C152 / PA38 Operating Costs

[Daifly]

Hi,

I'm sure this has been done to the death, but I can't find anything on the searches.

Could anyone who owns a 152 or a PA38 give me a rough (or detailed if you have it!) idea of the running costs of the aircraft for a 12 month period?

Many thanks if someone can.

Cheers,

Daifly

[pistongone]

Operating costs as owner/renter/group? Lots of variables, how long is a piece of string? Bottom line Private Cof A owner high utilisation about £50-60/hr depending on where you park it! Strip or airport. Renting best i know is £60/hr but the man never answers the phone, £70/hr in my club upto £5000/hr if you only fly two hours a year and own it! Sorry to be glib, but you need to know your operating M/O to calculate it accurately.

[S-Works]

I owned a C152 on my own for 4 years before moving to a Hawk XP. I flew it just over 350hrs a year.

Fuel was 23lph
hangar £800pa
Insurance £1000pa
Maintanance £5000pa

A great aircraft to own and operate.

[pistongone]

Bose X
350hrs x 4 years = 1400hrs (quite high utilisation yes?)
Fuel-23ltrs x 1400= 32200ltr @ £1.30/ltr = £41860-
Hangar 4 x 800 = = = = = = = = = = = £03200-(which is very reasonable, £150-200/month more like, so a difference of at least £4000)
Insurance 4 x 1000 = = = = = = = == £04000-
Maintenance 4 x 5000 = = = = = = = £20000-(assuming no engine replacement!)
Total expenditure over 4 years £69060-
So 1400hrs at a cost of £69060- is £49.33/hr
What you forgot to include is the cost of the capital tied up in the aircraft and the re-sale value of a plane with 1400 hrs on the engine even if it were new would be a considerable chunk lower. So now we factor in £8000 loss of interest/cost of finance on the capital (10% is fairley easily attainable in a low risk portfolio, certainly no more risky than a light aircraft!!) And a loss of say £6000 in the value of the aircraft due to the 1400 hrs you put on it.
Now the figure is adjusted to include £14000 divided by the 1400 hrs you flew(nice easy one that no calculator required) An extra £10/hr.
So now we are up to £ 59.33/hr, and if you had any unexpected problems, corrosion, prop strike etc, then that figure could be potentially higher. So my figures quoted off the cuff were deffinitely in the ball park wouldnt you agree?
Further more, i would say that £70/hr at our local club is very good value? With no risk or capital outlay.

[S-Works]

I'm sorry did I argue with your figures? I listed the direct operating costs that I had incurred during 4 years of ownership not an hourly rate. I am sure the figures stack up for you.

However in my case I actually got back more than I paid for the aircraft including covering the cost of a new engine which I sold with 100hrs on the new engine. I owned the aicraft without finance as I do the current one. So I had no capital costs or finance and loss of interest is negligable.

The £5000 in maintanance was the 50hr checks, the annual and the unexpected maintanance stuff that arose which included a new propellor, tyres etc.

But whether it cost me more or less than renting a tired old school hack (mine was fully IFR equipped, GNS430 etc.) it still worked out better for me. No 3 hour minimums no restrictions on availability no arriving to find avionics or the whole aircraft u/s. I could fly to Guernsey for a weekend on my schedule and not worry about when I came back.

So for the £100 bacon and 12hrs a year the club hire is perfect for everything else ownership is priceless!!!

Owning an aircraft for me has been an incredible experiance, I have used it for work and pleasure, visited places I would never have considered.

The cost per hour is insignificant compared to the value!

[pistongone]

Bose-X
I wasnt getting at you in any way. I was just using your actual knowledge of costs to illustrate how it stacks up in real life. I must be very lucky however, as my club only want one hour a day and you can book a couple of days with no problem. We have two 150's one an aerobat, a PA 38 traumahawk for a few pounds more and a Warrior for a few more than that. I think i will keep the name to myself or the availability might go down Also not many people can afford £40k plus year one with £17k annually thereafter. So the finance is a valid inclusion. Also i would have expected to be able to raise 10% interest on a reasonable size investment with low risk. Dont forget your plane is say £25k with maintenance, hangar, ins etc all being moneys that could be invested, bring the total to something in excess of £40k. I could buy you a property and rent it out and make you more than 10% per annum(after my charges as well ). Plus with house prices being what they are your investment would appreciate at a generous rate. But everything in life is a compromise which is dictated to a greater extent by money. The more you have, the more you do it your way.

