operating costs are within reason.... Assuming absolutely nothing goes wrong with a 40 year old plane.
 
$50 is low end realistic for a 150, assuming cheap-ish tiedown even with the "normal" wear and tear issues you get every now and then. They are cheap to fix on a 150, assuming your mechanic doesn't have a kid in college.
Stuck valve? Yawn, less than 1k to OH a cylinder all in. Happens maybe once every what, 500 to 2000 hours?

If you get unlucky, then all bets are off. But buy a decent example with no airframe issues (cracked gear attach points, corrosion, cracked ribs), be moderately involved with the maintenance and with a little bit of luck, $50/hr is realistic.

Insurance 450/year
Tiedown 500/year
Annual + random maintenance 2000/year

Find reasonable fuel around you, and your fuel costs are less than $20/hour. That's right at $50/hour.

I've flown my last 100 hours with one maintenance squawk, which was repaired in 5 minutes and for free. Apart from that, 2 oil changes and that's it.
 
People over inflate the cost to fly, mainly because they hate freedom or something

If you were to follow some peoples logic, no one but the millionaires could even afford to drive a car lol
 
Example on plane ownership cost range:

My glideslope was inop. An avionics shop quoted me $1500 to replace my GS receiver.
I checked what type is installed from my logs, found a second hand receiver for $25 inc. shipping, and my A&P changed it for $25 while doing my oil change. $50 vs. $1500.
Plane ownership can be cheap as long as you are smart about it and can spend some resources on type clubs and Google (and sometimes just common sense).
It can also be devastatingly expensive if you just open your checkbook and ask how many 0's the number needs to have.
 
James331 said:
People over inflate the cost to fly, mainly because they hate freedom or something

If you were to follow some peoples logic, no one but the millionaires could even afford to drive a car lol
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Haha. I equate it to what it would cost me to own and operate a nice sports car, something all sorts of peoole do.

And what money I've seen some people waste on freaking golf... they could have had their private and instrument both, for what they spend on whacking a ball with a crooked stick.
 
denverpilot said:
Haha. I equate it to what it would cost me to own and operate a nice sports car, something all sorts of peoole do.

And what money I've seen some people waste on freaking golf... they could have had their private and instrument both, for what they spend on whacking a ball with a crooked stick.
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Every reference to Golf deserves this classic:


It's all about priorities. A friend of mine enjoys HiFi, and he once said he doesn't understand why people buy houses, that kind of money could buy a very nice LP turntable!
 
mtuomi said:
Every reference to Golf deserves this classic:


It's all about priorities. A friend of mine enjoys HiFi, and he once said he doesn't understand why people buy houses, that kind of money could buy a very nice LP turntable!
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I follow vintage HiFi groups as a side/sub hobby to the radio stuff... never seen a turntable that cost as much as a house, or would think that it'd be all that much better than a number that hover in the couple thousand dollar range, just because they're rare.

Remember some good afternoons hanging with dad when I was a kid, digging through the albums that lined three walls of the living room. Don't even want to think about what all that vinyl would be worth now, if he'd have kept it all, now that it's become a "nostalgia" thing to play vinyl and popular again.

What is really missing from modern albums is the cover art. Man there were some great album covers and inner sleeves. Now you get a blown up digital low quality replica of the old stuff, nowhere near cool as full sized, or you get some photoshop thing if it's modern.

Oh well.
 
injb said:
I was pretty surprised when I saw this, as he claims you can own and operate a plane for a lot less than I assumed. He has another video where he does a similar breakdown for an Aeronca Champ and he comes up with an even lower cost. Tldr version: he reckons you can get the total cost down to around $50/hour if you buy a $15K C150 and fly for 100 hours a year.


Just wondering how this compares to peoples experience here? Thanks!
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I know the guy who does those videos, even taken a few lessons from him and flown the 150 in the video :).

