Originally Posted by
Deanna41
Now as I have never bought an aircraft before, I do not know if these prices are realistic! Then another thing to consider is buying more economical over renting??
I would appreciate any ones thoughts on this!!!
I'd take the PA28 regardless of cost; it's a much nicer plane than the C150. I'd normally compare the PA28 to a C172.
With your prices:
- You're calculating the engine at $54/hour (replacement after 500 hours) which seems very excessive. Reasonable would be an overhaul at 2000 hours, which will (a) be cheaper than replacement, and (b) happens a quarter as often.
- Fuel is cheap now, but I expect that within a year we'll be back over $2/L.
- I'm not following your oil pricing. You've calculated 7 qts = $91, but 14 qts = $1400? As noted above, if you're putting in more than a quart every 20-ish hours of flying then something is wrong with your engine. I calculate that as 0.05 qts/hour = $0.65/hour, which is negligible.
For buying vs renting - at 100 hours per year, and if this is going to be just your plane (nobody else renting it from you), renting will almost certainly come out cheaper. Renting saves time too (no need to organize hangar space, insurance, maintenance, etc) and it's easy to change planes (eg. if you want to move to a nicer plane then you can rent a C182 or an Arrow). On the other hand, buying means that your plane is ready whenever you want to fly (barring maintenance), and you can do what you want with it (eg. sick of that noisy radio? Scrap it and install a new one). Your call on whether it makes sense.