[S-Works]

10% on £25k is squat all money after tax. Would run my cars for about a month. And lets just say I know a little about owning property.........

And yes the more you have the more you do it your way.

My point was that owning an aircraft is for the committed flyer but if you invest the costs are not to bad. Most clubs do not cater for the committed flyer and therefore ownership becomes the only option.

IO540 will bail me out any moment on the state of the club scene and why owning an aircraft makes sense for the regular flyer (Peter please......)

Originally Posted by pistongone

Bose-X
I wasnt getting at you in any way. I was just using your actual knowledge of costs to illustrate how it stacks up in real life. I must be very lucky however, as my club only want one hour a day and you can book a couple of days with no problem. We have two 150's one an aerobat, a PA 38 traumahawk for a few pounds more and a Warrior for a few more than that. I think i will keep the name to myself or the availability might go down Also not many people can afford £40k plus year one with £17k annually thereafter. So the finance is a valid inclusion. Also i would have expected to be able to raise 10% interest on a reasonable size investment with low risk. Dont forget your plane is say £25k with maintenance, hangar, ins etc all being moneys that could be invested, bring the total to something in excess of £40k. I could buy you a property and rent it out and make you more than 10% per annum(after my charges as well ). Plus with house prices being what they are your investment would appreciate at a generous rate. But everything in life is a compromise which is dictated to a greater extent by money. The more you have, the more you do it your way.

[BlueRobin]

Nice figures bosey Did you base your little Cessna out of Leicester?

[S-Works]

It was at Leics for a couple of years, still my favourite club and a great place to be. The next year and a bit were at Spanhoe which is still home.

The move to Spanhoe was about being close to home and being able to access more interesting types. The Spanhoe atmosphere suits my type of flying!

[BlueRobin]

Did you hangar fees change much? They look rather good, amazing how much some people are prepared to pay!

I must confess I am neglecting the Reims Rocket myself. Too much ATPL makes Jack a dull boy

[Rod1]

Daifly,

Do you have to go c of a?

If you go PFA with a Rotax 912 VLA you would cut your maintenance cost by 85% and your fuel by 25% plus. The aircraft would also out perform the PA38 and you would have more fun!

Quite understand if you plan on hiring it out for training, but this will put your maintenance cost up a lot.

Rod1

[BlueRobin]

In an aircraft such as the MCR01, you can achieve such cost savings

[IO540]

So for the £100 bacon and 12hrs a year the club hire is perfect for everything else ownership is priceless!!!

Bose-X is right on.

I've owned a plane for four years and have never regretted it for a second. This is despite having had to climb up, occassionally be dragged up kicking and screaming, the "ownership learning curve" (which is a polite way of saying: having to learn who in aviation can be trusted). You get a plane maintained to your standards, you get access allowing you to go away for 1-2 week holidays or whatever else, the marginal cost of flying is lower than any club rental and that encourages currency (and thus safety), and if you are the sole pilot (which I am not) you know that somebody has not bent something in a bad landing.

I don't fly a Cessna 152/PA38 (I have a reasonable airways machine) but have plenty of hours in these types so I know them and the above applies to them equally.

I don't think one should add interest on the capital into the equation. If you did that with everything in life, you would die with a huge investment portfolio but never having done anything more exciting than walked to the local supermarket. The only time one should look at finance costs is if you actually have to pay some, and I don't think many private owners (in the sub-turbine market) buy with finance. Being able to go up there and drill some holes in clouds is priceless.

The one thing I warn people about with ownership is this: don't buy the cheapest you can afford especially if you are blowing your whole budget on it. It's OK to do that if buying brand new (well until Lycoming SB569 comes along ) but in this case you are looking at a 25-35 year old piece of relative wreckage which, as bose-x shows, will cost a fortune in maintenance. Every penny you save on the purchase price you will spend over the following 5-10 years on maintenance.

