If my new career takes off like I expect it to, I'm considering getting a Cessna 421 in the future. Yes I know they're expensive, and that maintenance is very costly.
One thing in particular I've been curious about is what you do with your aircraft when you fly from your home city to another, and you're going to stay there overnight or even for a week or two? Do you pay for hangar space for the duration? Are there usually openings/do you call ahead? How much does it cost? Or what else should I know?
Thanks!
Every airport and FBO is different. Call ahead to ask as pricing and policies change. Generally the rule of thumb is if you buy or top off fuel, at their premium price, that you get one night of free parking on the ramp. Sometimes the FBO adds facility fees so load up on the free snacks and drinks
and there might be other fees. As a twin, the fees are higher just because you’re a twin and you may or may not have a landing fee.
On a trip from Boston to Detroit, in January with a recent snow storm, you can see the fuel prices in foreflight, and I was also doing my long commercial xc, so I needed the 3 stops, I lined up to land at a non-towered airport and when close enough the runway was white! Full of snow, immediately I full powered and was like see ya! From then I looked for class Delta airports to land at, I didn’t want to play around and land at an airport without snow removal services or assistance should I need it. The extra $12 or whatever that I paid in my opinion was worth it and I think the fuel price was reasonable but even if it’s $1 more, you probably only use a portion of your fuel, let’s say I needed 25 gal, it may have been a mark up of a total of $37 or so but then you have a snow cleared airport, a nice toilet, can sit down and charge your iPad and grab some snacks and drinks. It was worth it to me.
Now for a hangar those I think for a single are $75-100/night, so how much do you love your bird? If a storm is coming in then you kind of need to hangar it, if not you also have insurance (or should). Sometimes they get full. For me in the Detroit area they said they were full, expected a storm (I checked and seemed ok to me), and would require me to taxi to the other end of the airport, after the long trip I was done and decided to leave the bird out on the ramp, it was fine. I think it depends on a combination of how much your plane is worth, the weather, personal feelings etc. A 421 is much more expensive than my bird and I don’t think the hangar costs are that much more as a % so it is better value for more expensive and newer aircraft to keep them that way.