aart wrote:
I don’t know how important the financial factor is in your decision making. A general rule of thumb is that the tipping point between renting and owning is 100 hrs/yr. So not only from the ‘freedom’ point of view but also from the financial point of view you are making the right decision. Actually you’ll be constantly reminded to fly more and more, because the variable cost are pretty low! So it’ll be more than 100 hrs (and a bit more money per year).
I fly between 60-70 hours as a renter. I expect that number to be > 100 as an owner,as the 60-70 hours does not include any of the “spontaneous” commutes that would become possible.
aart wrote:
While sole ownership provides maximum freedom (although don’t forget any downtime because of maintenance, either planned or unplanned..) I wouldn’t discard shared ownership. 100 hrs per year for 2 or even 3 owners is really nothing to worry about in terms of ensuring availability, and it can even be fun to travel with co-owners (bound to be aviation enthusiasts) for longer trips where the spouse/kid would not be all that enthused. If you find the right co-owner(s) it allows for a bigger budget and therefore a nicer plane (think IFR). I have had a good experience sharing a Cirrus years ago.
We did (or do) consider shared ownership to extend the budget. If there was somebody sociable enough 
on the Lübeck/Hamburg area to share with, we would discuss such options. Unfortunately, the only people I know who might be interested live in my “old” area around Düsseldorf.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
I think you are right on track with an Arrow or, pardon me for bringing in my personal favorite here, a vintage Mooney
It’s a fair point but I have to say, I somehow don’t emotionally “connect” with the Mooneys. Seems like it shouldn’t be an argument, but at the end of the day, you want to like what you buy.
boscomantico wrote:
If you want to be able to comfortably go into Wahlstedt though, you are better off with a Cessna.
Though for a field like Wahlstedt, I never considered the Archer a problem. I would be concernced with RG types, from a maintenance point of view.
OTOH, Wahlstedt has no hangar spaces avbl, so it would be either Hartenholm or Lübeck.
boscomantico wrote:
Also, if doing a lot of intra-German sectors, having mogas capability is something that will save quite some money over time. Unfortunately, their are no Mogas-approved four seaters that will do more then 120 knots, except the quite rare Beech Debonair and the C182 and C182RG, and these are all expensive to buy, plus they consume at least 12 GPH.
This is a fair point and I value mogas capability a lot. It really makes a difference and it is a very valid argument against e.g. an Arrow.
Ibra wrote:
Why one would look to have Mogas aircraft in Germany, expensive Avgas? not available? or both?
It’s a simple cost issue. SuperPlus is, when available, usually much cheaper and can save you some 0.50 EUR/l.
AndersB wrote:
If you zoom in on an Arrow and have specific questions, please let me know.
Thanks, @AndersB, I might reach out to you in a private message!
Jujupilote wrote:
Don’t buy too much airplane for your annual flying budget. As Mooney said before here, only use 50% of your buying budget on the airplane, the rest will be needed to afterwards. Keep a reserve in case something needs to be overhauled early.
Would you really use this 50% as a rule of thumb? It obviously limits the purchase limit and I’d rather pay a bit more for a decent-shape plane (but would then have to use more than 50% of the budget). If I buy something for 50% of the budget, i KNOW I will have to invest the rest.
In aircraft ownership you should be able to “write a cheque” for an engine overhaul at any time.
Those who can’t pay up, end up in various versions of “abandoned aircraft” if something goes badly wrong.
Basically you want about 20k extra, available.
That’s assuming you haven’t bought a pile of junk, sometimes called a “dog” 
Lots of people do that…
Investment returns are nowadays around -273.16% so you may as well enjoy life
Peter wrote:
Investment returns are nowadays around -273.16% so you may as well enjoy life
Not sure where you come up with that that number but it means you end up bellow the zero kelvin (-273.16C )
Patrick wrote:
Would you really use this 50% as a rule of thumb? It obviously limits the purchase limit and I’d rather pay a bit more for a decent-shape plane (but would then have to use more than 50% of the budget). If I buy something for 50% of the budget, i KNOW I will have to invest the rest.
I’m relatively new to ownership so maybe can offer a useful data point. I got into flying to go places and already half-way through PPL training I was somewhat bored of A to A flights. Being from an outpost in European terms I wanted something fast as any flight is pretty likely to start out with a well worn trek to the south east. Most GA here is local and there was nothing in terms of a club or a shared ownership option I took the plunge myself and bought an M20J with the intention of offering a share maybe.
I got a pre-buy done and the results came back good so I parted with my cash….I still ended up with an annual that cost 20% of the purchase price! Not having maintenance pre-arranged is one lesson learned…definitely do that. The result for me was the guy who took on my plane had trouble fitting it into his already full schedule and given the amount of work that needed doing, it took months. If you buy an aircraft on a different reg to your home country, think about paperwork management, CAMO, and quirks of the country of registration. That has given me plenty of headaches and I don’t think its always as straightforward as the EASA dream promises. Not much choice for me in Ireland, though.
