Yearly spend?
 

What is the average annual amount of money spent by a ppl holder who flies for fun?

I fly, on average, 100 hours per annum.

Each flying hour costs about £200-220.

Then there's landing fees, monthly subs and subscriptions to Aerad/Jepp, CAA charts, examiner fees (MEP etc) etc.

About £23K sound right?

Ok, so not as a PPL, but as a glider pilot,
With a 1/2 share in glass fibre single seat glider.
50 hours + 25 hours instructing in club 2 seaters

Annual CofA - £150
Insurance - £300
Club membership - £175
Launches (not competition) - £100
Maps, new electrics, etc about £300
Instructing - unpaid, but free

So for 75 hours per year - about £1k it would have been about £1.5k without my own glider.

How long is a piece of string?

Some pilots fly only an hour or two a month, others fly a couple of hours a week. Some pilots fly single-seater aircraft for £10-£15/hour, others fly complex or aerobatic types for £150/hour or more. Renting will cost more per hour than buying a share, unless you only fly very occassionally, but then do you factor in the cost of buying the share? Or the cost of depreciation?

I think if you want a sensible answer you'll have to be more specific!

FFF
-----------

I purposely left the question non-specific to get an idea of the range of activity and budgets people apply to this great hobby!
i plan to get my ppl in 03 and was thinking ahead about my options after i'm licensed. my job pays pretty well but the money's not limitless!!

woodey

Super Cub 150 on a farm strip in the West Country, 100 hours a year:

Insurance £1750
Hangarage £840
Maintenance Approx £2-500
Fuel £22/hour: £2200
Bits and bobs: £500

Not much change out of £6K = £60/hour. Doesn't take into account the cost of the capital tied up, of course.

Bloody hell it's fun, though.

QDM

From my research runing a PA28 140 doing 200 hours a year would cost nearly £100 an hour. That includes hanger, insurance, checks, maintenance, repairs, fuel, etc. The usual "how long is a piece of string" stuff. Just about the same amount it costs to rent one...go figure?

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

Yearly spend
 

I just could'nt bring myself to work out how much it costs to fly.Ignorance is bliss,as flying is, so won't spoil it. :D :D

I have been running ½ an AA5B. It was costing me about 9K a year. In the process of selling shares, so expect this to come down to 4.5k for 1/5th. That is assuming I only manage 65 hours a year when I only have 1/5 of the aircraft.

Medium term plan is to run a Europa or similar aircraft, which I will own outright and expect to operate at about the same 4.5k cost. Main difference is fuel cost per hour. The AA5B uses about £40 an hour in fuel but the Europa will operate on £12 an hour at the same speed.

Rod

I do about 50hrs a year in my Pitts at a cost of +/- £4k
I do about 25 in the Aeronca at £25/hr

However - what ever it costs I only declare about 20% to Mrs Stik!

Stik

About 60 hours in our group-owned Chipmunk:

50 per hour = 3000
50 per month = 600
maps etc = 30
medical = 120
club membership = 130

Total 3,880 UKP, say 4K for cash, for a classic vintage aerobatic machine. What a bargain - I should do some more!!

Oh, a few of those hours were going to rallys, fly-ins etc where I took another member in the back seat - then I got the back seat for the return, so lots of back seat time at no extra cost as well.

SSD

I started flying in 1987, getting a PPL(A) in Sept 1998. I started flying helicopters a year later, getting my PPL(H) in June 2000. Over 5 years I've averaged 100 hours per year, at a hire cost of about £65/hr for f/w, £140/hr for rotary; more for dual, and I've done a lot of that. I've also flown in the US and Russia - though the cheaper costs there were probably offset by the cost of getting there. On top of that I average about an hour's drive each way to my home airfields (I have 3 or 4!), if you count the cost of petrol etc, and I've spent a load on maps, headsets, courses, etc etc etc. What's it cost me? I don't even want to think about it. When I run out of money I'll have to stop. Or maybe fly a few hours a year like sensible people, or fly microlights which are cheap.

This piece of string is not only any length, it can be instantly and infinitely adjusted.

I've given myself a budget of 240ukp per month to spend on flying, which I'm just about managing to spend (and afford). Since joining my group (4 seat tourer) last October my flying has come down to an average of 37.85 per hour - before (renting and training) it was 68.59.

I allocate everything I spend on flying to the budget, except magazines and the capital I invested into the group, but I am also pretty ruthless in extracting cost-share contributions, and the government has subsidised me to an extent 'cos I get lots of fuel drawback.

I seem to have managed 90+ hours this year.

I don't actually share this info with Mrs R, but as a web-illiterate she's unaware of the grisly details at:
http://www.e-logbooks.co.uk/pilots/b..._fly_costs.asp

SteveR

Woodey
I guess there is only one real honest answer to this question - for me at least - and that is 'AS MUCH AS I CAN AFFORD AND THEN A BIT'. Anyone who spends less than this must be wasting it on some other unworthy activity which really shouldn't be allowed.

Let us assume a minimum of around £1,500 and a maximum which is dependent on inheritance, salary, or ill gotten gains.

With a quarter share of a PFA type aircraft and flying the minimum safe number of hours spread over a year you could get away with about £1,000 although much of this is fixed cost so you could ramp up the hours a bit and not create a much larger hole.

I own a helicopter and 2 yachts, all of which are pretty underused, after all 100 hours flying is 0.01% of the year!
As to costs, insurance is 5K, Fuel £100/Hr, Depreciation, loss of interest on the capital ?, landing fees, hangarage, etc etc.
Basicaly if we all had to think too hard about the costs it would be depressing and as long as the wife dosn't find out how much it really costs, I will just keep on doing it.
Untill there is the equivalent of alcoholics annonimous for pilots, we won't stop!

Share in a PA28, about 30 hrs pa, £60/hr = £1800
Flexwing, about 40 hrs pa = £1000
Half share in a single seater = £300 'cos the damn thing's never serviceable.
Some form of training each year for the hell of it, generally about £700

Total = £3800

Add in a couple of club memberships and a few charts and things, about £4k/yr.

(Plus air tests and things on other peoples aeroplanes, but I get paid for that so it doesn't count, except to the inland revenue, thus allowing me to write off about half of the £4k against tax).

G

35 grand a year. Two yachts and a helicopter. Are we supposed to be impressed or something?. Come on lets stop comparing the size of our manhood and have a sensible discussion about aviation.
I am not impressed by spend and have often found that those who spend the most are the worst aviators whilst those who pole a cub around on used tractor parts and mogas can really hack it.
So why dont you grow up and save your boasting for dinner parties with the smythe hendersons.

Over the past two years, done 140 hours or so, at approx $100 / hour ... plus books maybe $500 ... plus 3 flight tests $1300 ... 4 writtens $300 ... driving to an from the airport/field ...

$14,000
$ 500
$ 1300
$ 300

About $16,100 or $8k for each of the two years. Ouch, bit more than I thought really :confused:

Yearly spend
 

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.....

Chip Jockey!

Spit that dummy! Chuck out the rattle and the teddy!

Why did you visit 'yearly spend' when you aren't interested?

Don't tell me - your plane is powered by an elastic band, or at least was until some big meanie trod on it??

You can't blame somebody with a helicopter boasting about the rest of his toybox can you? After all - men are boys with bigger toys.

Joking apart - I did find your response amusing.

We need characters like you - please post more often!

HP