tmo wrote:
So, what do you have (or expect to soon have) for sale?
Two C-172s are for sale. They are both in perfectly good condition (one for about 30k and one for 50k), but we want newer planes.
LeSving wrote:
Of course, how much the aircraft is flown per year will be important. If it’s only flown 50 h or so, then a larger part of the maintenance is the usual yearly stuff, so 10-20k will probably be a bit much.
IMHO 10-20K per year is not “a bit much”, it’s a totally insane amount of annual expenses that would put anybody in their right mind out of individual aircraft ownership 
The way those totally crazy annual expenses start to look correct is if you assume ultra high utilization by non-owners. That is kind of the opposite of what this thread is about, eh?
The point about individual ownership lowering annual costs is a very good one. I own and fly two planes, and they really haven’t needed a lot since I sorted them out initially. My utilization is less than 50 hrs per year for each plane individually, they are stored carefully and they are very carefully maintained based on condition. Having two also helps because it increases flexibility, allowing more economic ways of doing things: if the plane can’t be flown for two months, no big deal, I’ll fly the other one. Right now I’m going through that with a new windscreen and installation by a friend – if I need it done fast, with air freight from across the world and buying priority with the installer, the cost more than doubles.
LeSving wrote:
a plane at that price (20k) is a wreck with 10k+ hours and will require 40-50k (or more) to restore it to good shape maintenance vise. You still have to pay 5-10k per year, and you cannot do anything with it yourself, like fixing it up to “new” condition. Our Cub from 1949 just keeps on going however with minimal costs as it should be brand new, it’s like a tank , but then again, Cubs aren’t sold for 20k today because they are worth much more.
For $22K US I bought an 1800 hr TTAF plane that after restoration by its previous owner had won both Best of Show at the largest annual type specific fly-in, with around seventy aircraft on hand. Obviously it depends on the type of plane, as well as the registry and physical location. Cubs are around double that price for comparable quality, although a friend recently bought a mint 65 HP J3 for IIRC $28K. I think those prices would if anything be slightly lower in Europe, given current currency values.
LeSving wrote:
Two C-172s are for sale. They are both in perfectly good condition (one for about 30k and one for 50k), but we want newer planes.
Those are very practical planes, I’m sure, although I would say that the older they are and the more minimally equipped, the more economical they will be for individual ownership. My choice would be the oldest type, pre Omni-Vision, or better yet a C170B
So, let’s talk prices, it’s Friday night, so why not. Two ads:
– TB10 on AVBuyer for 40k EUR, ad from July, 2015
– TB-10 on AFORS for 27k EUR, ad from December, 2015
Both ads appear to be for the same plane. 100h difference between them. How on God’s green Earth do 100h on a TB10 cost 13k EUR + gas? Did someone simply hate the TB10 they bought? Does the horizontal stabiliser issue cause such depreciation? How many chickens need to be sacrificed in order to tell what a plane is worth? How much is a plane like that theoretically worth (hoping someone has access to Vref or something similar)?
Or do I simply take any price out there, on anything that seems reasonable, slash it in half, and make an offer, hope it sticks? That would be nuts, but I’m starting to understand why people rent and never “go places”, or totally give up…
edit for messed up links
That one has a very run-out engine, very difficult to sell I’d guess.
A competing plane with 500 hrs left on the engine might last an individual buyer 10 years without engine work… Or with a mid-time engine (say 1000 hr remaining), it might last ‘forever’ for the new owner…
LeSving wrote:
But nonetheless a plane at that price (20k) is a wreck with 10k+ hours and will require 40-50k (or more) to restore it to good shape maintenance vise.
Not at all. I have in the past two years bought / helped with the purchase of eight aircraft below 20k€. None of them has been such a maintenance hole you assume. And only one of them is over 10k hours, the rest propably will never reach that figure.
To be fair, during pre purchase inspections I have seen a lot rat holes, that is true. But even a basic inspection (For the MS893/PA28/C172 I will need around 3-4 hours for a basic check of the nogo areas) will filter them. The lower your budget, the longer it takes to find a suitable aircraft. But that doesn’t mean that it is impossible, or that your figures were anything but exaggerated.
Unless you aim at “like new” aircraft.
LeSving wrote:
You still have to pay 5-10k per year, and you cannot do anything with it yourself, like fixing it up to “new” condition.
Repeating it doesn’t make it true. On a VFR ELA-1 aircraft (the kind we talk about within the sub 30k€-range). Basically you can do everything (including complex maintenance) on such an aircraft, if (only for the parts not within limited pilot-owner maintenance) your Part66CFS signs for it. There are several types (e.g. MS880/890, C172, D11, SF23, DR250, etc.) where you can sign complete 100hr checks on p-o maintenance. 5-10k would be the figure including insurance, airworthiness, scheduled maintenance, hangaring, landing fees, aero club membership fees and a toolbox.
Heck, I posted my last annual on the Aerostar – $8000, something. Granted, I’d done the engines, but if you get over the hump with a plane, they’ll coast from annual to annual without extreme costs. It’s always the first two years that’ll be more elevated, when the combination of your upgrade ambitions and the older owners last years negligence coincides into an unholy soup.
It’s impossible to buy a new plane and not do improvements to it. It’s the first law of aircraft ownership.
LeSving wrote:
At some point the the maintenance gets too expensive (you fix one snag, and the next week another snag pops up), then the planes are sold at 10-20k €.
