That is the old wisdom, which is particularly appropriate to aircraft ownership. If you own an airplane, you are the one who pays all of the fixed costs: Maintenance, insurance, and hangar/tiedown rent. Those costs have to factored in before you buy a single gallon of 100LL and go flying.
When you run the numbers for a lot of airplanes, you may find that ownership is a better deal if you can fly 100 to 150 hours a year or more. Below that, the fixed costs will drive the per-hour cost sky-high.
Let's assume that you buy a simple airplane, maybe a mid-1960s Cessna 172. You may find one with a mid-time engine for $35,000.
Insurance: If you have a fair amount of time in 172s, you will probably pay about 3% of hull value for insurance, which includes liability and in-motion/non-motion coverage. ("In-motion coverage" insures you for the loss if you crack it up. "Not-in-motion" coverage insures you if some nimrod smashed into your parked airplane.) So figure on $1,000 a year, minimum for insurance.
Tiedowns/hangar rent is very much dependent on three factors: Location, location, location. At some airports close to major cities, an open-air tiedown will cost more than a hangar at a distant airport. Hangar rent also depends on whether the hangar is a dedicated use one (your airplane alone) or a shared hangar or whether the hangar is enclosed or open-air. Tiedown cost depends on whether the airplane is sitting on grass or asphalt. Outside of rural areas, plan on between $50/month for a tiedown to $400 or more for a hangar. Cheaping out and you will pay $600 a year.
But wait: If you keep your airplane outdoors, you will need two things: An engine cover or plugs (to keep the birds out of the cowling) and a cabin cover, to keep UV from aging your interior and overheating your avionics. If you need both for your airplane, that will run $700 or so, and they need to be replaced every three years or so, as UV and weathering will slowly eat them up. So add $200/year to that $600.
Now the biggie: Maintenance. This is very much location-dependent; the higher cost of your area, the higher the cost of maintenance. First rule is this, and I cannot stress it enough: Never ever take your airplane for an annual inspection to an aircraft shop that works on turbine-powered airplanes. Jet shops have a far different view of what a "reasonable cost" is from the average owner of a piston-engined airplane.
Second rule: Ask around. Some shops are known to be "aggressive", some are not. Try to find a shop that will work with you and stay away from shops that have a reputation for charging off and doing work without authorization. If you are handy with tools, you may find a shop that lets you do the prep work, such as removing cowlings and fairings. If you have your own hangar, you may be able to do a lot of the work and hire a freelance mechanic to oversee you and do the heavier stuff.
Still, for a Cessna 172, $1,000 to $1,500 is a good rule of thumb for a "nothing unusual" annual. But if you have a cylinder on your engine with a bad valve seat or needs rework, that'll run $1,000 per cylinder or more. Older airplanes are capable of a few "zOMGs" at an annual that will shock you. Still, you are saving on not having retractable landing gear or a controllable-pitch prop.
Note that when you add the costs of insurance, tiedown/hangar and maintenance, you are at $3,000 a year or better and that is before you go flying. If you don't live close to your airport, an hour's worth of tooling around the countryside will take you three or four hours of time, which will work to limit the amount of flying that you do.
This is why people say that renting is cheaper.
But there are solid reasons to own an airplane, which I will get to in another post.
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