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Buying, flying and keeping a plane in the USA

I am looking for your opinions on this.
Think of getting in your plane, maybe bringing a tent, and just flying for two weeks, camping, sightseeing… all without any high vis vests, without landing fees, without night closures, without paying 3 euro for a quarter gallon of avgas…

How feasible is it for a group of europeans to team up and buy, fly as well as station a plane in the US?

The US market for planes is huge and it should be possible to get a nice Cirrus or C182 for reasonable money.

Then station the plane at a small airfield near a major airport. I found a hangar for 355 USD month located 1,5 hours by car from JFK. Similar or cheaper “accommodation” can be found near ATL, MIA, DEN as well. Obviously California would be good for weather but the flight times from europe to the west coast are longer. JFK is really a quick hop from most EU cities.
A livecam in the hangar would be standard equipment as well ;).

Two owners.
Yearly cost estimate for insurance, trust, hangar, maintenance 20000 USD.
Travel expenses 10000 USD. (10 roundtrips, 5 roundtrips each or 2 roundtrips each with spouse).
Total: 30000 usd
Flight time 160 hours.
Hourly cost dry 188 USD.
Avg. Avgas price 15.10.2018: 5,5 USD/USG
Hourly cost wet: 270 USD
Obviously it would work for 3 or even 4 owners as well. And the plane could additionally be rented out to trusted EU pilots looking for a flying vacation in the US, even “privately” perhaps…

I’d need some real world numbers first as these are just guesstimates at this point.

Thanks for your input!

always learning
LO__, Austria

I think it would be hard to make sure the plane flies at least once a month. I also think you’d better rent a plane whilst going over there. It allows you to fly different planes for different missions, like bush flying, hi alt ifr, burger run,… Unless you want to buy something more exotic that you’ll never get certified/insured here in Europe.

EBST, Belgium

If that were such an attractive proposition, then more people would do it.
But there are several problems:

  • WHO is going to take of maintenance / troubleshooting, TLC, problems / administration? Distance (both physically and in terms of mentality / regulation) is a factor.
  • disagreements between the shareholder will be no different than here
  • it all sounds so nice, but as you see above, the cost is not all that much different than in Europe. The only things which are cheaper are fuel and landing fees.
  • after some initial excitement, it will get old very quickly. For example, flying in Florida and surroundings (with the exception of the Bahamas maybe) is quite boring. Compare with having a plane in, say, Germany, from where you can fly to the UK, Scandinavia, Poland, the Alps, Croatia, Italy, France within just a couple of hours…. heaven!
    I would much rather rent, and be able to see the nice corners of the USA on separate trips. Impossible when you are committed to flying that one bird in one corner of that huge country. The “flying” bit gets old quickly. It’s the travelling part which is interesting. But you really can’t do that with an SEP in the vast USA.
Last Edited by boscomantico at 16 Oct 07:05
Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

You will not save any money but I agree that you will probably have some fun flying. However, some countries in Europe still offers all those things that you list. I obviously have most experience in Scandinavia but I can tell you that we do have much of that here. Maybe you can start by becoming a member in an aeroclub up here and plan a trip for next summer. Then you can repeat it every summer at a different location, or country.

ESSZ, Sweden

I’d say it can be done but I agree with the previous posters that it will get old fast and there is a massive problem with distance. Yes, JFK is not that far away but if I see even here in Europe how many folks have their plane 1 hour by car away and find that it is too much trouble to quickly go for a flight… owning something this far off is an obligation you can do without.

As an example, many holiday homes in FL or elsewhere which got bought in the enthusiasm of owning a place in “paradise” stand empty most of the time and become a burden as family and potential friends coming along will have seen the place after one or two times there… Even here in Europe, people buy properties which very quickly turn into financial burdens and which in the end the whole family will get sour just thinking that they have to go again to this place because by the time they have cleaned, reparied and redone what standing empty has damaged the vaccations are over. Belive me I know what I am talking about.

With a plane, in order to get this kind of utilisation, you need to be there most of the year. Most planes here in Europe which are owned by folks 30 minutes from the airfield don’t get that utilisation! I don’t know how many vaccations you have but being optimistic if you have 6 weeks p.a then reasonably you can go over to the US 2-3 times for 2-3 weeks. The rest of the time the plane sits, which as we all know is poison to it. Even with 2 or 3 further owners, that will bring the yearly usage up to maybe 18 weeks, if all of them can agree to bypass each others vaccations.