Beyond the torturously long and expensive first annual, the HSI also died and and a replacement G5 tacked on another 5k. There are also a couple of ‘nice to have’ upgrades I would like to do but I’m out of resources now, or at least I need to keep them back for any further unexpected maintenance.
As other people have said if you have 100k then 50k for the plane, 20k on hand for an overhaul, and 30k for the ‘skeletons in the closet’ annual and some upgrades you want to do is a good strategy. It might be overly conservative and you could probably stretch to 60 or 70k but that will increase the stress levels if you’re on the bad side of the ‘luck’ distribution (pretty sure I’m at least 2 standard deviations to the bad side!)
I think that’s actually an excellent post by Zuutroy.
I’m not sure if I’m glad I had already purchased before reading it or not! ;-) ;-)
If the guy doing your first annual is the guy who did your pre-buy, there will be fewer surprises.
Patrick wrote:
It’s a fair point but I have to say, I somehow don’t emotionally “connect” with the Mooneys. Seems like it shouldn’t be an argument, but at the end of the day, you want to like what you buy.
Oh absolutely. I have to add that when I was looking out for a plane in 2009, I had no faint idea that I was in the market for a Mooney, my goal was an “easy and cheap to maintain” airplane like a Cherokee 140 or 180. It was a pure coincidence that a guy who was about to pre-purchase the Cherokee 140 I looked at told me of the plane I fly today and told me to run the numbers. Back then, I had no idea what Mooneys were in terms of maintenance, cost, performance simply because they were outside my scope of search. If I’ve learnt one bit about airplane purchase then was that it sometimes takes time to appreaciate what is out there and think very much out of any kind of box. And by all means try before you buy. Extensively.
In the end, what you will want to achieve is to get a reliable, fast, economical plane. Sure Mooneys are not the only ones of this kind, you can get a Grumman Tiger and have the same speed and engine as a C Model Mooney but fixed gear and prop. You can look at Piper Comanches, which are very fast and interesting planes. And you can even find Bonanzas in that price range which again are very attractive planes.
Patrick wrote:
This is a fair point and I value mogas capability a lot. It really makes a difference and it is a very valid argument against e.g. an Arrow.
In which case, have a look at the Grummans. Even a Cheetah. They have the possibility to be run on Mogas and they are pretty good performers. There is a PDF of the article from Pilot und Flugzeug about the Grummans available on their site, via the Fly Lisa part. Makes good reading.
Patrick wrote:
Would you really use this 50% as a rule of thumb? It obviously limits the purchase limit and I’d rather pay a bit more for a decent-shape plane (but would then have to use more than 50% of the budget). If I buy something for 50% of the budget, i KNOW I will have to invest the rest.
Not necessarily but if something comes up you have the chance to do something about it. e.g. upgrade avionic to what you like, e.g. to have a engine replacement if something like what happend to Peter comes up. What I don’t like to see in people I give advice to is that they spend their last dollar on a purchase and then have to dump it on the market 6 months later due to a maintenance bill they can’t afford to pay.
Obviously, if you have any questions I might be able to answer please do not hesitate to call on me via pm.
The only plane I would buy is one I can fix and maintain myself. An experimental or a microlight. For factory planes, you have to fly 100+ hours just to get the per hour cost lower than renting, and this is without taking onto account the purchase price.
Possibly, but ownership has a vast range of advantages. A search on “ownership” turns up many threads
In most (not all) cases, renters are flying poorly maintained junk, and with many restrictions on where they can go and how long for.
If you own a simple N-registered certified plane and work with the mechanic, costs are so far below the numbers being discussed here, it’s hard for me to conceive of them. My largest cost for any item since 2002 was a 2019 expense of $4500 for a GTX 335 ADS-B transponder, including lengthy installation, a unique antenna installation, debugging and approval. The next highest was an MT propeller overhaul in 2013, something like $4K, I’ve forgotten. These are the only items at that scale over 17 years, everything else has been under $1000, no different than a car except that the plane can be maintained with less effort and better long term results. I none the less agree an owner should have something like $20K cash available just in case of something major – meaning in most cases an engine overhaul. That’s for a $35K plane, so it is a significant reserve in relation to the original cost. I cover that by keeping $50K cash available as an emergency fund for everything I own, including three houses. And one should buy the plane carefully and keep away from money sucking ‘maintenance organizations’. In my area we make jokes about places like that, or one in particular that I believe is a Beech dealer that works on Meridians etc. ‘Nobody’ else would actually take their plane there.
Regardless of all of the above, biggest cost of owning any plane is typically inside storage, and there is zero chance I would ever store any plane of mine outside and have nowhere to work – so my storage cost is around $5500/year.
