How much should a friend charge to fly?

Long story but some financial doldrums I've experienced for the past year
look to be coming to an end. I sold my way-too-big house and am getting
into something less insane. Business is recovering and, I dare say,
rocking. My purdy wife still loves me. Life is good.

More importantly, soaring into the wild-ass yonder is again in my future.

I've got a buddy who has the same model Cherokee 180 I once owned. We've
been going up every now and then and sharing wet costs. He's offered to put
me on his insurance as long as I'll pay the difference between what he and
his brother are paying now and whatever it will be when I am named on the
policy.

So what is that cost difference likely to be?

Second question: He doesn't fly much at all. Perhaps one a month or so.
Taking into account that I will be selflessly devoting time to keeping his
bird well-oiled and used to flying, what's a fair price to pay him per Hobbs
hour?

--
Jim Fisher

Hi Jim,

Long story but some financial doldrums I've experienced for the past year
look to be coming to an end.

We're very pleased to hear it.

More importantly, soaring into the wild-ass yonder is again in my future.

I've got a buddy who has the same model Cherokee 180 I once owned. We've
been going up every now and then and sharing wet costs. He's offered to put
me on his insurance as long as I'll pay the difference between what he and
his brother are paying now and whatever it will be when I am named on the
policy.

So what is that cost difference likely to be?

We did this in Canada and they didn't charge any more - it depends upon
the experience of the person being added, relative to the ones already
holding insurance.

Taking into account that I will be selflessly devoting time to keeping his
bird well-oiled and used to flying,

Oh right - that's worth a lot

what's a fair price to pay him per Hobbs
hour?

Considering annual, maintenance, engine rebuild, airport costs etc. etc. I
think that if you get it for $30.00 dry you will be doing very well.

Glad to hear that you are back in the air again

--
Tony Roberts (tonyroberts@ remove shaw.ca)
PP-ASEL
VFR-OTT - Night
Cessna 172 C-GICE

In article , "Jim Fisher"
wrote:

I've got a buddy who has the same model Cherokee 180 I once owned. We've
been going up every now and then and sharing wet costs. He's offered to
put
me on his insurance as long as I'll pay the difference between what he
and
his brother are paying now and whatever it will be when I am named on the
policy.

So what is that cost difference likely to be?

if you both have similar experience, the difference should be zero.

I was once a named insured on a friend's 180, he had 3000+ hours
I only had ~500 hours. We were both IR. The cost difference was
less than $200.


Second question: He doesn't fly much at all. Perhaps one a month or so.
Taking into account that I will be selflessly devoting time to keeping
his
bird well-oiled and used to flying, what's a fair price to pay him per
Hobbs
hour?

Forget the hobbs, pay tach time, say $25/hr or $30/hr, plus fuel.
And help him wash and clean it.

--
Bob Noel

Bob Noel wrote:

if you both have similar experience, the difference should be zero.

I was once a named insured on a friend's 180, he had 3000+ hours
I only had ~500 hours. We were both IR. The cost difference was
less than $200.

When we added a third pilot to our policy, they charged us about
$100 more. The pilot in question had way more experience than
both of us added together, including several hundred hours in
make and model and an ATP. Go figgur.

I agree it shouldn't be much, but they may well charge more.

Second question: He doesn't fly much at all. Perhaps one a month or so.
Taking into account that I will be selflessly devoting time to keeping
his bird well-oiled and used to flying, what's a fair price to pay
him per Hobbs hour?

What we did when we had a flying partner, was take our last 2 yrs
maint. expenses and divide them by a reasonable number of hours
(I forget if I used 100, 150 or 200). Then I took the cost of an
oil change plus added oil and divided it by $25. He had a choice
of flying "dry" and buying his own fuel, or flying "wet" and adding
the fuel cost at our local airport in, too, using our account w/
our discount.

IIRC it came to $50 or $55/hr wet and $30 dry. Tach time, since
that's what the maintenance was based on and since I threw the
inop Hobbes in the trash just after buying the plane.

He also washed the plane for us and did small repairs. This was
counterbalanced by breaking small stuff on a regular basis, no
apology, always the stuff's fault and often didn't tell us I'd
just go out to find it missing and tossed in the back. Which
I got tired of, so we ended the arrangment when my daughter was
9 mos old and I was able to start flying again.

