Owning one of these

You can certainly find a seventies vintage Citation I or II SP.in the low six figures, but the cost of maintenance and operation are proportional to what a new small Citation would go for.

@Tom-D , maybe you can get a group together and form a club to buy an L- 39. That looks like more fun anyway.
 
dell30rb said:
My take on airplane (and boat) ownership is you have to juggle shiny/new/fast with cringe factor on hourly cost or when or the loan/maintenance payment comes in. There is a balance that will suit your needs.
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That's what I'm trying to figure out. There has to be a sweet spot between paying cash for an AC (I'm talking single piston in this case) and using debt. If you can time it right, number of hours, versus depreciated value versus resale it seems you might be able to own an AC for much less than renting. I'm just not smart enough yet to figure out that sweet spot.
 
It has never been a BETTER time to buy an aircraft, and never a WORSE time to sell one. Complete buyers market and lots of bang for the buck out there.

A Beech and MU-2 broker posted on an another forum a month or so ago - out of his last 16 sales/buys, the average paid price was 30% lower than asking. 30%!! And that's for an aircraft type and maker that has excellent pedigree and a reputation for quality. Try to sell something that's not a Beech and you're probably looking at even more discount. He also said the average sales time was about 6 months, but many not priced right could be on the market for up to 3 years. I can vouch for this because that's exactly what happened when I sold my Aerostar with fresh engines - you get taken to the cleaners.

In any case, this transposes overt to jets and TP's, too. You can get into good jets/TP's for not very much money these days. Just because it's an old $200K C501SP from the 70's, doesn't mean it's a trash truck, just that that market has collapsed, too. It will never come back for these older aircraft. So if that's what you want, then it's gotten a lot easier to get.
 
The above would seem to indicate that if you can afford to maintain it at today’s prices, 30% off isn’t enough if it’s going to depreciate to zero, or to the cost or minor profits of parting it out. Depending on the airframe, of course. Sad state of affairs, but it is what it is.

Certain areas of the ramp at my home airport are turning into aircraft junkyards mostly by the charter operators. They’re buying old aircraft, parking them cheap, and slowly ripping parts off of them to keep the rest of their fleet flying.

I’ve noticed they’re parked away from the public view of the ramp, toward the runways and behind all the hangars. One wonders if the companies go under who’ll be paying to truck them to the crusher. Probably the taxpayer.

Let’s hope the airport authority has thought to make them post a big bond for trash removal and not just the piddly parking fees the FBO is collecting. Although the FBO would probably be on the hook for removal really. Don’t know. Messy though. Lot of junk parked out there.

This week’s addition is a Lear that’s already had both engines ripped off of it. There’s been a Mooney parked at one of the maintenance shops for a decade. Story there is the owner never came back and paid the bill. So they just move it around. I don’t think it flies.
 
"A Beech and MU-2 broker posted on an another forum a month or so ago - out of his last 16 sales/buys, the average paid price was 30% lower than asking. 30%!! And that's for an aircraft type and maker that has excellent pedigree and a reputation for quality. Try to sell something that's not a Beech and you're probably looking at even more discount."

When Dr. Karl figures out his Premier is going to eat his retirement quickly and decides to sell it, there will be one more painful reckoning.
 
Brad Smith said:
Follow the article written by Dr. Dick Karl in FLYING magazine. He bought a Beech Premier and keeps complaining about the cost of ownership. The latest in his tale of ownership is a spoiler actuator that keeps setting off warning lights in the cockpit. That little bugger is going to cost around $35,000 to replace. It sounds a lot like buyer's remorse and I'm surprised that a smart, successful cancer surgeon like Dr. Karl didn't realize the cost of owning such an aircraft. His prior airplane was a Piper Cheyenne so the step up to the Premier was a big one. Truly the saying " if you have to ask, you can't afford it" applies to jet ownership.
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Articles by Dick Karl are one of the many reasons why I no longer subscribe to Flying....
 
