![]() ![]() “Fixed expenses” are the costs you spend every month whether you fly or not, like monthly payment, insurance, annuals and storage. What’s next? Let’s fly our plane! Flying expenses (gas, oil, engine reserves) are called “variable expenses” because the amount you spend each month varies with how much you fly. Because we’re financing the airplane, insurance will be required by the bank. Insurance? With a private license, a brief checkout and no accidents, all of these airplanes will run about $130 per month in insurance. Also, because things always break, let’s add another $70 per month for rainy-day glitches. An annual will reasonably run about $2,500 per year, so we’ll calculate $210 per month for annuals. ![]() There’s nothing particularly complicated about the overall maintenance on any of these airplanes. All of our choices for sole ownership are fixed gear (except the Mooney, which has a simple and economical manual gear on all pre-1969 models) and have a simple and generally trouble-free 160/180 hp, four-cylinder Lycoming O-320/O-360 engine. The annual will be the next largest amount. This will give us a monthly payment of about $320. ![]() With a decent down payment, let’s assume we’ll be financing $40,000. At today’s interest rates, each $10,000 financed will be approximately $80 per month, so we can spend $45,000 to $50,000. If our budget is $1,000 per month, the payment will be the biggest regular monthly expense item. Each of these is easy to fly, can reasonably carry four adults at 110 to 160 mph, burns about 8 gph, and is known for simplicity of maintenance and fewest age-related “surprises.” My favorites for sole ownership on $1,000 per month are the Piper Cherokee 180, Cessna 172, Beech Sundowner and Mooney M20C. (See “ Partnership Aircraft” from the November 2007 issue for an in-depth look at the pros and cons of joint ownership. Of course, both methods of ownership have upsides and downsides. A joint-ownership arrangement opens up the possibilities to a newer, faster or six-seat airplane by splitting up the largest monthly costs, but one drawback to joint ownership is that you may have to really search for like-minded partners if you’re not in a large, metropolitan area. The benefit of sole ownership is that it’s your airplane, always available for you 24/7 and you know who’s been flying it. Let’s also compare the type of $1,000-per-month airplane we can own and fly under two different ownership paths: sole ownership and joint ownership. ![]()
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