Originally Posted by
Catorce14
Thanks for the feedback. Truthfully, and I may be dreaming here, I want to buy the plane and spend ~500K per year on keeping and maintaining it. For me, it will be a tax benefit.
Probably chartering or fractional makes more sense, but I can't stomach renting something. I also want to go when I want to go, and to wherever. I will admit it is a bit of a fantasy but that is the mandate of this mission.
As to resale, isn't a 1.x million GIII or 2.x million GIV almost fully depreciated at this point?
Also, I know exactly the square root of jack shyte when it comes to plane maintenance, so my sales / management guy will steer the inspection to make sure I am getting something good.
Originally Posted by
Old Boeing Driver [img]images/buttons/viewpost.gif[/img]
Having operated a GIII and a G-450, I can tell you that $500K per year will not come close to covering your annual expenses, even at only 100 hours per year. Especially in Europe.
Good to know, I am thankful for the response. The reason I picked 500K is that is where the expense ceases to be worth it to me. I figured I'd do it if I could buy the plane for less than 3M and then pay 500K per year for 100-150 hours.
If in fact I can't do that, then it's not worth it to me.
Short answer: You can't. Flying 150 hrs per year, you'll spend $400K of your $500K budget just putting fuel in the tanks at current prices, more if you operate between the coastal big cities. Including salaries for minimal (2) crew, owning/operating your own G-III or G-IV 100-150 hrs will run you between $1 to $1.5 million per year. At least $250K per year will be for maintenance, even if your guy finds you one that never gives you any heart-stopping surprises during subsequent inspections.
The "mandate of your mission" as you've laid out (max 500K, 100-150 hours, 1 int'l trip per year, go whenever you want to wherever) is exactly the niche the fractional scheme is aimed-at and has been successful catering to. Same for charter. People have long-tried to operate their own private jets on a shoestring budget tempted by low acquisition cost and it doesn't work for long. In the end, these attempts produce shell-shocked owners (when ALL the operating costs/bills roll in) and the old, barely-serviceable aircraft becomes "always for sale", flown only occasionally by the cheapest, least-qualified and least-current crew one can find until the day they're put on the street. If someone else harboring the same "low-acquisition cost buys a lot of fuel" notion it can potentially be unloaded on, the pre-buy inspection inevitably turns up more issues on the cheaply-maintained aircraft. It's been tried, tried, and tried before in the name of someone wanting to refer to an aircraft as "My Gulfstream" (or whatever other type they over-extended for). Eventually, they give one of the fractional or charter outfits a call, suddenly able to "stomach renting" when it comes to riding in an aircraft one can't actually afford to own, operate, and keep maintained and operational/upgraded by themselves.
Fractional offers 4-10 hour advance time scheduling, but apparently not good enough for you because, as you say, the mandate of your mission is "to go when you want to go, and to wherever", which brings up truckload of crew-related questions you haven't addressed aside from the inferred requirement that the pilots live and hang around the airport on perpetual 24-hour standby, ready to launch at any given moment depending on your whims.
So apart from your max $500K for the aircraft, what's your annual budget for crew salaries, benefits, and training? Will you try and lowball the salaries under the strain of higher-than-expected maintenance/operating costs and join the "pay peanuts/hire monkeys" crowd?
*** If your limit of $500K per year to own/operate/manage the aircraft outright and assumes pilot salaries are included, don't waste any more time on this, you're nowhere even close to being in the ballpark even for a much smaller, newer, and more efficient aircraft let alone an old, fuel-guzzling/maintenance-hungry Gulfstream III or IV ****
Salaries: Right now and for the foreseeable future it's a pilot's market, especially for what's considered a larger-cabin aircraft in the Private/Corporate/VIP aviation world that you'll take internationally, and you'll have to budget accordingly, especially for a not-desirable, on-perpetual-call type job. With the G-500 coming this year, G-IIIs are now 4 Gulfstream generations old and type-rated (let alone current) G-III pilots aren't exactly growing on trees ripe for picking anymore. Most have fallen off the tree and retired. You'd have better luck finding rated G-IV pilots, which nowadays are entering the Jurassic Jet category with their own diminishing pool. Most experienced pilots that are rated in this old stuff have moved on to more modern aircraft, and for anyone you would want flying your family and to keep them around it would take a big carrot in terms $$$ and/or lifestyle to move backwards through time as far as equipment. At minimum, the combined salaries for an experienced Captain/FO crew combo in an average cost of living location will run $300k+. For 2 experienced Gulfstream Captains, obviously more. In a high cost of living area for either combo, more still.
