Costs
 

This has been covered before, but it's always worth staying up to date.

What, in the collective experience and wisdom of Ppruners, does it currently cost (roughly), to own and fly something like a PA28 or Cessna 172?

About 10k per year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:*

You could get people to vote in with their actual costs. The breakdown is roughly

Variable costs:

fuel
engine fund
prop fund
50hr check (not if on a Private CofA or N-reg)
150hr check (as above)

Fixed costs:

Insurance
Hangarage
Annual
CofA annual
Cost of capital

Costs of actually going somewhere:

Landing fees
Handling fees (large airports)
Buying airline tickets for unhappy passengers so they can get back home when the weather closes in and you are stuck (narrowly avoided this so far) :O

The above would be well defined for a brand new aircraft within warranty. For something older, the cost of capital will be much less but there will be huge variations in existing maintenance costs, not to mention future risk - that is essentially the tradeoff between buying new and secondhand.

For a privately owned plane I would disregard the cost of capital because you can't do anything with money sitting in the bank. That can make a huge difference to the figures, and can easily make a £200k plane cost less to fly, per hour, than renting the nastiest spamcan I've ever rented.

So, what it will cost you depends on your attitude to money and life. An accountant will always say it is cheaper to take a train.

(edited to include hangarage etc - apologies)

cblinton has once again hit the nail squarely on the head.

I have just come out of a four year stint of being the sole owner/operator of a 172 and a PA28/161.

The average cost per year (bearing in mind I own my own hangar and fly 100 hrs/yr) was £9650 per a/c.

Good luck!

I've sold them and moved on to proper flying now and I won't look back in anger 'cos I did have some fun.;)

There is a very simple formula for working out the real running cost for most light light aircraft and it is:

4 X the Cost of the fuel per hour!

Works precisely on my Warrior.

UV

Several orders of magnitude more than the Ryanair/Easyjet (or even National Express) fare to wherever it is that you want to go!

IO540 has left out what for our group is the most expensive item - hangarage.
Anyone know a farmer with a good field and barn in the Chichester - Portsmouth area?

...and landing fees!

The 'real' cost of the aeroplane (PFA taildragger) is around £50 per hour; roughly £20 fuel, £10 landing fees and £20 for hangarage, insurance and maintenance. Operating off a farmstrip rather than a licenced aerodrome would probably knock £20/ph off the costs.

You could try Roughay Farm or there was a strip for sale at Lower Upham, both near Bishops Waltham. Don't know what happened to Lower Upham.

Might be worth a Google

PS the answer to the original questions is "vastly more than it should. "

Mike

Monocock


Thanks for that I will get you a pint of your favourite "STELLA"
strange as I make my living from doing exactly that

"hit the nail squarely on the head"
.

:ok:

It gets cheaper if you split the costs as part of a group - I've got a 1/4 of an AA5 and that costs £50 per hour airborne and £70 a month standing charge sometimes the annual only costs us a couple of hundred each, (mind you last year was nearly a grand each - ouch!).

I happen to be flogging my share so if you're interested give me a shout!

:ok: