Anyone ever put the cart before the horse,

[Canuck223]

Just curious, but with the number of hours required to get your PPL, then other licences, did anyone ever just say screw it, and buy the training plane outright?

I can't be the only one who's looked over the ads on Controller, and thought it might be wiser to buy a decently maintained plane than rent one for 240+ hours.

I know. Dumb question.

[mdh]

Not a dumb question and there are some previous threads on the topic here somewhere.

While it's theoretically possible to buy your own aircraft to save money, in practise you're not likely to be ahead of the game. The cost in fuel, oil, maintenance and tie-down costs add up very quickly. And if there's some unexpected maintenance issue, then you're on the hook for it.

Also you have to find an affordable trainer to buy -- such as C150 -- that isn't a wreck. The one big advantage isn't so much cost saving as flexibility in using the plane whenever you want for as long as you want.

[lownslow]

A wise man once told me if it flies, floats or f*cks you're better off in the long run to just rent it.

LnS.

[Beefitarian]

Someone calculate the magic number of hours per year. More and you save money buying, less you save money renting.

[Go Juice]

I bought one.

Saved a LOT OF MONEY.

Put a shit load of hours on it. flew it to some great places on MY schedule and it was awesome.

The extra hours made me get my first break before the other guys i was going to GS with.


PRE BUY INSPECTION is of upmost importance here!

Have fun!

[buck82]

buy buy buy! the prices are dirt cheap now; or should be.

[Canuck223]

Not a dumb question and there are some previous threads on the topic here somewhere.

While it's theoretically possible to buy your own aircraft to save money, in practise you're not likely to be ahead of the game. The cost in fuel, oil, maintenance and tie-down costs add up very quickly. And if there's some unexpected maintenance issue, then you're on the hook for it.

Also you have to find an affordable trainer to buy -- such as C150 -- that isn't a wreck. The one big advantage isn't so much cost saving as flexibility in using the plane whenever you want for as long as you want.

I was thinking not so much on saving money, but spending wisely. I was thinking that for the mature guy who has the finances to fund the endeavor, or the younger guy who has the backing of his parents, it could be a positive step.

I know from my own past that I'm a multi-level learner. While there is no jumping the gun with the plane off the ground, I know if it was me, I'd probably be backing up ground school courses with poking around getting my hands dirty and getting my ass behind the controls while tied down safe and sound.

I can see a certain amount of frustration and wasted time when taking instruction in a rented plane. By that I mean time wasted learning the position and function of the controls, etc. When training is over, and you've got enough time under your belt to make an informed decision , you can always sell it to recover a portion of your costs.

[Canuck223]

I bought one.

Saved a LOT OF MONEY.

Put a shit load of hours on it. flew it to some great places on MY schedule and it was awesome.

The extra hours made me get my first break before the other guys i was going to GS with.


PRE BUY INSPECTION is of upmost importance here!

Have fun!

I sort of assumed that for a guy hoping to make inroads, it would pay dividends to actually have a plane and network with the guys at the airport rather than the guys in school.

[ahramin]

I bought a 150 for $12 000, put 400 hours on it in 4 years and sold it for $15 000.

[Canuck223]

I bought a 150 for $12 000, put 400 hours on it in 4 years and sold it for $15 000.

So I guess the obvious question is what was the other side of the balance sheet?

Aside from the $3K profit on the initial purchase, what did owning it cost you?

[KK7]

This is not an unusual endeavour... I used to teach several students on their private aircraft, anywhere from their very first lesson to their IFR and CPL. However the thing many people like to do nowadays is buy shares in an aircraft, however if you're doing your PPL I can guarantee it will be tough to find a group that will let you in to do ab initio training. They don't want someone banging their airplane around the circuit.

The only guys I know who had their own plane from the very start were people who were either in aviation via their parents since an early age, and thus knew this is what they wanted to do for sure (or often they started flying when they were 3 years old), or aircraft mechanics who look after their own maintenance.

I would suggest that if you're not in the above group of people, you rent until at least post solo for a couple of reasons. First of all learning to land an airplane is tough on the airplane, and the wear and tear on the airplane is much higher per hour than most other flying hours on the plane. The second is if you lose interest partway into your PPL, which I have seen many people do despite how certain they were that this is something they wanted to do at the beginning (for various reasons, money, family, work, interest, people don't realize what kind of a time and money investment it is fly no matter how much you try to explain it to them in the beginning), not much is lost except for the rental hours you paid for in the first 10-20 hours of your training.

