What is the true cost of GA?

[rywing]

Hello.

I started my PPL about 7 years ago and due to financial restraints I had to stop and never had the chance to complete it.

The pleasure of flying is something that I often think about and how good it would be to get back in the left hand seat of the Cessna 150/152 or the PA28. However, before I go down the road of starting the PPL training again, I just have a few questions niggling away.

What is the average cost of owning a share/ renting an aircraft? What advantages does joining a club have? As a Private Pilot what kind of flying do you do? e.g. XC, Aerobatics, pleasure flights sight seeing?

I'm wanting to know from the pilots who fly privately and how they manage to keep the cost low.

Thanks.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

£2,700 on hiring over the last year. Less than it might normally have been as I was without an income for most of that time, and on occasion just did the odd circuit or two for currency rather than a longer flight.

[Crash one]

LAA (Permit a/c) Sole owner £16k 5 yrs ago, Insurance £600 yr, hangar £100 per month, mogas fuel 18litres per hr. Permit renewal anually £190. approx maintenance/spares £100 annual. Fly when I like. About as cheap as you will get.
CAA/CofA/Club rental, impossible.

[abgd]

£50 a month and £80 per flying hour, non-equity.

[The Fenland Flyer]

£40 a month, £28 an hour, Ikarus C-42.

[Sensible Flyer]

£55 per month and £82.50 per tacho hour (so about £70-£75 an hour in real life). C172 no equity group.

Cheapest flying would be with a permit aircraft, if you have the capital for the initial purchase.

[Flyingmac]

Factoring in hangarage, maintenance, permit renewal, fuel etc. 50hrs a year works out around £58 per hour for me.

Selling a share wouldn't bring it down by much and would eat into the 100% availability.

[dubbleyew eight]

365 days times 24 = 8760 hours per year.
100 hours a year is average to good going privately.
so unused time is about 8660 hours per year.

putting your aeroplane away in a dry hangar for the unused time will more than pay for itself in the reduction in deterioration and corrosion related maintenance issues. :ok:

O-200 engine about 23 litres per hour.
O-320 engine about 35 litres per hour.
litres per hour times number of hours times price per litre of fuel = basic flight cost.
add to this the cost of annual maintenance and paperwork.
add to this the air navigation and airfield costs.

add up all these and you have your costs.

[trident3A]

£50 a month plus £55 per tacho hour for my Cessna 150 non-equity group

[Flyinganaes]

15 years flying, about 440 hours fixed wing, IMC and Night.
Everything included (training, accessories, maps, membership fees, fuel.....etc) has cost £70K.
Works out at ~ £160/hr.
At present fly a C172 with £120/month fixed and £101/hr.
Possibly soon to change for a cheaper model.
Good luck with your figures.

[ChrisA87]

£30 per month, £80 per tacho hour, C152 non-equity.

Only downside is the landing fees!

[Rod1]

Just got back from touring France in my Permit aircraft. Total cost for 100h a year is £4200 all in – sole owner. Cheapest option for touring etc 2 up would probably be a Jodel share at around £3k plus £40 an hour and £40 per month.

Rod1

[rywing]

Thank you for your replies.

Theres a few different quantities of costings. I thought that would be the case depending on the type of aircraft you fly and how you fly it etc.

What is a permit aircraft?

As pointed out that a dry, clean hanger would reduce any depreciation of the aircraft, and therefore would help maintain some form of value. If I was to buy a share in a fixed wing, obviously depending on the hours flown, would it lose value fairly quickly? I'm just thinking in terms of a car, all you need to do is sign your name on the dotted line and you've lost a few hundred perhaps thousands.

Am I right in thinking that once you buy the aircraft/ share the running costs can be relatively reasonable?

[Rod1]

The aircraft I recommended – the Jodel – is a permit aircraft looked after by the LAA;

Welcome to the Light Aircraft Association (http://www.lightaircraftassociation.co.uk/Beginners%20Guide/per_air.html)

Welcome to the Light Aircraft Association (http://www.lightaircraftassociation.co.uk/)

A permit aircraft is restricted to Day VFR, but the running costs are much less than a C of A aircraft. My MCR costs me approximately £10,000 less a year to run than my old C of A machines and it is a much more capable bit of kit.

Rod1

[riverrock83]

£45 per month then £102 per hour - Permit to Fly SA Bulldog in a group (with equity so initial share buy in too).

In comparison, Prices - Bulldog Aircraft | Ultimate High (http://www.ultimatehigh.co.uk/producthome/Flight_Training/Prices_Bulldog) charge £255 per hour.

A Permit to Fly aircraft is one which is not suitable for a Certificate of Airworthiness.
Generally they are home builds or older types with no type holder.

As said above, they are pretty much always restricted to Day VFR only and they can't be used for "work" (so you can't hire them from a club).