Obviously this is a generalisation and a clever aircraft engineer with good local connections can spot a real bargain in the form of a 30 year old plane which has been well operated and whose last owner just happened to blow his life savings on before selling it. The said engineer can also to maintenance himself and sign it off himself, and this (being a licensed engineer) is the only way of owning an old certified-category plane on the cheap. The average punter isn't going to be that clever.

On 30 year old airframes, £5000 annual costs are not unusual. I know a man who spends £8000/year on a C152, which is about 5x what I spend maintaining my 4 year old plane which is a lot bigger and faster. But then I paid a lot more for it in the first place.

So my advice would be to look for something in the best possible condition.

There are loads of threads here on buying a plane but the one thing I would do which appears to be seldom mentioned is an engine borescope inspection. A lot of GA planes are rarely flown and go rusty; the engine then falls apart.

The Permit route is another way to cut costs substantially but I know nothing about it, apart from noticing the high performance and economy of some types, and the fact that one cannot ever (legally) fly under IFR.

I would not rent a plane out to a school; they will knacker it while screwing the owner down on costs.

The Revenue also really hates setups where somebody has bought a plane and is renting it out part-time to a small number of customers. They try to bust the business on the grounds that it was not set up to make money (you are allowed to fail, but you are not allowed to plan to fail) and that the rental was done primarily to reduce the owner's flying costs. If you buy 5 planes and rent them out and you yourself don't even have a PPL then they can't touch you no matter how much money you lost (i.e. no matter how much corporation tax the Revenue didn't get), but if you buy 1 plane, fly 100hrs a year in it and rent it out for 30 hours to others, they will try to bust you. This is a situation which I know about and which is going to the General Commissioners soon.

[worldpilot]

Justifying plane ouwership

How many hours flown in a year will justify the ownership of a plane? Looking at the weather in Germany where I'm based and the fact that I'm only VFR-certified, the number of days with VFR-favourable weather are not very many. If it will cost me 20000 € pa to maintain a C172 or equivalent airplane, I would better go for the rental option.

WP

[IO540]

One cannot ever work it out entirely objectively.

The fact is that most car drivers would save money overall by calling a taxi.

[Genghis the Engineer]

Originally Posted by Rod1

Daifly,
Do you have to go c of a?
If you go PFA with a Rotax 912 VLA you would cut your maintenance cost by 85% and your fuel by 25% plus. The aircraft would also out perform the PA38 and you would have more fun!
Quite understand if you plan on hiring it out for training, but this will put your maintenance cost up a lot.
Rod1

Of course going PFA will prevent you owning either a C150 or PA38 and almost certainly force you to own something more modern, more interesting, prettier, and cheaper to fly and own. Strangely, this isn't everybody's cup of tea.

G

[Aunt Rimmer]

tsk tsk tsk ..

Originally Posted by BlueRobin

I must confess I am neglecting the Reims Rocket myself. Too much ATPL makes Jack a dull boy

Now - THAT is a crime :-) Neglecting a Reims Rocket.
Hear now .. .. anyone fancy setting up a Rocket owners club ... ?

[Rod1]

Taking BoseX’s figures to compare with a PFA VLA type at 100 hours per year;
C152
Fuel £3220
Maintanance £5000pa
Total £8220
PFA VLA type with 912Ul
Fuel £1080
Maintanance £500
Total £1580 (saving £6640 pa)
And your overall performance would be better.
Rod1

[Confabulous]

A friend asked me if I wanted to go flying in his Reims Rocket - I was thrilled. On the day we walked out to the hangar, and there sat a rivet-ridden 172. I scanned the hangar, no sign of a Rocket anywhere. Looking my friend in the eye, I said 'Where's this Rocket you were telling me about?'

He pointed at the 172. Epithets bounced off the hangar walls. 'THAT'S NOT A ROCKET, THAT'S A CESSNA!!!', I shrieked.

It was the last time I went near a Cessna

[pumper_bob]

Rod1
pfa types are good on performance etc, but what is the legal situation regarding trips to far flung lands?