[Grantmac]

I bought because I wanted to fly something different then I can rent. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered.

It costs me theoretically $2500 annually just to look at the plane, and its never been less than 1.5x that much yet.
That is without the cost of purchase factored in, if you finance.

Add in fuel and my flight hours run about $70-80/hr, which is the same as I could rent a Citabria locally.

With the current market aircraft are super cheap, just don't expect to make it back with the sale.

-Grant

[Shiny Side Up]

Add in fuel and my flight hours run about $70-80/hr, which is the same as I could rent a Citabria locally.

I would have to ask then, where do you rent this Citabria? Rental costs for most trainers these days are up around the $120 - $140/ hour range. I would also have to ask how many hours per year that's based upon. Generally I figure that if you're putting more than 30 hours a year on an airplane, it ends up being cheaper than renting. Few private pilots do this though. In respect to getting a license, if you were to complete a PPL within a year on your own airplane, assuming you purchaced something that guzzled fuel at the rate of most light trainers (in the 5-8 GPH range) sold the airplane at the end you'd end up ahead of where you'd be if you rented. Its really those annual costs which will kill you on your hourly rate if you don't have enough utilization. To really make it worth while you also have to be able to fork out for the purchase cost - financing will also kill you.

[Big Pistons Forever]

At the moment airplanes are very easy to buy but very hard to sell. I compared the COPA airplane for sale adverts from 6 months ago with the current one and most of the add were for the same airplanes. So if you plan to buy a plane do all your training in a year or so and then sell you may have a real problem getting out of the aircraft. Also most trainers for sale are at or over TBO and are probably for sale because expensive maintaince is coming due. You also need to be aware of the actual costs of parts. They are much more expensive than most people realize and an engine overhaul (typically in the $20 K to 25 K range including all the labour and ancillary costs) exceeds the selling price of most 2 seaters.

As was stated above a though prepurchase inspection is an absolute necessity and you should expect to pay $500 or more to get the aircraft really looked at.

I tell anyone who asks that it IMO buying an aircraft as a short term purchase for training and time building is too risky a proposition unless you are prepared to lose the entire purchase price.

[ahramin]

I bought a 150 for $12 000, put 400 hours on it in 4 years and sold it for $15 000.

So I guess the obvious question is what was the other side of the balance sheet?

Aside from the $3K profit on the initial purchase, what did owning it cost you?

Over the 4 years, as far as I can remember:

Fuel was 70 cents a litre. I think I was burning 3.5-4 gal / hr.
New radio 1000
New cylinder 800
New starter 1000
Aircraft cover 500
Insurance was 800 the first year but then Avemco jacked to rates so I didn't insure the hull the following 3 years. Nowadays liability insurance is less than 200 through COPA.
Annuals were about 300-400 each time, did a lot of the work myself.
I'm sure there were a few other costs here and there. Had the carb taken off and cleaned in Abbotsford when I got stuck there with problems once 80 bucks. Another time in zbb changed 4 plugs trying to troubleshoot a problem, 80 bucks each. Think I stupidly spent money trying to fix the Cessna radio before buying the King from a wreck.

This was all in the late 90s. A Cessna 150 was $80/hour to rent.

[Posthumane]

Add in fuel and my flight hours run about $70-80/hr, which is the same as I could rent a Citabria locally.

Generally I figure that if you're putting more than 30 hours a year on an airplane, it ends up being cheaper than renting.

I think that's being overly optimistic. I put only about 70 hours on my plane since the last annual, and my overall costs are comparable to if not higher than paying $150/hr for a rental 172 over the same time period. My cost breakdown was something like this:

Fuel: 28L/hr at $1/L average for MoGas = $28/hour
with Avgas it would be $40-$50/hour depending on where you are.
Oil: 0.2L/hr at $9/L Phillips 20w50 = $1.80/hour
Airport parking $400 / 70 = $5.71/hour
Insurance $1500 / 70 = $21.42/hour
Annual inspection + snags $2000 to $9000 = $28.57 to $128.57/hour
Misc maintenance $500 = $7.14/hour
Interest $700 = $10/hour

As you can see, the maintenance is the big variable. Theoretically if nothing is really wrong I can get an annual for about $2k or maybe a bit less, but I have had an annual go up to $9k when I had a number of snags and time-limited overhauls. I'm not sure what the average is yet, as I haven't had the plane long enough. This also doesn't include an engine reserve, avionics reserve, etc. As mentioned before, unless you can do your own maintenance you won't save much money owning the plane before. BUT you will have the opportunity to take many more interesting trips with it than you would with a rental, and you would probably end up flying more. Once the fixed costs are paid, the marginal cost of going for a flight is fuel+oil, so about $30/hour. This makes it much easier to justify taking the plane for a trip or just an evening flight than a $150/hour rental rate.

