How Much Does it Cost to Own and Restore an Airplane? My Cherokee Six Cost Breakdowns!

hello everyone and welcome to flying dirty if you're into aviation and you're like me and enjoy watching other pilots vlogs and experiences then consider subscribing after watching this video and give me a big thumbs up in today's video i will be discussing the associated cost to restore an airplane like mine as per the request of several of my wonderful viewers from my last video but before i start i wanted to take time out to thank all of you for supporting the channel on my last video we were at 150 subscribers and two weeks later we are well at over 500 so thank you very much for your support and thank you very much for watching for your thumbs up and for the wonderful and inspiring comments you guys always leave me now let's get started with today's topic all right folks welcome to uh flying dirty we're gonna talk about the cost of restoring an airplane at least for a cherokee six it may be a little cheaper for a smaller airplane like a pa-28 or a four-seater as opposed to a six-seater but uh this these prices are going to get you right around the ballpark okay so that you know what you're looking at if you're wanting to buy an airplane and you want to restore it uh so first things first the first thing that we've done to restore this airplane was the interior and uh i know that we've got a lot of stuff back here and you see all that stuff back there's because i have a graphic job to do in dallas so uh that's what all that stuff is back there but all of this interior was the first thing that i've done to the airplane okay as you can see new carpet and all that good stuff so for for the interior i got everything from airtex and that included the carpet the seat covers uh the seat support material because the material on the other seats was worn out and when you set your butt on the seat uh your butt would sink and uh you would be very low actually uh like a low rider but uh so i got all the cushions i got support material and all that stuff for the seats as well then all the panels that you see so all these panels are all new from air techs as well okay so i got the panels the arm rest i got those from uh air techs as well so here the the armrest which i rarely use but i guess i don't even know why i don't use it actually it's pretty comfortable i've never used it wow okay so the armrest uh the hat shelf now the hat shelf is way back there where you see that pillow in my emergency case that's the hat shelf so the carpet for the hat shelf i got that as well they call it a hat shelf pad the headliner i also got from air tags the baggage panels which uh they're in the front compartment so i got all the baggage panels but the interior anyway was seven thousand four hundred dollars okay so that's what you're looking at for an interior uh the other thing that i did to the airplane was the paint the paint job now i did i did look for a lot of quotes online and uh and the price for a cherokee six ranged anywhere from eighteen thousand to twelve thousand dollars now again i was charged twelve thousand for the paint scheme but it can go pretty expensive uh so just to let you know make sure you shop around because a lot of times it's probably worthwhile flying to another destination if you can fly in a spot that can do it much cheaper and save you thousands of dollars uh now i also had the uh prop changed and the reason i did that is because my two blade prop i found that uh one one time i was about to fly cross country to dallas and while i was doing my pre-flight i found a leak and uh and i didn't really like that and i didn't feel comfortable so i cancelled the flight and i had my mechanic inspected and then he removed it and we we had it overhauled or we tried to get it overhauled but it would have cost more to get it overhauled than it would have to buy a new three blade prop so we did end up buying a three blade prop from hearthstone which i like it better it gives you a little better climb performance and uh they say it gives you about two or three knots faster on cruise speed but i didn't i haven't really noticed that because i guess i didn't pay i didn't pay much attention before and uh so i haven't noticed that but i have noticed that it does give you a better climb rate by at least about a hundred vertical feet a minute uh and the prop will cost about 7 500 for that if you need a new prop in most cases you don't need it but but the price is 7 500 if you do decide to replace the prop and uh and of course that does not include install so with me i held my mechanic and uh and i got a cheaper price because i helped i helped them with the installation so as far as your paddle upgrades well that can also vary a lot just like your paint job that can vary so my suggestion is shop around shop around because you can save again thousands of dollars so i've got a few quotes here i got one two three four i believe four or five quotes here but here let me go over these quotes this is this is somewhere in florida now i'm not going to say who the quote is from or which company but i can tell you that it was in florida so you do you you take a guess but uh this was a company in florida they were going to charge me 800 to remove the old vacuum pump 41 000 for the g3 x that included the angle of attack and then the garmin g5 as a backup which is included