Cheers,
Sydney

Jim,

Operating costs for a Cherokee 180 based on about 100 hours flown per
year run $50 to $60 per hour before fuel. If it's flown less than
that the costs go up. Figure an absolute bare minimum of $35 per hour
for maintenance, more if you want to keep the airplane in nice
condition rather than just barely airworthy, $9 per hour as a set
aside for engine overhaul, $2 set aside for prop overhaul, $10-20 for
tiedown/hangar and another $10 for the incidentals that keep showing
up and you have a start at the calculation.

Sounds like an inexpensive way to get back into flying in a decent
airplane.

All the best,
Rick

"Jim Fisher" wrote in message ...
Long story but some financial doldrums I've experienced for the past year
look to be coming to an end. I sold my way-too-big house and am getting
into something less insane. Business is recovering and, I dare say,
rocking. My purdy wife still loves me. Life is good.

More importantly, soaring into the wild-ass yonder is again in my future.

I've got a buddy who has the same model Cherokee 180 I once owned. We've
been going up every now and then and sharing wet costs. He's offered to put
me on his insurance as long as I'll pay the difference between what he and
his brother are paying now and whatever it will be when I am named on the
policy.

So what is that cost difference likely to be?

Second question: He doesn't fly much at all. Perhaps one a month or so.
Taking into account that I will be selflessly devoting time to keeping his
bird well-oiled and used to flying, what's a fair price to pay him per Hobbs
hour?

Rick Durden wrote:

Operating costs for a Cherokee 180 based on about 100 hours flown per
year run $50 to $60 per hour before fuel. If it's flown less than
that the costs go up. Figure an absolute bare minimum of $35 per hour
for maintenance, more if you want to keep the airplane in nice
condition rather than just barely airworthy, $9 per hour as a set
aside for engine overhaul, $2 set aside for prop overhaul, $10-20 for
tiedown/hangar and another $10 for the incidentals that keep showing
up and you have a start at the calculation.

FWIW when we were letting someone else use our plane, we did not
charge him for a share of fixed costs such as hangar and insurance.

Our way of looking at it was we were going to keep paying these
costs whether the plane flew, or not.

If we wanted to share fixed costs we would have formed a partnership
and given the person a "say" about where we were based, who was doing
maintenance and etc.

Of course what's fair and reasonable depends upon the way the owner
looks at it.

Cheers,
Sydney

"Jim Fisher" wrote in message ...
Long story but some financial doldrums I've experienced for the past year
look to be coming to an end. I sold my way-too-big house and am getting
into something less insane. Business is recovering and, I dare say,
rocking. My purdy wife still loves me. Life is good.

More importantly, soaring into the wild-ass yonder is again in my future.


Good to hear. The economy has been tough.


I've got a buddy who has the same model Cherokee 180 I once owned. We've
been going up every now and then and sharing wet costs. He's offered to put
me on his insurance as long as I'll pay the difference between what he and
his brother are paying now and whatever it will be when I am named on the
policy.

So what is that cost difference likely to be?

As long as there are less than 4 named pilots the insurance co will
just charge the premium that the highest risk pilot would cost on
their own. You don't start paying more to add a pilot until you go
beyond 4 (at which point you are considered a "club"). So, if your
times are around the same as the lowest time pilot and your
accident/DUI/etc history is about the same you will likely find that
the insurance will not go up at all.


Second question: He doesn't fly much at all. Perhaps one a month or so.
Taking into account that I will be selflessly devoting time to keeping his
bird well-oiled and used to flying, what's a fair price to pay him per Hobbs
hour?

A check of the local FBO rental prices will help out here. Although
FBOs are trying to recover expensive commercial/training insurance and
trying to get some small profit, they also benefit by having a lot
more hours on the planes and can better spread fix costs. Rarely does
owning a plane cost less per hoursthan rental costs. If you are paying
fuel directly, just deduct that.

On Mon, 4 Aug 2003 22:01:26 -0500, "Jim Fisher"
wrote:

Long story but some financial doldrums I've experienced for the past year
look to be coming to an end. I sold my way-too-big house and am getting
into something less insane. Business is recovering and, I dare say,
rocking. My purdy wife still loves me. Life is good.

Glad to hear it.

More importantly, soaring into the wild-ass yonder is again in my future.