"Go whenever you want, wherever you want": For your international or extended out-and-back domestic trips, even though you're operating a private aircraft and not strictly bound by the regulations designed to limit the length of time a pilot spends in the cockpit or on duty doing the work required before and after the actual flying in order to combat fatigue/tiredness, if your pilots advises you in order to follow best practices in terms of duty time/flight time limit recommendations by the NBAA that mirror those regs, will you accept paying for a 3rd pilot to augment the regular crew to make the flight?
"Go whenever you want, wherever you want cont'd": If you only hire 2, will you accept when your pilots can't sustain your sudden, no-lead time schedule you desire as a way of life due to the fact you're asking them to somehow be always be rested and ready condition for any and all pop-up trips you decide must go ASAP no matter the duration? To cover a rolling 24-hour schedule legally crewed by pilots adhering to duty limits & rest requirements air carriers and frac operators need to hire appx. 5 crew per aircraft whether they fly or sit reserve, yet it seems like your fantasy is to operate as cheaply as possible with only 2 crew who are supposed to fly and sit reserve 24 hours a day, going whenever you want like one might see in a movie. After they put the airplane to bed on domestic flights, are you willing to accept a minimum rest requirements of at least 10-12 hours as policy? 24 hours rest minimum after crossing a bagful of time zones on international trips?
"Go whenever you want, whenever you want to" cont'd etc: These sorts of crew work limits and rest requirements designed to operate safely throw a wrench into what you imagine is the "mission mandate" because 1) none of your flights are engaged in warfare where the fate of a nation hangs in the balance, so therefore 2) any pilot worth hiring has and adheres to a primary, regulatory mission mandate to first and foremost operate safely regardless of other wants, needs, desires, comfort, or efficiency concerns including yours even though you pay the bills. The regulations related to this primary mandate for all pilots are written in blood, and the few regs that weren't written specifically to cover private operations are nevertheless adhered to in the form of best practices by any professionally-run outfit's crew, and accident rates for those that do vs. those that don't bear out the wisdom of doing so. Among the many things that go into operating safely, having a rested crew (which means they can operate your entire plan from A to B, then C etc) in the awake condition trumps any of your own whimsical notions or trip-planning that doesn't coincide with the same.
"Go whenever I want, whenever I want to", verdict": <---- With this stated, so-called "mission mandate" (that apparently even the short-ish advance time that a fractional requires doesn't meet), unless you're willing to hire minimum 3 and optimally 4 pilots it will indeed remain a mere fantasy.
Training: If these are your indeed pilots, are you willing to bear the cost for Initial Training if you can't find 2 rated G-III/IV pilots willing to come work for you? Assuming you do find them, will you opt for the minimal, piecemeal expenditure of sending them to recurrent training only once per year instead of twice even though flying 100-150 hrs per year twice should automatically be part of your mandate as well, budgeting for the more expensive, full-service training contracts?
Time off: Will you allow the crew to plan for vacations, days off, etc, and factor-in the cost of hiring a contract pilot to cover any trips while they're gone if it conflicts with you deciding to "go when you want wherever you want"?...or will this be one of those "take-vacations-during-maintenance events/you don't fly much all year so I want you ready and wedded to my airplane at all times" kind of deals? Frankly, the latter is a bottom-feeder, crap job even flying modern equipment let alone long-in-tooth stuff, and in today's market unless you're paying top dollar any pilot you hire will be continually looking for greener pastures that allow some semblance of a life that involves family, friends, and non work-related responsibilities/activities.
