Folland Gnat operating costs

[Tiger_ Moth]

Did anybody see the Evening Standard a few days ago?
It had an article about four rich people who had bought a Gnat each for £120,000 and are making their own display team.
First of all, isn't it amazing the way you can get a nearly supersonic jet for the same price as a new light aircraft?

However I wondered what the hourly operating cost would be. I think someone told me it costs about £2000 an hour for a spitfire so this would probably be more, but has anyone got a rough idea how much? I know the more you use it the lower the hourly cost is, but just a rough idea?

[Final 3 Greens]

I know the more you use it the lower the hourly cost is, but just a rough idea?

Tiger, this may not be quite as you think. If the a/c doesn't depreciate (may even appreciate), then the then the marginal effect of the variable costs (i.e. avtur) may mean that there is little difference to the hourly cost, although you get higher bills if you use it more.

As to what a Gnat burns per hour, god only knows, butgiven the cost of 'hot hatch' insurance, what would it be for the GTi of the air? :D

[FNG]

Naaaah, jets are noisy, smelly, and vulgar. T-M, here's a better plan:
(1) finish PPL
(2) go to university and get brainy degree in subject other than golf course management, possibly followed by year at Insead pretending to do MBA whilst hitting on posh Eurotrash totty
(3) get £££££££££ job in City
(4) put up with tiresome colleagues, garden leave, bulls, bears, bonuses, busts for 10-15 years, whilst flying something taildraggy, upside downy and interesting at weekends
(4) listen to wife's pleas that surely tis time to cash in the white stucco palace in Holland Park and retire to make handcarved rocking horses in a tastefully converted seventeenth century badger-strangling shed in the Cotswolds
(5) say, "sorry dear, I've just blown it all on a Spitfire: we may have to let the second nanny go and you may have to change the colour of your giganthous BMW SUV every nine months instead of every six like you usually do"
(6) bask in sunlit uplands (or fly over them at 300 knots)
(7) have a drink.

[stiknruda]

When I'm not tractor driving for money, I deal with said gent in the article on a regular basis and a nicer, more unassuming chap you couldn't hope to meet.

We have agreed to swap toys later this year but I guess he means his Christen Eagle for my Pitts and not the Gnat for the Pitts!


Stik