with the g3x and then the garmin autopilot which at that time it was still not approved for the pa-32 but recently they have approved it for the pa-32 but with the gfc autopilot uh 80s being receiver new breakers which would have been around 1200 new uh panel design which is what you're looking at here the ipad mount they were gonna charge me fifteen hundred dollars for an ipad mount i think that's highway robbery okay uh to move the 330 es which is this one here so i had the 330es on my older panel i had it over here and i wanted to move here so that i could have an easy stack and i can reach everything with access so for moving that 500 then dual usb plugs which i had these plugs here installed one here and one on my pilot side right under here uh those plugs they wanted to charge 900 for that so bottom line uh the estimated time would have been two to three months for the appointment but the entire system with the g3x with this particular company in florida was 46 600 which is not bad it's reasonable compared to other quotes that i that i got now that 46 600 did not include the garmin gfc because the autopilot was not approved so that's one quote then another quote uh for the dinan so so the same company they quoted me with the dinan so pretty much the same thing for all of the other optional things that i wanted done except but 25 000 so here's a big difference 25 000 for the dining versus oh where is it versus 41 000 for the garmin g3x that's a big difference so that was part of why i went with the dyna not only the dynon i think can do a whole lot more features than the garmin g3x the garmin g3x in my opinion is all about your name so you're paying for that luxury for that for having that name uh but also your um your charts are so much more expensive with garmin so the charts which i'll go over i'm going to do another uh episode here on why i like the dynon so the dynon for your ifr vfr charge 99 a year also your base maps and your terrain are free with dyna free so i really like that that's another reason i i went with them but uh comparing the two and for the price and not only that it was compatible also with the true track i went with the diner uh but uh but anyway let's go over the quote for the uh with the dynam so then the dino autopilot which this dino has a very nice autopilot and it is full with everything you need i mean the autopilot has everything including ias mode uh it has your automatic trim you can do ios approaches you can do gps approaches i mean it has everything okay it even has your uh it even has your damper so pretty much everything that autopilot has and the autopilot is built in the system all you need to purchase are the motors and installation it is a very cheap reasonable autopilot and it does everything so it's not available for the pa32 now what i don't understand is that they approved it now for the p834 which is virtually the same airplane except but two engines so i'm not sure why they approved it for the p834 and not for the pa-32 but anyway i'm waiting for that to be approved and then i may consider uh actually putting that autopilot in and replacing my true track but i don't know because i'm actually very happy with my true track but that's just something to consider but anyway uh the dynon 80sb receiver the dynon engine monitor they wanted to charge me 9 000 now i think that's a little bit overboard uh so here's what you get so with the dynon engine monitor you get all your monitors okay which i love it because with the with the cherokee six what i hated about the way that they installed your instruments were i had to look way over here for my fuel gauges and all of my other instrumentations like my old oil temp and all that they were way out of reach and it drove me nuts especially at nighttime it drove me nuts what i love about this now is that i have my engine monitors all right here and they're precise and accurate so i really really really really love that so uh so that's one of those things that uh you know again the monitor it's included it's built in the system you just need an engine monitor module and then also your connection so it shouldn't be nine thousand dollars that's just that's my opinion uh that's highway robbery as well uh the dynon 808 probe which is this uh angle of attack so this a lot of people ask me what is that noise that beeps whenever you're landing and approaching so it is this angle of attack so right now of course we're all the way in the green because we're cruising very fast but as you slow down this will start decreasing and uh and as it decreases it starts slowly beeping and it increases with intensity when you reach your stalling point of the wing angle of attack so i do like that probe that they installed under the wing the dynon is just absolutely fabulous i'm very pleased with it so bottom line is 43 700 and again with no autopilot then i had another local company for the same setup with the uh with the dynon and with the true track installed now now keep in mind i already bought the chew truck i already had it i just had it sitting in the box lying around waiting for someone to install it uh my mechanic just couldn't get around to it so i had it installed when i did my whole panel upgrade but uh but anyway that included to install this true track and that was a 50 000 estimate so right there more than this okay so so yeah shop around guys so