blahhhh
if you need to lease the aircraft in order to be able to buy it....then my advice is forget it...you need to be able to support all payment incase there is NO ONE who wants to use the aircraft.
as to the hourly rate,
fixed costs - insurance, maintanence, hangerage, CAA fee(god bless them)
variable costs - fuel and oil (bugger all)
at the end of the day the more you fly the aircraft the less the flying costs per hour and vikey verka (I know, I can't spell for !!!!), if you want to work it out this way. ie. if you took all the costs for say 10 hours flying then you need to divide all the costs in one year by 10 and that's your hourly rate. The more hours you do the less the hourly rate. Because most private owners do bugger all hours, your best to save your fixed costs per month rather than by the hour ie
insurance say 1800
hangar say 2500
maint say 1500 (based on 100 and ara..cheeeeeeeeep)
caa (god bless them) 130
TOTAL $5930
This means that before you even go flying you have to put away about $500 a month.
Cub costs fuel at around (depending on the motor)...lets say we average it out at 20 lts per hour.... about 45 bucks an hour including a bit of oil.
So on this calculation...if you did 50 hours per year (almost an hour per week) then
fuel (oil)........................1500 (50 x 20 x $1.50average)
maint............................2000
insurance.......................1800
hangar...........................2500
CAA (god bless them).........130
hourly rate........$158
at 100 hours..............................hourly rate.........$79
This doesn't include people (who you have leased the aircraft too) trashing the aircraft because they don't own it and couldn't give a !!!! on engine handling or punching their great big hooves thru the fabric, therefore incurring you huge maint.. costs outside of those normal costs.
Of course there is the syndicate....never had one so can't comment on that side of it but at least all would have a financial interest to keep the aircraft in good nick and look after it. The down side is still the 'who gets it at holidays and flyin'zzz.
Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, the best value is
1. if you can afford an aircraft and bear all the costs...best thing in the world.
2. if you can't...just hire one, nothing else works.