You will also find that you will learn a lot more through owning your own plane compared to renting. Renters are shielded from many of the things that go on behind the scenes; they just show up, plunk their money down, and have an airplane ready to go. That's a positive and a negative of owning, since you will find there is a lot more work involved in flying when you own.

[Grantmac]

Add in fuel and my flight hours run about $70-80/hr, which is the same as I could rent a Citabria locally.

I would have to ask then, where do you rent this Citabria? Rental costs for most trainers these days are up around the $120 - $140/ hour range. I would also have to ask how many hours per year that's based upon. Generally I figure that if you're putting more than 30 hours a year on an airplane, it ends up being cheaper than renting. Few private pilots do this though. In respect to getting a license, if you were to complete a PPL within a year on your own airplane, assuming you purchaced something that guzzled fuel at the rate of most light trainers (in the 5-8 GPH range) sold the airplane at the end you'd end up ahead of where you'd be if you rented. Its really those annual costs which will kill you on your hourly rate if you don't have enough utilization. To really make it worth while you also have to be able to fork out for the purchase cost - financing will also kill you.

I hate to say it but, its a military flying club in the US; you're not likely to find rates like that anywhere else. You can get an Arrow for $100/hr and they have a T-34B mentor for just $130. No taxes or surcharges and the instructors are mostly retired Naval Aviators. They are still having problems with not enough members flying, madness. They also sell 100LL for $3.90/gal, but thats going up soon.
If I didn't require an aircraft for weeks on end I'd probably just skip owning and fly the wheels off that Citabria, although its sort of a dog.

I finance, but at a rate that literally doesn't cost me anything. If I incorporate that into my flight hour cost its running me about $130/hr based-upon 100 hours a year. I'm flying about that much so far.

When I move back north in a few years I'm probably bringing the plane back with me and getting a few partner because I just won't fly enough to make it worth having. Its either that or get another plane with less seats and less costs to operate. I guess it really depends on whether I can sell it before I move or if there is any interest from partners.

-Grant

[fish4life]

Anyone know roughly what the insurance rate would be for a PPL holder on a 2 seat trainer?

One thing I will have to say about owning your own plane is flying in the winter is 5X more work and time than flying in the summer unless you live somewhere warm all year. It's a nice Saturday morning so you want to go flying, you leave your house at 9am then you have a 30 min drive to the airport (930am), the plane is cold so now you have to plug the plane in to warm up the engine and avionics roughly 2 hours of warming up do you stay and wait? do you go back into town and have a coffee? or do you spend the 2 hours shoveling snow out from around the airplane so you can taxi out, all up to you but now it's 11:30am, get out to the plane and take off your wing covers (lets hope you had them on or you might have spent the 2 hours getting ice off the wings) take off the engine tent and taxi it over to the fuel pumps and fill it up (45 minutes more). 12:15pm now back in the plane call up ground and your in the air by 12:30pm, having fun 2 hours later your done flying because you need to be back for a family dinner so 2:30pm you land and taxi up to the fuel pumps to fill it up because you don't want condensation in the tanks as your plane sits for a few days. 3:00pm and your plane is back in it's parking spot, 30 minutes of tying it down and putting engine tent and wing covers back on, 3:30pm and your on your way home from the airport 30min drive and you get home it's 4:00pm. So for 2 hours of flying it took you 7 hours of your day to do so as you can see it is quite the time investment and this doesn't count the days where you went to the airport and got the plane ready to fly only to have the weather crap out on you when you got there.

All that being said a heated hanger is a lot of money but if you are planning on flying consistently if you can get one it will save you hundreds of hours. Also even though it is a ton more work to fly your own plane it is way more rewarding and I wouldn't have done it any other way.

[Shiny Side Up]

So for 2 hours of flying it took you 7 hours of your day to do so as you can see it is quite the time investment

To me the little schedule you just posted seems like an excellent way to spend a free day. Roughly a 35% return on time expended verses straight time having fun is typical of most fun endeavors. As a fisherman one would think you'd appreciate that. Of course it also depends on your definition of "fun".

