Is there too much elitism in GA?

@MedEwok, your ‘problem’ is that you’re young I am well paid today but wasn’t so well paid 20 years ago and I’ve spent much of the time in between saving money to buy things like aircraft…

Enjoy having a future!

PS I think European aviation is an elitist activity, populated in roughly equal measure by people who see that as regrettable and people who wouldn’t want it any other way. As with many similar things, the best thing to do is ignore that issue and many of the people involved with it, instead concentrating on the money it takes to do what you want to do & finding bargains in the market. If you have genuine enthusiasm, you will find people who can help and gravitate to the right solutions.

@MedEwok I split off the topic only because it is something I do when there is a significant diversion which I think is a valuable thing to discuss on its own, and you made a valuable point. It wasn’t done as any kind of opinion or judgement on what you wrote

I do have a tight rope to walk sometimes because I am a mod/admin here and being a pilot I also post here. This is also another topic which has come up a number of times before. Not everybody likes it, but there is basically no choice. Nobody who is into GA is going to do it without participating and EuroGA doesn’t have any money to employ somebody to do it. There is a big democratic advantage to everyone: if they don’t agree with a mod decision, they all know where to find me

You should be able to do great flying if you get into a syndicate. That is normally the cheapest way to fly something reasonable. It’s probably true you won’t be able to get yourself a €300k plane (for a while) but the people who have these usually have their own business (or they rent/borrow it from a friend); such is life… I am nearly 60 now and could not have done it (at the level I am doing it) before I was 40 even though I was in business since age 20.

MedEwok wrote:

Yet I must admit that I do wonder about how people here finance this great hobby of ours and seem to easily be able to chuck in 10k here or 20k there for repairs or avionics upgrades.

Well, I can only talk for myself, not others here. I have spent quite a bit of time since I restarted flying and also ownership in 2009 talking figures and numbers with people who are interested in ownership. And believe me, I can very well understand how it may sound to someone like you, who is not yet in this very much and just sees the horrendous prices which some of this stuff costs.

When I was what I presume is your age, i bought my first airplane, which was a C150 for somewhere around 10k CHF at the time (1981). I kept flying it quite happily as a single and together with a girlfriend for 10 years on and off, then moved on from flying for a while and came back in 2009. It turned out that at that time, very cheap airplanes could be had and I decided to getting involved again. After a long search and evaluation I finally bought a Mooney M20C, 1965, for less than I paid for my latest used car. Since then, I did an engine revision (2011) and avionic upgrade (2016). The engine overhaul was approximately 20k Euros. All in all I invested about one of your yearly salaries over 8 years. I expect the airplane would be worth about that much if I put it on the market today, which I have no intention of doing though.

In terms of cost, operating costs have been quite steady in recent years. I have a few friends who also fly the airplane (I am the sole owner though) and together we get between 50 and 90 hrs per year. I myself put in about 10k per year all included.

My salary is a bit higher than yours, but I am also 55 and work as a normal employee. I bought the plane after putting some money aside for it (actually spent less than half my budget as I knew about the upcoming overhaul) and then put aside for the avionics upgrade I wanted to so (was technically not necessary and particularly no longer required after Part NCO… but I did not know that then).

So how do I finance it? Well, it is my only hobby and due to the fact that I have some friends flying as well, it is quite cost neutral as compared to flying the same amount of hours in a club. But I can fly when I want and can stay away several weeks if I want to and I have the airplane equipped how I like it. And that makes it worth the while.

Today, you can pick up a nice simple (Fixed prop and gear) airplane for your experience for 10-20 k Euros if you are willing to wait and look around, if you are looking for a simple VFR tourer for your family, maybe even less. A retracable like an Arrow or a vintage Mooney will set you back between 20 and 40k, VFR, a bit more IFR. Most of this money you will get back when you sell it, as those planes have reached their bottom price already. In Germany, prices are a lot less than here, so I’d expect with Part NCO and ELA 1 maintenance, you can probably fly it for a lot less than I spend on mine too.

So in general, flying is not more expensive than owning any sort of motorized hobby device if you do it right. Even small boats cost the same kind of money, let alone RV’s or a vaccation home.

Yes it looks expensive but at 2nd glance, quite a few things will come into focus which are not at all so extreme as they looked from the outset.