fifty thousand dollars and then uh saint aviation quoted me uh sixteen thousand ninety uh i'm sorry sixteen 16 790 for the dine on package which was very more uh much more reasonable than the other quotes i received and then 1200 for the 80sb 3333 for the engine monitor now that's what i'm talking about not nine thousand dollars come on that was a little bit ridiculous uh then 750 for a module for an interface for the 430w but but in this case it'll be an interface for the avadyn since i got the avadyne now and then uh the dynon-con 2500 which is this com that you see here which is also controlled by the dynam and then uh 1500 for the new breakers i thought that was a little too much but that's okay uh to design the panel was 1500 that's pretty typical thousand dollars for the dynon probe a little higher than the other company but that's okay that's that's very reasonable and then here it is 200 for the ipad now i didn't get i didn't get charged that because i ended up just uh doing a panel mount myself it was pretty simple to do so i just went on and clipped it on there myself and it's portable so you can take it in and out so it's not built in so that's why i was able to do that and then uh three thousand dollars he charged me three thousand to install the true track which again i think that's very reasonable and hundred dollars for usb plugs look at that not 900 so and then 6 500 for the avadyn because i traded in my 430w so that came to a grand total of 38 373. then i got another quotation from another company in texas uh now this this one scared me a lot so the other company wanted to charge 9000. this company wanted to charge 11 625 just to plug in these instruments boy that's ridiculous but anyway that quote came up to 57 730 all right so then that's that quote so guys when you're restoring your airplane just make sure that you shop around because shopping around can literally save you thousands of dollars uh now why did i go with saint aviation even though it was further i had to go to florida uh the reason i went with him is because the price was reasonable and then i also have already seen his work and i've already seen how his installations would look on a pa-32 so i knew what i was gonna get and uh you know and he knew how to sync the true track with the sky view which some people uh when i when i was talking to them about the quotes and all that they didn't know how to really do that but i've already seen jesse install this on other in another airplane from another video that i saw so i knew that uh he could get the job done and i knew that i would be satisfied with the job that he was gonna do so that's another reason why i went there and again i'm and i'm and i'm extremely happy with the installation procedure it only took about two and a half weeks to get this whole thing redone so the guy he is very organized and he knows how to get things done so that's another thing i didn't have to keep the airplane uh waiting without flying it for so long so i recommend anyone that has a pa-32 or even a piper or whatever airplane you have if you want to if you want to upgrade uh i highly recommend jesse at saint aviation he he's done a very tremendous job of my airplane and i'm very satisfied and uh and i'm sure that you will be satisfied as well so i hope that this helps uh at least give you the figures that uh you know that you may be looking for to get you in this in that ballpark now the other thing i didn't mention which i haven't done because my engine had has low time but uh if you do need an engine if you need an overhaul for the piper 3-2 for a 300 i believe the overhaul will range anywhere from thirty five thousand to forty thousand dollars and if you buy a brand new engine that can cost you up to sixty thousand dollars plus depending on where you uh where you get it done and i do believe that's just the engine i don't believe that that includes the uh installation and all of the stuff and all the work that you have to do so that's another thing to keep in mind that if you get an airplane that has high time on the engine and it's time for that overhaul uh you should consider those uh factors uh but anyway guys uh i hope that this video was helpful and if you have any questions on upgrades and things of that nature then let me know i'll be uh happy to answer your questions take care guys and see you on the next episode and with that don't hesitate to leave a comment and let me take this time to thank out all of my subscribers thank you and please continue to share my videos with other individuals to make this channel grow even faster and if you're watching me for the very first time then support the channel and subscribe and if you love aviation as much as i do also give me a thumbs up until next time take care stay safe and have a great day my friends you

Channel: Flying Dirty

Views: 34,344

Rating: 4.9632545 out of 5

Keywords: Owning your own airplane, aircraft ownership, cost to own your own airplane, Cost to restore your own airplane, cost to repair an airplane, cost to fix an airplane, cost for new avionics, cost for new prop, cost for new airplane interior, cost for airplane paint job, cherokee six, pa32, piper cherokee, airplane cost, flying dirty, dynon skyview hdx, aerocruze 100, trutrak autopilot

Id: 80ioVeagGyo

Length: 20min 15sec (1215 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 27 2020