Most are managed through the LAA.

They are cheaper as they are often much lighter and so use less fuel; the design rules are less strict (which means they are often more modern); most (if not all) maintenance can be done by pilots; they don't have to use certified parts.

[Keef]

I've been in two groups recently. The cost depends very much on the aircraft type and what you do.

Now: a Jodel D119, LAA Permit, two seat taildragger, cruises around 80 knots. £50 a month, £50 an hour (including fuel). Hangared in a barn on a farm strip. No baggage space to speak of, so wouldn't go touring in it.
One sixth share cost me £2,000.

Previously: a Piper Arrow (PA28R201), full C of A, cruises around 130 knots. I took it all over Europe. £100 a month, £100 an hour (incl fuel). Parked on the apron at Southend. Now sold. One sixth share cost around £9,000 - and some cash calls for Mode S, 8.33kHz radio, new engine and prop, etc.

You can fly cheaper than that Jodel, and there are some fascinating LAA types around. The decision is whether to own outright or join a group - if there's one locally.

[gpn01]

Until recently it worked out as -
Fixed annual costs: £1,600 (Club membership, trailer parking, glider insurance)
Variable costs: £35 per launch, approx 30 launchs p.a.

Comprised mix of cross-country soaring (flights lasting up to five hours), racing and aerobatics.

Approx 100 hours p.a., so around £27 p/hr. Which shows that gliding can be a less expensive option!

[thing]

Jumping off high wall, nil outlay, half second free fall, 120 times day, 2 minutes a day, 12hrs a year giving two days off at Xmas. Cheapest flying there is.

[Maoraigh1]

In 2012, 64.5 tach hours in a Group owned Jodel 1050, hangared at Inverness, cost a total of £4695, including landing charges at Inverness, but not land away charges. Run on mogas, and Group made a good profit towards engine fund etc. LAA Permit aircraft.

['Chuffer' Dandridge]

I run my own aircraft, a Permit to Fly Jodel from a farm strip. I do my own maintenance and use the services of an LAA Inspector to sign it off. His cost is a pint of beer and £30

I fly around 100hrs a year and with everything included, it works out at £83.92 per hour. I could reduce this by using MOGAS or shopping around for cheaper AVGAS (I pay £2.24 a litre from my local airfield!!!)

If I did 75hrs/year, the cost would be £94.17 per hour

However, I have no ongoing engine fund and would have to stump up the cost of an overhaul if necessary.

[Pilot.Lyons]

Jumping off high wall, nil outlay, half second free fall, 120 times day, 2 minutes a day, 12hrs a year giving two days off at Xmas. Cheapest flying there is.

I just tried that and didnt enjoy it as much... My landings were a bit... Bumpy

[rywing]

So there is a reasonable option of keeping the flying cost to a minimum.

How about the Microlights? What costs are associated with this type of flying and what different ways are there to keeping the cost down?

[Rod1]

If you are talking 3 axis than Microlight / permit are interchangeable. There are around 500 3 Axis micros managed by the LAA and another 1250 ish by the BMAA, but both are permit and the running costs are similar. Older micros are very cheap but not very capable, modern ones are very capable, quite expensive to buy, but a bit short of useful load. Some aircraft, like the Eurostar, MCR etc come in Micro and none Micro with the same running costs and more useful load in the VLA/LSA version (a form of SEP/Group A - the next step up from a micro in weight terms).

Rod1

[rywing]

Thanks rod1,

Looking at the cost per hour to learn to fly Microlights it does look cheaper, which could be the best option for me.

Is the licensing due to change for microlight pilots with EASA?

[Piper.Classique]

How much have you got? That will be how much it costs, usually.

[150commuter]

In a twelve member Cessna 150 group I pay £40 per month and £60 per hour. Add to that about £10 per month for flying club membership and the same for an annual medical (though that's optional if you don't mind being restricted to NPPL) So if I fly for eighteen hours a year (I normally aim for 24 but the weather has kept it down a bit the past couple of years) that's a total of about £1800 or £100 per hour.
To that I also need to add the cost of petrol to drive to the airfield. That's a surprisingly large part of the total as I live a fair distance away but I tend to fly on about the same number of days each year (when the hourly was a lot less I simply flew further) so getting to the airfield probably adds a couple of hundred pounds to the annual total.

That seems like a lot but I've got friends who support a first division Rugby team and I'd be surprised if with travel to away matches, some of them involving overnights, season tickets, club membership, beers before and often dinners after the game, their hobby is costing them any less than mine (If they were premier league soccer supporters it would probably be a lot more) They don't even get to run around with the ball while I get to do something that, even after more than twenty years, I still have to pinch myself sometimes to believe I'm really doing.

Learning to fly and then continuing to fly is one of the best things I've ever done in my life so I'd say DO IT!!!