MedEwok wrote:

At 31 probably in the younger third of EuroGA members. My salary will grow as I get older, but so will the costs. Buying a house will come before buying a plane I’m afraid, and good properties are expensive here (about 300-700k € depending on location).

It will all work itself out, as others told me 20 years ago (nauseating, isn’t it? ) With a little effort on my part, they were right. Many good things and good opportunities will happen for you, all I have to do is read your posts and it is obvious. Just make sure you don’t give yourself a nervous breakdown along the way. Houses here are in the same price range, but the mortgage tends to shrinks relatively as your pay rises and the property increases in value at say 3% per year. The best time financially for me in relation to spare flying and etc money was my 40s, which is when I bought my planes… after that you start looking towards retirement.

The most important thing you can do with respect to flying specifically is meet and associate with people who know stuff and have the right qualifications to help you get things done. If you have interest and commitment, it tends to happen and you end up doing things that initially seemed expensive and unattainable.

I rather suspect I’m at the bottom end of the pricing range covered by EuroGA members but I recall a conversation on a grass strip quite a long time ago with a lady, not a flyer, who opined that flying must be an expensive interest. So we replied that it can be but it doesn’t have to be. The ensuing conversation led her to speak of her own pastime, golf, and it quickly became apparent that her game was probably costing her more per annum, certainly not less than our light-end flying was costing us.

Mind you, had she encountered TB20 owners things would have been different.

As to elitism, amongst fliers out and about with their aircraft on airfields I cannot say I have found that. A different story though with some, repeat some, members of flying clubs. In my limited experience there are those who seem to like the idea of belonging to a flying club whether or not their annual, or even their total flying experience amounts to anything. Irritating but safely ignored.

Since we’re talking earnings etc, I do think we mustn’t forget that most people who afford expensive or newer aircraft are often self-employed and their aircraft is owned by the company. MedEwok, I earn about the same as you on my personal tax, but my one man corporation bills for about 4-5x times that depending on year. I don’t really have any big costs in my company – no office, no employees, drive an old car etc. I put the plane on the company and use untaxed money to pay for its upkeep.

Your earnings will only go up as you get older, and if you specialize in the more lucrative parts of medicine, perhaps be in private practice down the road, I would think you’d out-earn most on this board very quickly. Here in the US, you can almost bet good money that the guy who steps out of the Cessna Mustang or TBM is a doctor… Very common. My good friend Stan who owns the same twin TP as I do, is an anesthesiologist. As far as I know he’s not self-employed, but works for a hospital. I do know he’s rather senior in that department. Apparently this is enough to afford to run a TP twin. Maybe they just pay better in America for the medical profession? I don’t know.

had she encountered TB20 owners things would have been different.

I doubt it since production stopped in 2002… you need to pick a different type; basically a Cirrus (they go up to about $1M) or a similarly fully loaded DA42, or go up into the turboprop/jet sphere.

Maybe they just pay better in America for the medical profession?

I think the mostly insurance funded work in the USA does pay more. I saw a programme on TV the other day about heart disease and a guy who works 7 days a week doing stents was on (IIRC) $3M/year. Here, UK, a cardio (doing a private job in an NHS facility) gets $2k for a stent so he would have to do 1500 to get $3M which IMHO is impossible (to be fair I don’t know if the $3M guy got the patient all prepared before he turned up) so stents must pay more over there. I recall some discussion about the FAA Class 1 or 2 medical which if you have ever had a stent has a mandatory second angiogram and one figure mentioned in the USA was $10k which is 2x the UK figure.

Consultants doing private practice do however very well; visit a private hospital in the south-east and the reserved spaces are mostly 100k-200k cars. Many GPs have managed c. 150k/year although AIUI it tends to be done by making oneself available for call-outs at night.

But it remains clearly so, looking at pilots I know, that most of those who solely own planes of say 200k and above and use them nearly all have their own business, because getting money is one thing; the other challenge is getting free time when you want it. Anybody with a marketable skill can make a lot of money if they kill themselves.

@chuck_glider: I am sure I fly at a budget even lower than yours – witness the fact that I have yet to come in touch, even casually, with ladies who can afford to play golf

(though it seems the cost of playing golf can vary much between countries – just like the cost of private flying)