Fearless Tower said:
Articles by Dick Karl are one of the many reasons why I no longer subscribe to Flying....
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SkyDog58 said:
lol. The only reason I’d pick one up is to see what Martha had to say.
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Agree! Never have understood why he was given a column, and not that fond of Les Abend either. His stories appear to be written at the last minute. Martha is the best, and I'd put her up there with Baxter and Morgan from past issues of Flying. That other guy, from MN flys for Delta, I like his column.

Heck I get a year or 3 year subscription that comes out to a dollar an issue, so I still read it.
 
stratobee said:
It has never been a BETTER time to buy an aircraft, and never a WORSE time to sell one. Complete buyers market and lots of bang for the buck out there.

A Beech and MU-2 broker posted on an another forum a month or so ago - out of his last 16 sales/buys, the average paid price was 30% lower than asking. 30%!! And that's for an aircraft type and maker that has excellent pedigree and a reputation for quality. Try to sell something that's not a Beech and you're probably looking at even more discount. He also said the average sales time was about 6 months, but many not priced right could be on the market for up to 3 years. I can vouch for this because that's exactly what happened when I sold my Aerostar with fresh engines - you get taken to the cleaners.

In any case, this transposes overt to jets and TP's, too. You can get into good jets/TP's for not very much money these days. Just because it's an old $200K C501SP from the 70's, doesn't mean it's a trash truck, just that that market has collapsed, too. It will never come back for these older aircraft. So if that's what you want, then it's gotten a lot easier to get.
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I'll caveat that a bit. It depends on the market you're in, and it also depends on the pricing that you start with. A lot of people are pricing their planes high "Just to see if there's a buyer" or "I'm not in a rush to sell" etc. In other words, they're being unrealistic. When you start out with a ridiculously high price, then 30% or more price reduction sounds correct. I know plenty of people who are going into sales negotiations with unrealistic asking prices, or planes that are going to be undesirable for some reason or another without any positives to offset those. I've seen it happen in all markets.

As to whether it's the best time to buy a plane or not, it certainly is a buyer's market with some really good deals in a lot of sectors. But there is also a lot of junk out there that will require expensive work. If you buy the right plane and buy it right, you can get a great deal. If you buy the wrong plane, you'll be in for a world of financial hurt.
 
I actually like Dick Karl’s stuff. Super nice guy also. Outside of aircraft reviews, his column is the most interesting. His corporate flying articles were good and now his struggles with the Premier makes for entertaining material. All Martha talks about is flying J3 cubs and DC3s. Gets old. Reading Les Abend flying across the Atlantic every other month has gotten old too. Mac had some good stuff before he left.

The magazine has turned into more a small pamphlet though. Not much substance anymore. Like P&P, the same old stories recycled over and over. Not really one of my fav subscriptions but I hold on to it anyway.
 
If you have a really big hangar and like to have people over, the gulfstream would be a great hangar filler. “Want to go sit in my gulfstream?”
Would make a great place to put beers back. Nice day? Pull it out of the hangar, hook a gpu to it, and drink some beers. Forget actually flying it
 
TheGolfPilot said:
If you have a really big hangar and like to have people over, the gulfstream would be a great hangar filler. “Want to go sit in my gulfstream?”
Would make a great place to put beers back. Nice day? Pull it out of the hangar, hook a gpu to it, and drink some beers. Forget actually flying it
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That or making a house out of it like some people have done with a 727 would probably be the best options.
 
stratobee said:
It has never been a BETTER time to buy an aircraft, and never a WORSE time to sell one. Complete buyers market and lots of bang for the buck out there.
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Atleast with Cessna singles I couldn't disagree more. The passing of BasicMed saw an uptick of atleast 10% in all types of Cessna and a drastic decrease in the amount available. If you want to buy a 180/182 you need to be willing to jump on it that day. @ktup-flyer recently bought a 182 and I've just purchased a 180 and I can't believe how bad the market has become for buyers. I've even heard 172's have jumped up 10k in price recently.
 
stratobee said:
It has never been a BETTER time to buy an aircraft, and never a WORSE time to sell one. Complete buyers market and lots of bang for the buck out there.

A Beech and MU-2 broker posted on an another forum a month or so ago - out of his last 16 sales/buys, the average paid price was 30% lower than asking. 30%!! And that's for an aircraft type and maker that has excellent pedigree and a reputation for quality. Try to sell something that's not a Beech and you're probably looking at even more discount. He also said the average sales time was about 6 months, but many not priced right could be on the market for up to 3 years. I can vouch for this because that's exactly what happened when I sold my Aerostar with fresh engines - you get taken to the cleaners.

In any case, this transposes overt to jets and TP's, too. You can get into good jets/TP's for not very much money these days. Just because it's an old $200K C501SP from the 70's, doesn't mean it's a trash truck, just that that market has collapsed, too. It will never come back for these older aircraft. So if that's what you want, then it's gotten a lot easier to get.
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I engaged a broker to sell my 310, listened to his advice on what to price it at and essentially got my asking price in under 90 days. It was a nice example, but it did have some issues that would scare some off. Ymmv.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
Atleast with Cessna singles I couldn't disagree more. The passing of BasicMed saw an uptick of atleast 10% in all types of Cessna and a drastic decrease in the amount available. If you want to buy a 180/182 you need to be willing to jump on it that day. @ktup-flyer recently bought a 182 and I've just purchased a 180 and I can't believe how bad the market has become for buyers. I've even heard 172's have jumped up 10k in price recently.
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Recently, I've heard that too. But I keep hearing this about every year and it hasn't been true yet. But maybe this time around it's for real?

There seems to be a lot of guys who remember the days of pre-2006 (when airplanes actually appreciated for a few years) and somehow they think those days will come back - and that should be the norm. I very much doubt those days will ever be back, but what do I know. Certainly not seen any movement but down in the piston twin world. You can get Aerostar 700's for $100K. They used to be $500K in the good old pre-2006 days.
 
Brad Smith said:
Follow the article written by Dr. Dick Karl in FLYING magazine. He bought a Beech Premier and keeps complaining about the cost of ownership. The latest in his tale of ownership is a spoiler actuator that keeps setting off warning lights in the cockpit. That little bugger is going to cost around $35,000 to replace. It sounds a lot like buyer's remorse and I'm surprised that a smart, successful cancer surgeon like Dr. Karl didn't realize the cost of owning such an aircraft. His prior airplane was a Piper Cheyenne so the step up to the Premier was a big one. Truly the saying " if you have to ask, you can't afford it" applies to jet ownership.
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From the moment he changed from “it would be neat to own a jet someday” to “I’m going to get a jet” he sure seemed to be rolling the dice and hoping for boxcars at every juncture. Obviously he can spend his money however he wants, but to me, it was painfully obvious his venture was setting him up for failure. Kind of sounded like one of those situations where he got all amped up and no one was going to talk him out of it...
 
Velocity173 said:
Mac had some good stuff before he left.
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Good lord. If the current authors are making people pine for the old days of Mac, they’re in bad trouble.

I’ll keep missing Baxter as a non-subscriber I guess. I do get one of those cheap initial sign up things from time to time and think about doing it, but I already have a lot of magazines I never have time to read, piled on an end table until I flip quickly through them months later, see pretty photos, maybe one article, and throw them away.
 
Flying does have a short article every month explain a topic, like V speed, how magnetos work, etc. Those I find are interesting and useful to pass along to students. I mean for a buck a month I keep the subscription, and drop the copy off in the FBO office when I'm finished, usually in a day.
 
mscard88 said:
Flying does have a short article every month explain a topic, like V speed, how magnetos work, etc. Those I find are interesting and useful to pass along to students. I mean for a buck a month I keep the subscription, and drop the copy off in the FBO office when I'm finished, usually in a day.
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Yeah that’s worth it.
 
I still read FLYING but it sure has changed since I started my subscription in the late 1970's. I still enjoy reading articles by Peter Garrison, Martha Lunken and Dick Karl (though I sometimes have a hard time relating to Dick's lifestyle.) When the magazine was owned by Ziff-Davis it was a much classier publication and I looked forward to the day they dropped it in my mailbox. Bonnier has not done good things for the magazine.
 
denverpilot said:
Pilot was cold during walk around and liked it? LOL. Kidding of course.

