Flying costs
Let me give you some advice.
If you own your own aircraft outright you do need a sense of humour when the invoices come in.
At least if you share the thing you can share the jokes.
Light aircraft are seriously under-utilised - probably a bit like a power boat.
They scream out to be syndicated.
In my experience, a syndicate of 4 is ideal.
Buy a nice aircraft. By doing that you will maximise on the share-sale potential.
Syndicate it 4 ways.
If you have bought it outright and then syndicate it yourself, it is only reasonable to assume that you end up with a cheaper share.
After all, you have funded it, insured it and taken the full financial hit initially.
Set up a rota that gives each member 1 full week in 4. In that way, you only need to call 1 person if you want the aircraft when it isn't your week.
I had a share in a beautiful Grob 109b for 8 years. Absolutely lovely aircraft. Expect to pay up to £45k for one.
However, the operating costs are very reasonable and, whilst they have a whopping 17 metre wingspan it takes 2 people 5 minutes to rig/ derig one so you can usually find a convenient odd-shaped spot in a hangar that doesn't cause you to have to shift lots of other planes to get it out.
From memory -
£60 pcm
£30 per hour wet (12 -15 litres of fuel per hour!)
That was it. I think I even sold my share at a profit too!
A great touring machine - a good turn of speed - huge range and, you can turn the engine off and soar.
In 8 years I cannot recall a single time when there was a conflict over access. I seemed to be able to fly it whenever I wanted to. Hardly surprising with an annual utilisation - by no means untypical - of less than 200 hours a year.
Now that was in my sensible days!
I own 3 aircraft outright now - a fairly new tourer and 2 vintage machines so it really is a case of 'take out your wallet and repeat after me - help yourself!'
If you want to know in detail what it costs to operate them, I will happily answer an EMail.
It is a bit scary! However, my 4 seat tourer, if syndicated 4 ways, would have people queuing up to buy shares. Something a lot nicer than your typical club machine.
HP