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Spend on flying per year as owners

So I have previously indicated my entire flying expense per year. I am not sure any other owners have, Everyone complains about a certain amount for filing or avionics, what are peoples’ overall expenses as owners including type and hours?

Last Edited by JasonC at 09 Dec 22:47
EGTK Oxford

I would be happy to tell you, Jason. However, I am very careful not to total up our flying expenses!

I have totaled up the expenses once. We took a trip from Seattle to Europe and back, leaving the first of June and returning the very end of October. The trip cost about $75,000. The interesting part is that the vast majority of the trip was lodging, meals, ground transport. I am not including the cost to get ready for the trip (Satellite telephone, survival suits, life raft, new avionics, maps and charts and databases, etc.) Fuel and airport fees were big, but not a huge percentage of the trip primarily because Europe isn’t a very big place. We didn’t do all of Europe. We did the UK, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Norway. We planned to include Southern Europe, but just didn’t have time. The trip was in our Skylane. Peter might remember us because I asked him a lot of questions! He was a very big help to us.

KBDN (Bend Oregon, USA), Other

I looked up our emails GaryandAlice and sure enough… from 2006

Jason – did you post your numbers? What are expenses “including type”?

I will see if I can add something up. One would probably want to exclude one-off costs like a TKS installation.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

Jason – did you post your numbers? What are expenses “including type”?

Type of aircraft.

GaryandAlice wrote:

I would be happy to tell you, Jason. However, I am very careful not to total up our flying expenses!

Ha, while I appreciate the sentiment, I believe in not kidding myself.

I managed the final twelve months in the Mustang all costs excluding depreciation for £690/hour. That also included building up the proparts reserve account so not all of the maintenance expenses were actually spent. This means had I not been on the parts programme, it would be lower. This was for 260 hours almost all business related. It included two trips to the US.

Overall I was positively surprised. It is pretty well exactly in line with the US estimates for the type adjusting for things like Eurocontrol charges that don’t exist there.

Last Edited by JasonC at 10 Dec 10:29
EGTK Oxford

Peter wrote:

One would probably want to exclude one-offs costs like a TKS installation.

Removing “one-offs” is the aviation equivalent of non-GAAP accounting

Counting everything except depreciation (small for my plane which is a 2000 model), no engine fund. I have averaged 55k/y since 2013 for my PA46-350P. I probably save about 10k/y in airplane tickets, especially around school holidays where taking a family of 5 to the Alps or South of France can set you back a serious amount.

About 20k of that is fixed costs (hangarage, insurances, “usual” annual). Another 20k is use (fuel, landing fees, oil changes every 25h). The rest has been either big ticket maintenance (top overall, engine mount) or improvements (full respray, carpet refurb, avionics).

That leaves me only slightly below Jason’s numbers, per hour (!); most of it is coming from much lower hours but there may also be a trade-off here between depreciation and maintenance.

EGTF, LFTF

denopa wrote:

Removing “one-offs” is the aviation equivalent of non-GAAP accounting

Indeed, aviation seems to have a lot of recurring one-offs….To be fair though it is reasonable to exclude major items of capex like avionics upgrades and the like. Engine overhauls should however be amortised and included on a per hour basis. You can’t exclude ‘normal’ big maintenance events as these are part and parcel of flying your own plane.

My numbers include maintenance at a normal rather than a low level as the programmes smooth it out. They also include a 100% parts and labour engine fund.

Last Edited by JasonC at 10 Dec 12:30
EGTK Oxford

In last 12 months I flew 240 hours in the TBM. I pay 600 EUR/h + VAT and that covers everything except depreciation. I share the plane, which helps with fixed costs. Total hours 12 months to date was 432.

LPFR, Poland

Well, i only own a 50% share of our aircraft and being a phd student my funds are quite limited, so i’m for sure more on the low end of the spectrum.

Total hours 2017: 50h
of which 40h on our aircraft (Jabiru J400) and 10h on club aircraft (c152 / c172).
Total cost where: 5800€ (that actually includes everything aviation related – club fees, maps, landing fees, magazines, medical, …)

EDGH

I have no reliable numbers from my last two planes, as expected. The Aerostar was skewed due to engine overhauls that I sold before I could “count home” that “investment”. But the old 520 Commander I had reliable numbers on. Bought it for $38K, spent about $70-80K on that thing, sold it for $30K. So, lets’s say $90K over 350hrs, plus fuel. $350/hr-ish. No engine funds.

From the recent survey:

ESME, ESMS
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