Little background ( skip down if you dont care for backgrounds): I sell bolt together metal buildings out of Texas and one of the owners of the company has a Cirrus SR22. The other day we flew from Midland, TX airport to Carlsbad, NM, met a client at the airport, closed an approximate $320,000 deal and flew back all in about 3 hours. If I would have drove it would have taken me almost all day to do what I did in about 3 hours. Now the company I work for is growing rapidly and I'm being tasked with starting to broaden our sales footprint and start selling our buildings further out than just our immediate area so if/when the oilfield goes down again we wont be dependent on this area for sales.
I've always liked flying and have only ever been a passenger in small single engines but now with my job expanding I see a real upside in me getting my license and buying a plane to use for work and possibly being able to charge the airtime to the company. I must be able to justify it though and this purchase will be something that happens probably 3-6 months down the line at the soonest.
I estimate with my base salary without commission, my fuel, food, and a hotel to drive to a client that is 200-250 miles away would take 3-4hours one way if I drive and cost about $400-$500. If I fly we are looking at around 1-1.5hours one way so lets say 3 hours total air time at $150 operating cost per hour(based on the SR22) is $450, also add in my time and we are around $550-$575. Plus the obvious added benefit of being able to accomplish a lot more in my day, making a good impression on the client etc etc.
So.. I need something fast enough to greatly speed up traveling an average of 65mph on the road for a minimum of 200 miles and on up toward 500 miles. Then the big factor in being able to justify it is operating cost. I think being around or below $200 per hour is still reasonable for my purposes. I am married and we have 2 kids and plan to have more in the future so a 6 seater is also very tempting and further tempting yet is a twin engine, but I fear the operating costs would make the $200 per hour near impossible for a twin, correct me if I'm wrong please.
Now the big question, price range.. It would be financed, and I'm thinking around the $100,000 range or less, possibly more if that brings into the equation the obvious option for my criteria.
One more thing, in the next 1-3 years we plan to move back to NE TX and having a grass/dirt runway at the house would be awesome, if thats not compatible with the options available to me then thats ok but would be great if it the plane was friendly towards that as well. I have googled this a bunch and have found some options but I figured it would probably be best to ask on a forum.
I welcome any feedback/questions.