$50/per hour works IF you can make all the other numbers line up. And, as others have said you really need to find a decent 150 to start off with. If you are financing and not paying 14-20K out of pocket for the plane to start with, then you need to deal with the monthly cost of that as well.

I will say the tie down costs, fuel costs, oil costs, labor costs, etc...are all EXTREMELY region specific, especially in FL. I can get fuel for less than $4.00 at a grass strip around here, or if I fly down to KEYW I can expect to pay upwards of $8.00 per gallon. Be very careful with those are they are NOT set in stone.

Tie down costs where I'm at are almost 40-50% higher then what he had in that sheet. But if you can make everything match what he has in the sheet, then yeah, it'll work. Just make sure you have something set aside for the inevitable items that come up that AREN'T on that spreadsheet :).
 
denverpilot said:
I follow vintage HiFi groups as a side/sub hobby to the radio stuff... never seen a turntable that cost as much as a house, or would think that it'd be all that much better than a number that hover in the couple thousand dollar range, just because they're rare.

Remember some good afternoons hanging with dad when I was a kid, digging through the albums that lined three walls of the living room. Don't even want to think about what all that vinyl would be worth now, if he'd have kept it all, now that it's become a "nostalgia" thing to play vinyl and popular again.

What is really missing from modern albums is the cover art. Man there were some great album covers and inner sleeves. Now you get a blown up digital low quality replica of the old stuff, nowhere near cool as full sized, or you get some photoshop thing if it's modern.

Oh well.
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Having just gone through an estate sale with my dad's vinyl, it's worth a lot less than you think. Interestingly, the rock & roll albums that my older sister bought in college (mid-70s vintage) were the only things the dealers were interested in. My dad's Hi-Fi Stereo (printed right on the covers) classical stuff - zip. Even with the hipster's revival of vinyl, it's mostly rock & roll and new stuff their interested in. And, (off topic) my son wanted a turntable two or three years ago so I went shopping for one for Christmas. They don't even publish specs for things like wow and flutter on these new ones-and it ain't because they don't mechanically have wow & flutter. You kids get off my lawn!

John
 
Tom-D said:
yes there is, buy the best condition aircraft in the market for that make and model.
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But then there goes your low cost of ownership right at the beginning, instead of later.
 
injb said:
But is there nothing you can do about that kind of thing before you buy? I don't know if it compares at all, but I have some experience with classic sports cars and while a lot of people get burned, the fact is that with a good inspection by someone who knows what they're doing, there is very little left to chance, even with the engine internals. Is it not like that with planes?
Click to expand...
That helps, but an expensive noise can happen even to pristine, no-squawks maintenance airplanes right out of annual. Shoestring ownership eventually turns into airplanes slowly melting into the tiedowns. Better to get a partner or two and buy a nicer, more capable airplane and share the costs. Putzing around the patch on nice Sunday afternoons in a Champ will get old fast.
 
JOhnH said:
But then there goes your low cost of ownership right at the beginning, instead of later.
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pay me now, or pay me later, take your choice.
 
paflyer said:
That helps, but an expensive noise can happen even to pristine, no-squawks maintenance airplanes right out of annual. Shoestring ownership eventually turns into airplanes slowly melting into the tiedowns. Better to get a partner or two and buy a nicer, more capable airplane and share the costs. Putzing around the patch on nice Sunday afternoons in a Champ will get old fast.
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I understand about random stuff happening. I suppose that would be a gamble. Maybe you really have to estimate how many hours are left in the engine and divide the cost of a rebuild by that number, and add that to the hourly cost. So if you have 500 hours left before you can reasonably expect to have to rebuild, at 15K for the rebuild, you need to put aside $30 an hour, and it's really therefore $80 an hour. I wonder what kind of life is typically left in the engine of a $15K C150? Or is it completely random?