Somehow that sounds to me as if there is a problem with that maintenance. In neither of my two airplanes have I seen stuff like that and both are/were no spring chickens. I honestly think that if it goes that far, that planes have to be thrown on the market like that, something has gone wrong taking care of them.
LeSving wrote:
If it’s only flown 50 h or so, then a larger part of the maintenance is the usual yearly stuff, so 10-20k will probably be a bit much
Well, a plane which operates less than 60 hours will forego the 50 hour check, so the usual maintenance would be the 100 hrs check with ARC. And I’ve had bad ones but never paid more than 5000 Euros for that, (and if I needed a 50 hrs check they usually are less than 1000 Euros. 10-20k for maintenance means there is something massively wrong. I would actually think that most countries have less expensive maintenance costs than Switzerland which has very high labour cost.
LeSving wrote:
But nonetheless a plane at that price (20k) is a wreck with 10k+ hours and will require 40-50k (or more) to restore it to good shape maintenance vise
A wreck? Maybe the ones you guys throw on the market. I have seen wrecks, yes. Some project planes, some which have been neglected. These things never pass a pre-buy. However, neither of my up to now two planes were / are wrecks and I paid the equivalent of 8000 Euros for the Cessna 150 in 1983 and I paid less than 20k for the Mooney in 2009. I did find a Cherokee 140 for a friend for less than 15k which he flies happily and has not had problems in the 4 years he owns it, it has 900 hrs left on the engine and works very well. Another friend bought an AS202 in that price range which has not required a single unscheduled maintenance since. Again, wrecks are out there but they won’t pass a pre-buy normally. Oh, and my first Cessna had about 6000 hrs and the Mooney less than 5000 when I bought it.
LeSving wrote:
You still have to pay 5-10k per year, and you cannot do anything with it yourself, like fixing it up to “new” condition.
The question is for what. Facelifting is not that expensive unless you do a repaint, which so far nobody I know has done after buying. I had one guy replacing the whole plastic parts of his Arrow and that one looks like new now inside. Cost? less than 3k including installation. And that is not something you do very often.
In the end it comes down to a very simple thing.
People who have that kind of budget can choose between a huge load of available planes to find one they can afford and like. If they can’t reconcile their preferrences and pre-conditions with what is there, they won’t buy. Most people I have talked to have found that they’d rather be flying something they can afford and don’t have to worry about how to pay for and maintain it then to wait for 20 years to save for something they might never fly.
What I have noticed however is that
[ 1982 TB10 ]Both ads appear to be for the same plane. 100h difference between them. How on God’s green Earth do 100h on a TB10 cost 13k EUR + gas? Did someone simply hate the TB10 they bought? Does the horizontal stabiliser issue cause such depreciation? How many chickens need to be sacrificed in order to tell what a plane is worth? How much is a plane like that theoretically worth (hoping someone has access to Vref or something similar)?
The 1982 TB10 at €40k was way overpriced. And the nearly-finished engine is the end of it, really. The HS AD probably didn’t help, though it is easy enough to check yourself with an endoscope from Ebay, so you know if it will affect you (but a buyer will obviously be worried about it). There could be other issues too; a run-out engine is likely to correlate with a particular attitude to maintenance (run it into the ground and then get rid of it). A 1982 plane (Socata, Cessna, Piper, whatever) is highly unlikely to be in a good condition unless hangared and well looked after, so much depends on the detail.
Or do I simply take any price out there, on anything that seems reasonable, slash it in half, and make an offer, hope it sticks?
Yes a lot of people stick a plane on the market at a silly price, hoping to find a mug / a person who falls in love with the paint colour / whatever. Also some are on the market (at silly prices intended to never sell) to show your bank manager / soon to be ex wife / etc that you are abandoning expensive hobbies.
Same with houses. Next door to us tried to sell at about 1.5x the likely price. A house half a mile away tried to sell at 2x (and abandoned it). You do get people who just fall in love with a house (most houses, the agents will tell you, are chosen by the woman ) but it can take an awful long time to sell. There is a firm of estate agents around here which specialises in doing that sort of business…
That would be nuts, but I’m starting to understand why people rent and never “go places”, or totally give up…
You need to speak to somebody who has experience of ownership and has prebuy and maintenance contacts. Properly done, it is wonderful
Unfortunately, probably the majority of people don’t do it properly.
And getting good advice is difficult because if you are new to GA (specifically, new to ownership or the details of maintenance etc) you don’t know who to ask. I recall some of the bullsh1t I was told at the flying school when I said I wanted to buy a plane. Most people will recommend a plane which they found meets their requirements e.g. the old guy CFI suggested I buy a Piper Dakota because, he said, you can transport a whole engine in that.
And obviously the lower down the price range you look, the harder it is to find something in a good condition.
Peter wrote:
In the end I bought a newer (2007) 182 and I budget £20k per year plus fuel to run itI would be astonished if you managed to spend 20k on maintenance alone, on a 2007 C182. More like 5-6k (GBP). That’s what my TB20 would cost me if I took it to some company for everything.
Very true Peter, and sorry my post was probably slightly out of context for the original question. The £20k is ‘everything’, eg £5700 for hangerage, £2500 insurance, £1200 home based landing card, then £10k for maintenance. I know that I have some expensive things that need doing the next 12 months (eg Amsafe seatbelt recharge) and I am anal about doing maintenance properly (once spent £9k in a year on a TVR car to get it perfect), so £10k is not far off for the next 12 months but I suspect it will go down to your suggested £5-6k the following year. I budget fuel separately.
Not forgetting the £1500 a year to Jeppesen, does that count as maintenance??!!!!