If you feel the US is so much better to fly (which it most probably is) then in the end there is only one valid option: Emigrate or become a snow bird (6 months Florida resident during European winter) in which case something like this can be a real option and will also see sufficient utilisation. Or find yourself a syndicate over there with a group of American pilots who would be happy to take on a European partner.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

A good friend used to have a property at Spruce Creek fly in community, where the average garage/hangar will fit more than one ‘plane, but he sold it. Flights to Florida are quite cheap, and I did think this might be an idea.

Another buddy and his buddies fly out to the US and have an arrangement with an east coast club where they block hire a 182 or Cirrus and fly it for a few weeks around twice a year, one trip being around Oshkosh. This seems the ideal arrangement-it is not complicated to find an aircraft to hire at a dry rate if you agree to fly a block of hours.

Flying in the US is a great experience.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

I agree with bosco and MD; I can’t see it working. Joining a local syndicate at some scenic part of the US should work however – for those who think nothing of sitting on an airliner for 10-15hrs before they can fly their plane. The US has plenty of really scenic bits.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I have just returned from a short visit to our American friends and we actually discussed this very idea! Having a simple, but reasonably capable airplane like a C172/180hp we think this would be possible, as long as you know enough people who have a desire to fly in the US. We also discussed the possibility to do one-way trips, like coast-to-coast, and leave the airplane there for the next pilot. It would certainly involve some coordination, but I think it´s possible. If you can plan three weeks ahead you´ll find plenty of roundtrips at less than 300EUR. I might pursue the idea once it´s time to build the 200hrs IFR necessary to become an FI-IR.

EDFE, EDFZ, KMYF, Germany

I knew a very nice guy who was an airline pilot here. He owned a C172 in Florida and had a pad there, went there as often as he could and that was a lot as he flew into his US homebase with the carrier he worked for. He mostly did long haul and often dead-headed back to FL after other flights he did, based in Switzerland.

He decided to upgrade his plane and sold the one he had, then went to pick up the one he just had bought somewhere near Denver. He flew over to MIA and connected to DEN, then after a short rest picked up his plane, did the paperwork e.t.c. and set out back to TPA. On the last leg, somewhen at 3am local time, he was under control of Approach and got his descent clearance but never answered repeated calls by ATC after the plane started to descend on AP. It crashed into a golf course and burnt out. Best guess is that he fell asleep at the wheel not 20 NM from his destination. A totally useless loss of life of a great guy. Yet he should have known better.

Think about it. You are based in Europe, want a plane in the US. To fly over there takes a day, to fly back takes two (nightflight and reasonably one day to recover). Once you are there, you need one day per hour time difference to adjust to the new time zone, even though many will tell me they will fly after a good sleep over there, people are different. Yet Long Haul flying takes a lot of energy and is a huge candidate for fatigue, particularly westbound.

I used to do stuff like this, albeit not flying… working an early shift, catching the ZRH-IAD Austrian A310, picking up a car at IAD and driving 3 hours to Gettysburg PA. In retrospect, rather stupid, my driving certainly was not up to the best, even though I was young and stupid then. I am old now… would not do that anymore. Even flying ZRH-MIA and driving to Naples thereafter is not very clever either.

Yet, I know several people who decided to spend their retirement in the US. They are doing fine. One of them owns a house and a Mooney on a FL airpark. He spends 6 months per year there (as much as his visa allows) and the summer elsewhere. The other one actually has a greencard, not sure where he lives now, he has been around the country in an old Beech for years. I did consider something like this at some stage.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

My thoughts would include nice weather in the winter, using limited time to fly when I couldn’t so easily in Europe due to weather, and a good place to store the plane if I bought or became partners in one.

Winters are very nice in Arizona and there are a lot of attractive places to fly from that base. Also an excellent place to store a plane without corrosion damage.There are some direct flights to Phoenix from Europe, and that would also play into my thoughts – having flown many times back and forth to Europe, a direct flight is so much easier and is more important to me than east cost versus west coast.

Florida wouldn’t be as attractive to me due to the humidity and the relative lack of interesting geography… Unless you really like the ocean during your non-flying time, as some do. I’d rather fly in the west, where you can fly to mountains, snow and the ocean all on the same day if you’d like to.

Joining a rental focused club like Plus One (located in California) or similar would be easier…

Last Edited by Silvaire at 16 Oct 14:26
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