Aircraft Ownership Spreadsheet

I found Geza Szuurovy's book "Aircraft Partnerships" to have some great
info. on the cost breakdown for ownership as well as ideas for
partnerships. There is also a spreadsheet in the book...would require
manual entry but it's not all that difficult to do

Good luck in the search Kevin. There's nothing like having your own
(share of a co-owned) plane.


--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane

"To become a Jedi knight, you must master a single force. To become
a private pilot you must strive to master four of them"
- Rod Machado

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

Jack Allison wrote in
:

Good luck in the search Kevin. There's nothing like having your own
(share of a co-owned) plane.

I will second Jack's opinion above. There is no price on the pride of
owning your own airplane.

As far as cost, I *think* the first evaluation would be your flying
habits.

If you fly 100 hours a year, that's a cost of 10K in rental. Just like a
house, would you rather put that money into somebody elses pocket or
would you rather have the 10K shows something tangible?

If you only fly 50 hours a year, then it may not pay to own your own bird
since it would be a diservice to the airplane as it needs to be airborn
to keep parts lubricated and running up to speed (literally and
figuratively).

Your maintenance cost would POTENTIALLY increase due to parts failing
faster from lack of lubrication / usage. (don't ask, been there and done
it on buying an underused plane).

You would probably be spending the 10K a year on something anyway, so why
not on an airplane? And you have something to show for it.

For what it's worth, my CFI says based on his experience (20K hours of
flying) that 125 hours a year is where the break even point is from
owning vs renting a C172.

That figure does vary by type and make of airplane, so a C152, he said
100 hours would be more appropriate depending on the quality of plane you
get.

I fly no less then once a week, unless the plane is down for some major
part repair (engine overhaul) or upgrade (avionic upgrade).

Allen

Here are the ownership items.

FIXED COSTS
Hangar or tiedown
Insurance
Annual

HOURLY COSTS
Fuel
Oil
Maintenance (the big questionmark)
Engine and airframe and other reserves

If you look at what planes rent for, you will find a ballpark figure.
It's actually hard to beat rental costs unless you fly quite a few
hours per year. What you end up with are the fixed costs plus an hourly
cost, so you see, the more hours you put on it, the less it costs, per
hour. I have left out aquisition costs, depreciation, taxes and
interest rates. And those are signifigant also.