Spend on flying per year as owners

Noob question : Beechbaby pays 28k and denopa 55k
Where is the difference from ?
I already preferred the Bonanza anyway

I would say that the average cost of the Mooney per year was around 23 k Euros, with fluctuations between 16k and 27k depending on the amount of hours flown. Of course I don’t spend all this myself as I have people who fly the plane too. But that would be the cost of ownership. I did not include investments in this such as Avionic upgrades or the engine overhaul. All around, the cost per hour varies massively with amounts of hours flown, but the average is around 300 Euros/hr.

A backyard-based Maule costs about 80 quid an hour including fixed costs spread over a typical 150 hrs a year. The cost per passenger-mile looks close enough to Jason’s Mustang that it hardly seems worth down-grading just to have an on-board lavatory to clean.

It knocks a few k off the costs for sure, plus it provides a lot of peace of mind and security. And facilitating freelance maintenance (the owner or a freelance engineer) saves another few k.

This thread has been very instructive and I would like to thank everyone who posted their figures. It helps a newbie and renter to assess the true cost of ownership and plan their own aviation future accordingly.

For me personally the results are quite disheartening. If even Mooneys ancient M20 costs 20k a year, there is no way for me to afford a plane in the near future, especially not one I would aspire to have. Partial ownership might be the only solution.

Very definitely a syndicate is the way to go for you, and many others. With a small group, say 3 or 4, you can still do multi-day trips because almost nobody flies often enough to be bothered. I fly once a week…

Also remember that old planes can be very expensive indeed. As a plane reaches some age (depending on abuse in past years or decades) the airframe parts start to wear e.g. control linkages. These are really expensive. A universal joint like this

is easily €1000 and a plane will have a dozen similar items. They should not wear if greased properly but almost nobody does greasing because it takes time. Most companies use a spray lube which leaves the old dust and other crap in there, grinding away nicely for another year… Greasing adds a few hundred € to the Annual but even if you ask for it most companies won’t actually do it once you walk out of the door.

My plane, at 15 years, has very little wear anywhere, because it has generally been greased. We did the entire landing gear last year, every last bit, and it took 2-3 days.

So my plane costs me a few hundred € in parts at every Annual, and unscheduled work is minimal. At the other end of the scale you might have a 30+ year old mostly-neglected twin which costs 20k every year. A lot of twins are neglected because there is a spare engine and anybody who doesn’t believe that should visit the UK and look around. I know a TB20 which costs ~10k a year – it is 33 years old and has been neglected most of its life, mostly AFAIK in dysfunctional syndicates.

The next thing is how tight a control of the maintenance situation you have. If you are ELA1 (under 1200kg) or N-reg then you can use a freelance engineer who works for you and nobody else.

But the best thing is to start by buying a plane, or a share in one, which is in a good condition.

Peter wrote:

We did the entire landing gear last year, every last bit, and it took 2-3 days.

Will you ever save that time with the additional speed a RG gives you above a FG in the aircrafts whole life? There are questions in aviation better remaining unasked

@MedEwok My way to afford my own plane was to go the uncertified way and choose a 2-seater rather than a 4-seater, because there are in the end much less restrictions that one might think. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea of course but it is well worth some thoughts.

Not a meaningful question since the average annual man hours exceeds the average annual airborne hours

Most years, the gear is greased externally only, plus via grease nipples.

IMHO it would be very bad advice to recommend anyone new to this game to go the homebuilt route unless they are seriously mechanically adept (and are prepared to put in the hours for nothing) or can “get hold of” someone who is willing to do it (and is prepared to put in the hours for nothing, or is getting some other payoff). Anything else will lead to a disaster in the long run. I know we have had many threads on this topic before but they do always partition along the lines of tinkerers v. non-tinkerers, with the former group being unwilling to admit they are tinkerers and the latter group being unwilling to write about how much they throw at their Part M

Anyone who is on 50-100k (which a doctor should achieve) can get into a syndicate for sure and do some good flying. Family support will help of course, massively.

It certainly helps when you own your own airfield….

Well, up to a point. We have to maintain several runways (not just because it is boring always to land on the main one, we don’t want to have to walk from one field to the next) and periodically clean sheep-crud off our aeroplane wings and tail, and of course we have to fill in some forms. EU sheep and cattle need forms when they move, and when they stop moving, the Scottish government needs two or three census forms a year, SNH needs a deer cull return – and of course nice car workers in Bavaria who have proper jobs and pay taxes so that we can look after the Scottish countryside for them like to have forms. Forms for the Basic Payment Scheme (including Greening and Young Farmer payments), the Less Favoured Area Support Scheme, the Scottish Upland Sheep Support Scheme, the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme, the Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Fund, the Environmental Co-operation Action Fund, not to mention LEADER, the Scottish Suckler Beef Support Scheme (Mainland and Islands) and half a dozen other schemes with which you’re probably not quite so familiar. So, you see, life is much more complicated than you can imagine for some poor Scottish airfield owners…