To help your matters I would suggest flying more often to get a better return on "fun" time verses effort - much like the cost per hour an airplane runs if you fly it more often. Too often I see some guys all lament that they have to do so much work to get their airplane ready when they want to go flying, ignoring the fact that the poor beast has languished without attention for weeks. If one flew more regularly one would find that the getting ready tasks wouldn' be as onerous - snow removal for instance is less work if one attends to it regularly. I would say you probably need to practice putting your covers on and off, half hour to accomplish seems a long time for a small plane.

Personally, cleaning snow off the plane I would gladly do if I knew it got me out of say going shoe shopping with the wife.

[fish4life]

Personally, cleaning snow off the plane I would gladly do if I knew it got me out of say going shoe shopping with the wife.

I will have to agree with you 100% there

I was just trying to give the guys an idea that owning your own plane is a lot more work than just showing up to go flying as you would renting. Now I have a lot more free time and I wouldn't mind taking a full day to go flying but at the time when I was doing my licenses I know my spare time was at premium as I was doing a degree and working at the same time so having more than 5 hours of free time was rare.

[Beefitarian]

I did the aproximate math sometime in the 1990s and it seemed you had to fly at least 100 hours in a year before you could spread out your fixed costs, "Hanger/tie down spot, insurance, annual inspection etc." enough that is was less expensive to own. If you flew less it was less expensive to rent. It would depend somewhat on region as a bigger airport is typically more expensive to park at than a small one.

[gaamin]

If you go for commercial, the end cost is skewed by the tax returns, which make it cheaper to rent at a flight school.

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tp/it516r2/it516r2-e.txt

29. Subject to the comments in 8 above, fees paid by or on behalf of students
enrolled at flying training schools or clubs certified by the Minister of
Human Resources Development (see 2 and 4 above) are eligible tuition fees
under paragraph 118.5(1)(a) only if the student is taking flying lessons in
order to become a commercial pilot or a professional instructor. Fees are
eligible only to the extent that they may be regarded as having been paid for
"tuition". Therefore, a student must be under instruction and direct
supervision before the cost of flying time is eligible for the tuition tax
credit. The Department accepts that a student is under instruction and direct
supervision while flying solo; consequently, the cost of dual and solo flying
hours required to obtain the following licences or ratings, to the minimum
flight training requirements of the Department of Transport, is considered to
be part of the student's tuition:
(a) Private Pilot Licence - aeroplane;
(b) Private Pilot Licence - helicopter;
(c) Commercial Pilot Licence - aeroplane;
(d) Commercial Pilot Licence - helicopter;
(e) Instrument Rating;
(f) Flight Instructor Rating;
(g) Night Rating; or
(h) Alternate Landplane or Seaplane Rating.
The minimum dual and solo flying time is currently 45 hours for a Private
Pilot's Licence and 65 additional hours for a Commercial Pilot's Licence.
Fees for ground school and flight simulators are eligible for the tuition tax
credit but costs incurred by a student in flying a personal aircraft while
taking a course at a flying training school or club are not eligible.

- to be eligible, fees must be at a flying training school or club
- cost on a personal aircraft while at a flying training school or club are not eligible

So if you get trained on your own aircraft, you can claim nothing.

I guess the idea behind that is to deter people from buying part ownership in an aircraft that would be very expensive to operate, then claim the operating costs as tuition fees.

[dcabrown]

Anyone know roughly what the insurance rate would be for a PPL holder on a 2 seat trainer?

Around $1000 on something with a hull value of around 30,000 would probably do it.

I've heard of rate around $750 on a C152 for a >250hr pilot. Less than 250hrs, probably $750-1000.

[1000 HP]

I finished my commercial licence in August of 1986 with 184.3 hours TT. Besides for the fact that nobody would hire me, I had a reasonably good paying job, a lazy wife , and could not afford to fly for a living. So I bought a 1957 90HP champ and flew it around for almost two years. I sold it August 15th of 1988 while based in Camp Borden. I had 365 hours by this time. So I did what many low time pilots did at the time, and got an instructor rating. I slapped on 700 hours in 6 months, and got a float rating. With a total of 1100 hours and 5 on floats, I was hired as Chief Pilot for a funky little air service operating a Beaver and a 180. I had a great time, and learned a lot, and did not kill anybody. My Champ time was valuable as it was tailwheel time and put me in good standing for the bush job. I never lost a dime on the Champ, it only burned 4 gallons per hour, and I sold it before anything big came up. WAAAAY cheaper than renting. GOOD IDEA! BUY A PLANE!

[fly228]

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