Plus we all know that only TSA steals stuff. ;)
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It’s called “confiscate.” They don’t steal. That would be wrong. They legally confiscate innocuous items from the citizenry in the name of job justification. If they’re not around to confiscate your shampoo, then who will take it from you? The TSA exists to obfuscate. I mean confiscate.
 
Lachlan said:
It’s called “confiscate.” They don’t steal. That would be wrong. They legally confiscate innocuous items from the citizenry in the name of job justification. If they’re not around to confiscate your shampoo, then who will take it from you? The TSA exists to obfuscate. I mean confiscate.
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I was speaking of the outright thefts out of checked luggage.

The potentially dangerous shampoos are dumped into a trash can three feet from the most crowded place in the airport for a bomb to go off... right next to the TSA checkpoint. (Think about that for a minute. Hahahaha.)
 
Brad Smith said:
I still read FLYING but it sure has changed since I started my subscription in the late 1970's. I still enjoy reading articles by Peter Garrison, Martha Lunken and Dick Karl (though I sometimes have a hard time relating to Dick's lifestyle.) When the magazine was owned by Ziff-Davis it was a much classier publication and I looked forward to the day they dropped it in my mailbox. Bonnier has not done good things for the magazine.
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Bonnier has hugely mismanaged the staffing at Flying. I remember having discussions with some of the execs there when they first bought it, and my takeaway was that their goals were definitely NOT to produce a quality editorial product.

Nevertheless, the publishing business has changed tremendously since the advent of the internet. I started my career in publishing almost 40 years ago, the money was rolling in so fast we had trouble spending it all. Around 25 years ago the wheels began to fall off the bus. The internet made people expect to get content for free, and the bricks and mortar publishers exacerbated it by giving away the online content for free. We used to say that the first copy of a magazine each month costs $150,000, and every one after that is 20 cents. The magazine revenue model has undergone such a shift that the $150,000 is down to $50,000.

There's a reason so many publications have failed. It can't ALL be Bonnier's fault.
 
I thought as 2020 approaches used aircraft prices would decline. I know its pretty silly that some are saying 30% decline in prices when ADS-B itself (for small aircraft) isnt that crazy expensive. For some though, ADS-B costs was the last straw.

I kinda wondered if Basic Med might offset some of the pressures to sell.
 
bnt83 said:
I thought as 2020 approaches used aircraft prices would decline. I know its pretty silly that some are saying 30% decline in prices when ADS-B itself (for small aircraft) isnt that crazy expensive. For some though, ADS-B costs was the last straw.

I kinda wondered if Basic Med might offset some of the pressures to sell.
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"The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." :) :) :)

As the famous Wall Street saying goes... it works for aircraft prices, too. And a bunch of other things.
 
Big stock market bust coming soon. Hold onto your hats.
 
I've perused Mooneys for sale just for fun (I'm keeping mine) and seen an uptick in prices. Thought it was maybe my imagination, but now I'm not so certain. Prices for Skyhawks are utterly nuts. You can get Cherokees for way cheaper, and they might as well be the same airplane.
 
PaulS said:
Big stock market bust coming soon. Hold onto your hats.
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Pffft then I’ll be able to buy at a discount. Paying too much for stocks in dollar cost averaging for retirement right now anyway.

A crash and short term panic, would mean buy, buy, buy, here. :)
 
labbadabba said:
How do they lose a gate checked bag???
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Heck they've lost crew checked bags with a big red tag identifying as a crew bag on occasion. Big letters "CREW" on the tag. Not mine thankfully, but some of my fellow pilots have had it happen.
 
DaleB said:
Also: Big stock market boom coming soon. Hold onto your hats.

Both are true... pretty much always.
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denverpilot said:
Pffft then I’ll be able to buy at a discount. Paying too much for stocks in dollar cost averaging for retirement right now anyway.

A crash and short term panic, would mean buy, buy, buy, here. :)
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Yeah, we've hunkered down. We haven't had a big event since 2008 and Trump is in office so the MSM will be claiming Armageddon. Might get messy, looking forward to some great deals.
 
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