I've got a buddy who has the same model Cherokee 180 I once owned. We've
been going up every now and then and sharing wet costs. He's offered to put
me on his insurance as long as I'll pay the difference between what he and
his brother are paying now and whatever it will be when I am named on the
policy.

So what is that cost difference likely to be?

It depends on the company. Maybe a couple hundred, maybe nothing.
Part depends on how many hours and what ratings you have.

Second question: He doesn't fly much at all. Perhaps one a month or so.
Taking into account that I will be selflessly devoting time to keeping his
bird well-oiled and used to flying, what's a fair price to pay him per Hobbs
hour?

You said "fair price" so it gets down to how much it costs to operate
a Cherokee 180 per hour. Not the cost a lot of guys rationalize, but
"all costs", fixed and variable.

With 5 of us in a Cherokee 180 and all of us flying it worked out to
an average of just about a 100 hours per year each. Flying a lot
makes the per hour cost quite a bit cheaper and we came out at $37 per
hour. They still have five members, but aren't flying quite as much
so I believe they now figure around $42 per hour. Flying a plane 20
or 30 hours per year makes it *expensive* per hour. When I was flying
the Deb 130 hours per year it was costing me less than several of the
single owner 172s on the field.

Certainly there are those costs per hours such as engine overhaul
where you just divide the cost of a major by the hours to TBO and hope
the engine makes it all the way.

At any rate, there is no set figure, but for a plane that doesn't fly
much, the $42 figure would be ultra conservative. In reality it
probably costs 20 to 30% more to fly that plane than renting. So work
it out with your friend on a realistic basis and let your conscience
by your guide

Roger Halstead (K8RI EN73 & ARRL Life Member)
www.rogerhalstead.com
N833R World's oldest Debonair? (S# CD-2)

"Jim Fisher" wrote:
More importantly, soaring into the wild-ass yonder is again in my future.

You go boy!

Glad to hear it.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

"Jim Fisher" wrote in message
.. .
Long story but some financial doldrums I've experienced for the past year
look to be coming to an end. I sold my way-too-big house and am getting
into something less insane. Business is recovering and, I dare say,
rocking. My purdy wife still loves me. Life is good.

Good to hear!!! As I recall, you and I run similar businesses and it HAS
been unusually slow the past year or so. Can't say it's quite picking up,
out here in California but I'm holding on for the ride. Always good to hear
that their is a light at the end of the tunnel and it isn't necessarily a
train grin.

More importantly, soaring into the wild-ass yonder is again in my future.
I've got a buddy who has the same model Cherokee 180 I once owned. We've
been going up every now and then and sharing wet costs. He's offered to
put
me on his insurance as long as I'll pay the difference between what he and
his brother are paying now and whatever it will be when I am named on the
policy.

So what is that cost difference likely to be?

Second question: He doesn't fly much at all. Perhaps one a month or so.
Taking into account that I will be selflessly devoting time to keeping his
bird well-oiled and used to flying, what's a fair price to pay him per
Hobbs
hour?

The owner of a local FBO, whom I've done some PC/network support for, told
me that the actual cost of operation for his 172's was in the neighborhood
of $35/$40 Hobbs Hour and the C-152's (which are more like those low wings
that you fly GRIN/wink) about $25/hr. Now that is out here in the S.F.
Bay Area on the southernmost part of the peninsula, YMMV, but at least
there's a 'ball park' figure to begin with.

One of my customers who was a high-level V.P. in a computer software firm,
is now looking for work (granted he has the blessing of the 'golden
parachute') in the midst of our struggling California economy and recently
told me that he was having trouble making the time to fly his C-172 enough
and told me that I could fly it and just pay for gas and oil. He showed me
a copy of his insurance coverage (by the way, who writes those things
geez) and it covers whomever he designates to fly. May take him up on
it...

Anyway,,, great to hear that things are turning around,,, maybe it won't be
too long to wait here in good ole' California. I'll be looking forward to
those great Jim Fisher, flying stories,,, even if they will be about those
'woosy' low-wings.... ;-)


--
Good Flights!

Cecil E. Chapman, Jr.
PP-ASEL

"We who fly do so for the love of flying.
We are alive in the air with this miracle
that lies in our hands and beneath our feet"

- Cecil Day Lewis-

My personal adventures as a student pilot
and after my PPL: www.bayareapilot.com