Given that turbines are so much cheaper than pistons, there is surely room for a remote controlled 4K moving camera pod STC?
(Shorrick seems to be on holiday so I’m trying to come up with a response worthy of him).
There is a 1981 King Air 90C on planecheck with fresh HSI and 4500 hrs to TBO:
http://www.planecheck.com?ent=da&id=35051
Generally I agree with Peter that depreciation should be ignored for non-strictly commercial items. I also like the philosophy of
Buy your last plane first
in theory. In practice this requires one to buy with the budget you have when you start to fly. This will usually be much less than later in life unless you started early or have lots of financial means early in life already, which is unusual for all but a lucky few.
MedEwok wrote:
There is a 1981 King Air 90C…
Interesting. I know two pilots who have been desperately looking for a good King Air 90 ( * ) for quite some time (for use as corporate aircraft). There are none on the market and there is a waiting list for new ones. Some even suspect that Beechcarft/Textron/WhaeteverTheCompanyIsCalledThisYear is keeping the supply low in order to hold the prices up.
( * ) not a 35 year old “C” model that performs similar to a Cessna 182.
MedEwok wrote:
Generally I agree with Peter that depreciation should be ignored for non-strictly commercial items.
Actually, depreciation isn’t the right term if an asset loses value according to how many hours it is being used, which is a variable cost per hour related to wear and tear. Or maybe I have to call it “Units-of-production depreciation”, where one flight hour presents a “unit of production”.
You are both also contesting Adam’s calculation method, which does include “Engine cost: $42,500” for the turbine and “Engine overhaul all in (including turbos, hoses, wastegates, NDT engine mounts, wires, plugs etc): $60,000. That’s about $27.7/hr” for the piston engine.
But I really don’t know how I could explain it more clearly than what I tried in my two posts above.
Rwy20 wrote:
But I really don’t know how I could explain it more clearly than what I tried in my two posts above.
Your explanation is spot on.
And for everybody who believes in “cheap” turbine flying I have a wonderful song which sums it up pretty well: 
@Rwy20 You are absolutely correct, but nor can you ignore the same principle on pistons, which you conveniently forget and just focus in the turbine numbers I presented… It’s not like you escape the devaluation on a piston.
Also, in general, people are delusional about piston overhaul cost. I was the same until I experienced it. They somehow think the quoted cost for the overhaul is all they’ll pay. That’s only true if you put the old turbos, wastegates, oil hoses, wires, plugs, hydraulic pumps, hydraulic lines, engine mounts, filters, carburetors and injection systems back on. But nobody in their right mind would do that. You overhaul those or replace with new. This almost doubles your overhaul cost from the quoted one when you add labor. But they always conveniently forget that. My Aerostar engines were quoted at $23.995. They ended up costing $60K on the airframe, ready to fly.
@achimha You seem to think I’m saying buy a turbine and fly it for Cirrus money, no, that’s not at all what I’m saying. But I am saying, buy a turbine and fly it for C421 money. Let’s take the C421 as a good example: the geared GTSIO-520’s overhaul starts at $50-60K for the engine alone, and there will be no chance this will be on the airframe for less than $80-100K/side. No chance. For that you get 1200-1600hr TBO and most likely an entire cylinder change halfway through and a turbo overhaul. Compared to that a turbine is much more cost efficient, especially when you account for the lower cost per nm and fuel costs.
BTW, a starter/generator overhaul is about $2000, cheaper than a single new Lycoming cylinder for the Aerostar IO-540-S1A5 engine. They will probably last as long:
AdamFrisch wrote:
…buy a turbine and fly it for C421 money…
If that would be so, why are there still over a thousand C421s flying and only a handful of Conquests (the turbine version of the 421)?
AdamFrisch wrote:
nor can you ignore the same principle on pistons, which you conveniently forget and just focus in the turbine numbers I presented
I didn’t write a word about the piston engine cost calculation. I merely commented on this statement:
AdamFrisch wrote:
You now have engine reserve costs of only $16.79/hr!
Which was about the turbine cost, but that was you who didn’t even mention the piston engine anymore. No matter how you calculate, you will have to apply the same principles if you want to get to comparable numbers. But I think @what_next has analyzed the situation well with his video, and I don’t want to destroy your turbine pipe dream, so I cry Uncle.
Rwy20 wrote:
But then you can’t calculate a meaningful hourly price to compare two powerplant options like Adam tries to do here.
Isn’t that a bit of the point here? In a club setting you either:
As a private owner it’s all just cost anyway. You either purchase cash, or let the money stay in the bank or invest in something. Once you have payed (in cash), it’s only the running costs that matter.
A private owner needs to essentially ignore depreciation and interest on capital, otherwise (as I said) you will have a very boring life.
there is surely room for a remote controlled 4K moving camera pod STC?
I don’t understand the point being made there, but at least it isn’t offensive like some of his posts so it doesn’t have to be deleted, which is less work for me, which is always most welcome 