Regarding a more capable plane, I was thinking more of the 150 than the Champ, and I'd be pretty content with that for a long time, considering I only have 4 hours now :) I suspect that the line of thinking that "oh it's really not that much cheaper than a 172, and a 172 is really not that much cheaper than a 180" is kind of a slippery slope...
 
One of the cheapest ways to own is with a partner or 3. Lower the fixed costs and help with unexpected MX bills.
I owned/flew a piper Dakota for a couple years with 3 others for ~150/hr at ~50-75 hrs a year. At 100hrs/yr it would have been ~120/hr.

That was hanger (ATL area expensive), Payment, insurance, gps database and flat rate annual.
 
injb said:
I understand about random stuff happening. I suppose that would be a gamble. Maybe you really have to estimate how many hours are left in the engine and divide the cost of a rebuild by that number, and add that to the hourly cost. So if you have 500 hours left before you can reasonably expect to have to rebuild, at 15K for the rebuild, you need to put aside $30 an hour, and it's really therefore $80 an hour. I wonder what kind of life is typically left in the engine of a $15K C150? Or is it completely random?

Regarding a more capable plane, I was thinking more of the 150 than the Champ, and I'd be pretty content with that for a long time, considering I only have 4 hours now :) I suspect that the line of thinking that "oh it's really not that much cheaper than a 172, and a 172 is really not that much cheaper than a 180" is kind of a slippery slope...
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Hah! Wait until you get to the piston twin, well then a pressurized piston twin is a game-changer in terms of all-weather dispatch and passenger comfort, well for "the same operating costs per seat/mile" might as well get a turboprop, well if you're going turbine get a jet because they are faster and it's the same cost per hour as a turboprop slippery slope...

$/hr as a figure of merit makes no sense to me unless you expect to sell the time, or write off the cost as a business expense/justify to the CFO that it's cheaper than the airlines.
 
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jsstevens said:
Having just gone through an estate sale with my dad's vinyl, it's worth a lot less than you think. Interestingly, the rock & roll albums that my older sister bought in college (mid-70s vintage) were the only things the dealers were interested in. My dad's Hi-Fi Stereo (printed right on the covers) classical stuff - zip. Even with the hipster's revival of vinyl, it's mostly rock & roll and new stuff their interested in. And, (off topic) my son wanted a turntable two or three years ago so I went shopping for one for Christmas. They don't even publish specs for things like wow and flutter on these new ones-and it ain't because they don't mechanically have wow & flutter. You kids get off my lawn!

John
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Dad's stuff was mostly "classic" rock. Feet and feet of it. Sometime many years back he decided to get rid of it all. Probably didn't want to move them. Just flipping through album covers and looking at the artwork could be an entire Saturday and you'd never reach the end of one wall.

His turntables back then had quartz lights synced to the 60 Hz from the wall and mechanical "dots" etched into the side of the turntables which an electronics circuit in the base with a sensor would "lock" the speed of the variable speed motor to with what I assume was a discreet component feedback loop. Heady stuff for the 70s and 80s. The turntable itself was heavy to help smooth out the ups and downs with momentum. Even back then the needle cartridges were spendy little beasts.

The good news is, we still have the stereos and the speakers and none of the speakers need re-foaming... yet. They work and sound great for being nearly four decades old. The downside is, they don't play too well with a modern "home theater" setup -- no remotes, no HDMI inputs, just RCA jacks and a LOT of amplifier power. To replace them with modern gear would take thousands of dollars to match specs on power. I'm sure something modern in that class could beat them in THD and noise levels but not by a whole lot. They'd match up to the high-mid range of the "pro-sumer" market these days. A couple of the variable resistors have crudded up a bit on a couple of them, so I need to do a disassembly and cleanup day. All that power mixed with crackling and popping will certainly blow a speaker if I don't. Thankfully it's not the volume control, on one it's the balance control and on another it's the selector for the source. The former doesn't get touched much, the latter you turn it down before you switch sources. A little deoxidizing cleaner and they'll be good as new.

Anyway back to airplanes... a little C-150 tied down outside would be one heck of an economic little flyer. A friend has one for teaching students and keeps them away from his nice 182. Heh. He also lives much closer to sea level. Around here, the minimum to play that game in summer is a 172 or Warrior.

His kid also bought a C-150 for a song and built time in it, and when it came time to sell, the buyer wanted it brought to California so it could have the wings taken off and shipped to Australia. If you have a goal to buy, fly, and then sell, there's always a market for little Cessnas.
 
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Based on my experience, the $50/hour at 100 hours/year is reasonable.
 
injb said:
I understand about random stuff happening. I suppose that would be a gamble. Maybe you really have to estimate how many hours are left in the engine and divide the cost of a rebuild by that number, and add that to the hourly cost. So if you have 500 hours left before you can reasonably expect to have to rebuild, at 15K for the rebuild, you need to put aside $30 an hour, and it's really therefore $80 an hour. I wonder what kind of life is typically left in the engine of a $15K C150? Or is it completely random?
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At the lower end of the airplane spectrum, it often doesn't make financial sense to overhaul an engine. Realistically, you have to look at a 15k C150 as disposable. If you have to overhaul, the planes value drops to salvage. It is to some extent random. While there are recommended TBOs, they are not mandatory and as long as you can find an IA to sign your annual, you can keep flying. Those engines dont turn into a pumpkin just because they cross a particular hour threshold. So even if you buy a 'runout' with 2000hrs on it doesn't mean you can't get another 800 hrs out of it. Corrosion destroys more engines than flying.
 
You know with all of the guys these days trying to build time, there should be no reason why anyone's plane sits for more than a week. In turn, allowing the engine to last a long time.

I know if I had an airplane and I couldn't fly weekly, I'd find an aspiring ATP pilot to fly my plane for an hour or 2 as along as he pays his own fuel and has his own insurance.
 
I've always looked at it two ways: costs to own (even if you don't fly), and operating costs (what it costs every time you turn the key).

Owning costs: hangar / tie down, insurance, GPS data, annual, ELT batteries, etc.

Operating costs: fuel, oil, filters, tires, battery, transient ramp fees, etc.

The former can easily be more than the latter . . . I've seen free tiedowns, and $1000/month T-hangars . . . And somehow dividing hangar rent by hours flown just seems wrong, as your rent is the same every month whether your plane stays in the hangar the whole time or you're flying around the country and never make it home.
 
Hank S said:
I've always looked at it two ways: costs to own (even if you don't fly), and operating costs (what it costs every time you turn the key).

Owning costs: hangar / tie down, insurance, GPS data, annual, ELT batteries, etc.

Operating costs: fuel, oil, filters, tires, battery, transient ramp fees, etc.

The former can easily be more than the latter . . . I've seen free tiedowns, and $1000/month T-hangars . . . And somehow dividing hangar rent by hours flown just seems wrong, as your rent is the same every month whether your plane stays in the hangar the whole time or you're flying around the country and never make it home.
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Yeah I think that's pretty much how the guy in the video breaks it down - fixed + variable costs. The more you fly, less the total cost per hour gets.

I found a deal for a 1/4 share in a 172 for sale in my area. It's $15K and then it's $70/hour wet plus $75/month fixed. But that hourly/monthly rate would cover the running cost of 150 plus a decent contribution to an overhaul/emergency fund. Sure, it's not a 172, and it might cost a bit more than 15K, but balanced against having to share with 4 people vs having your own plane, it seems pretty cool.
 
FWIW, when I bought my Archer I had budgeted at $92/hr or so and could "afford" to fly 4.5 hours a month. I've averaged 9 hours a month over the 8 months I've owned and my hourly cost comes to $115/hr without maintenance reserve (excluding my elective upgrade). Sooo, there's that data point. Based on that, 8 months in I had budgeted $8k. I've spent $13,500, although $5,000 of that was elective. I've decided to forego the maintenance reserve and just fly more. Carpe diem.
 