Maintenance staffing: An old G-III/G-IV isn't an old Cessna 172/Piper Tri-Pacer. They're complicated, maintenance-hungry aircraft with pricey parts and expensive fixes that require a high level of managing to efficiently control costs while keeping the aircraft as available as possible. Are you going to expect one of the pilots to manage this aspect as a de facto Dir. of Maintenance trying to shepherd it himself through as-needed fixes and maintenance events while remaining on your "mission mandated" schedule, or are you going to hire an actual Maintenance professional with Gulfstream experience who can devote all his time and attention to taking care of your asset the way it should be through the manufacturer, service providers, and his own ability to wrench on the aircraft? If you don't hire a dedicated maintenance professional to fill that role are you going to compensate the pilot(s) above and beyond their pilot salary because it requires a substantial amount of time and effort, and will you be willing to eat with a smile any increased mx costs due to less than optimal decision-making by a pilot attempting to do a Maintenance pros job that could have been avoided by hiring a maintenance pro in the first place?
If an outside entity manages all your aircraft maintenance for you you'll just have to trust them when they present the bills, grin and bear it while writing the checks because, after all, you didn't want to wait around 4 hours for a fractional to show up and couldn't stomach renting. When stuff breaks, when inspections turn up unfortunate surprises, or mandated upgrades on equipment happen on frac or charter aircraft, you're robbed of that check-writing pleasure that comes with keeping it airworthy and serviceable. Also, unlike fractional or charter, if your airplane breaks while on a trip nobody will send you a replacement aircraft for nothing so you'll get to not only pay the bills to fix your own but write another check to whichever charter outfit or airline gets you home while your airplane sits broken at some outstation and crew settles into a local hotel.
Crew duties: Since you won't be doing a lot of flying per year, are you going to create one of those jobs where you expect your pilots to assume other, non-aviation related roles because you believe they're just sitting around? You mentioned a dog. Will walking during tech stops and cleaning-up after it when it has accidents on the airplane itself become part of pilot duties? Are you going to hire a full-time or arrange for a contract Flight Attendant as needed for long trips and/or with family and friends, or will you go cheap and expect one of the pilots to not only arrange meals/catering but also be tasked with sort of service inflight, cook things that need cooking and serve them when you or your wife or family or friends want things served? Just so you know, that's bottom-feeder territory as well.
On the Road: While the flight hours may only be 100-150 hrs per year, that doesn't indicate how many days the crew will be on the road where you'll be expected to pay for their hotels, meals, rental cars, etc. Will it be 30 or 40 days during a year or will your mission mandate 200+? Owning an aircraft at or exceeding the limit of one's ability/desire to fund it usually means pressure on the crew to cut costs on things like hotel expenses, and the more days in hotels the more pressure is applied to live more cheaply and uncomfortably. This is exactly the opposite of what should be happening the more one lives out a suitcase during a year.
No offense, but it sounds to me your idea for owning and operating your own stand-up cabin, Europe-range Gulfstream based on acquiring one for Citation Mustang/Embraer Phenom/Eclipse 500 money adds up to being a purely short-term experiment that's doomed to fail as many have before. There's a reason old G-IIIs and G-IVs have low acquisition costs and why charter and fractional companies successfully exist. If it were that easy to cheaply own and operate old G-IIIs and IVs everybody would be doing it, and that's not even factoring-in the requirement to invest $$$ into any crew you hire in an inversely proportional way to what you've outlined shoe-stringing the actual aircraft along with yet having pilots ready to go at all times. Unless you do, they will be short-term as well.
As someone else mentioned, your actual mission profile (if you still wanted to pursue direct ownership)...domestic flying with 1 trip a year to Europe where you don't mind a tech stop to let the dog out... is matched by equipment like a Falcon 2000, which also meets your desire for a larger cabin. That's actually what that particular aircraft, (and others) was was designed for since the U.S. is by far most bizjet manufacturer's largest market; nonstop, coast-to-coast range with reserves combined with good operating efficiencies at decent speeds in a comfortable cabin. Classic versions of the 2000 can be had in the neighborhood of $4 million and with 1/2 the fuel cost and 1/3 the maintenance costs compared to the G-III or IV, flying 150 hours the yearly savings on those 2 items alone will pay for both pilots' combined annual salary of $300K.