Cost of ownership question

On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 01:38:56 -0800, "Slip'er"
wrote:


This bird will be parked outside,
most likely.


I'm an aircraft owner so dont be offended when I say that that is a
truely dumb decision.
lets hope I can get you to reconsider before the dollars are spent.

a year is typically 24 hours times 365 days long which is 8.760 hours.
you fly, say, 100 hours a year.
so that is 8,660 hours per year your aircraft just sits outside.

4,380hours are nighttime so the aircraft sits there accumulating dew
for an astonishing time.
say 3 hours of a morning are spent in the sun evaporating that dew
which amounts to just over a thousand hours spent warm and wet.
is it any wonder then that corrosion is the main cause of maintenance
problems in aircraft sitting outside.

I live in a mediterranian climate so I'm not bothered by snow or
cyclones which must add considerably to deterioration rates.

my homebuilt sits in a hangar. it has areas of the tube fuselage
around the cockpit that are missing paint. it has no corrosion
problems.
my annual maintenance is typically a few hundred dollars a year. (not
quite as low as Wanttaja's experience with N500F but pretty close.)

no kidding, your first decision as an intending aircraft owner should
ALWAYS be "where am I going to hangar it?"

just close your eyes and consider the difference in airworthiness
between a hangared aircraft and one sitting in the open after 1 year,
5 years, ten years. after that time one aircraft will just about be in
pristine condition and the other close to needing extensive
restoration.

hangarage will save you thousands of dollars over the life of an
aircraft.
Stealth Pilot
Australia.