My left magneto just died. Bye bye 1 AMU.
This is how flexible your operating costs can be...

(I'm also sending other one for IRAN just in case, so call it 1,5 AMUs).
 
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Looks like I'm at ~ $600/mo. ($142/hr.) to fly the Sierra 50 hours a year, but that's without any special maintenance considerations.

Enclosed hangar: $203/mo. = $2436/yr.
Insurance: $700/yr.
Fuel for 50 hours: $2000 yr.
Maintenance: $2000 yr. for annual and misc parts.

Looks like I can bring my hourly rate all the way down to $45, I just need to fly 1,000 hours a year.
 
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mtuomi said:
My left magneto just died. Bye bye 1 AMU.
This is how flexible your operating costs can be...

(I'm also sending other one for IRAN just in case, so call it 1,5 AMUs).
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According to the experts here, its your own damn fault that it costs you that much. Why send out a 'perfectly good' magneto just because you have the other one off. And a 50cent capacitor from radio-shack, a nail-file and some JB-weld would have fixed that other one right up. Wuss!
 
injb said:
Yeah I think that's pretty much how the guy in the video breaks it down - fixed + variable costs. The more you fly, less the total cost per hour gets.
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Counting your cost per hour in a privately owned aircraft is about as useful as counting your cost per nautical mile in the ownership of a sailboat.

There is a check you are going to write every year just for owning a plane. Insurance, capital, tiedown, basic annual inspection. Then there is what you spend to fly 'one more hour'. In addition, you have to have some cash lying around for the time your alternator doesn't charge, a cylinder goes cold, a magneto disassembles itself or all the other things that just randomly happen on a 40 year old piece of machinery. Tiedowns go from 'free' to $200/month, basic annual inspections go for anywhere from '1 case of beer' to maybe $1000 on a simple plane. Your fixed cost to hold a bundle of non-matching keys for the plane is going to be very variable.
 
weilke said:
Counting your cost per hour in a privately owned aircraft is about as useful as counting your cost per nautical mile in the ownership of a sailboat.

There is a check you are going to write every year just for owning a plane. Insurance, capital, tiedown, basic annual inspection. Then there is what you spend to fly 'one more hour'. In addition, you have to have some cash lying around for the time your alternator doesn't charge, a cylinder goes cold, a magneto disassembles itself or all the other things that just randomly happen on a 40 year old piece of machinery. Tiedowns go from 'free' to $200/month, basic annual inspections go for anywhere from '1 case of beer' to maybe $1000 on a simple plane. Your fixed cost to hold a bundle of non-matching keys for the plane is going to be very variable.
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Oh it does have *some* value. You can tell which rentals on the field are operating at a loss and probably aren't being maintained properly.

There's one 182 on the airport that doesn't fly as much as ours does and rents for less than we can operate ours for. Guess which 182 I wouldn't even think about climbing aboard.

When you see rental rates that are "too good to be true" they usually are. And once you've owned and written the checks, you have hard confirmation of it.
 
denverpilot said:
Oh it does have *some* value. You can tell which rentals on the field are operating at a loss and probably aren't being maintained properly.

There's one 182 on the airport that doesn't fly as much as ours does and rents for less than we can operate ours for. Guess which 182 I wouldn't even think about climbing aboard.

When you see rental rates that are "too good to be true" they usually are. And once you've owned and written the checks, you have hard confirmation of it.
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True True unrelated. While it may be the case for a particular plane, I wouldn't discount a plane just because the rate is low. It looks like most Cirrus you can find for rent are available below cost. They can be perfectly maintained but it makes sense for the owner to rent it out below cost so he can maintain his >50% business use on the plane. The same applies to bizjets on charter certificates. Many of those charter rates dont pencil out yet they make sense for the aircrafts owner.
 
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