PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Can I afford to buy an aircraft?
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Old 28th Apr 2011, 21:53
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Genghis the Engineer
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Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: UK
Posts: 14,234
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I've sole owned one, and to date part owned six aeroplanes, and done a fair bit of touring.

I don't, personally, think your profile makes sense for a sole-owned aeroplane. Also, I've learned the hard way that if you own all an aeroplane you get all the flying, but all the effort of looking after it. If, say, you own a quarter, you get as much flying in reality, but only a quarter of the effort of looking after it.

Plus, a large chunk of ownership costs are fixed - hangerage/tie-down, insurance, annual - and money saved sharing these, can be spent on flying (or just not spent!).

As several have said, your budget would buy a big share in a very capable aeroplane, and your budget would then cover a lot of flying. I honestly doubt that below 1/6th share, you'll often notice the other owners are flying it, and personally having owned from 1/2 to 1/20th, I've rarely noticed any other owner wanting use of the aeroplane. 100hrs x 6 pilots touring (and trust me, not everybody will fly it that much) is still only around 50% utilisation.

For example, there's 1/8th of a very nice looking C182 for sale on the web at the moment, £11k, then at your budget of £600/mth, 50ish hrs per year; another advert shows 1/5th of an Arrow IV for similar purchase price and will get you about 40hrs.pa for your budget, a TB9 share advertised in Exeter at the moment will get you about 70hrs per year on your budget (in reality of course, eat into your capital slowly, and fly much more).

Also, personally, I'd always rather do more flying in a cheaper aeroplane. I used to drink with a chap who flew about 20 hrs PA in his TB20 share, whilst I was flying 50 hrs PA in a PA28-161 share and spending about half what he was, and had about a quarter of the capital tied up. Why he put up with me pointing this out so often I have no idea.

G
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