How Much It Costs To Own An Airplane | My Exact Numbers | Mooney M20C

hey there and welcome back to my time to fly i'm quickly coming up on the first year of my moony ownership it just seems like the right time to talk through the real costs associated with owning an airplane if there's specific questions that i don't answer just leave it in the comments below i'll try to answer them the best i can if you're new to the channel thanks for being here it's my goal to bring you along on my aviation journey hopefully providing just a bit of inspiration along the way don't forget to click that subscribe button if you enjoy seeing some real life general aviation first let me remind you of exactly what i purchased it's a 1963 mooney m20c powered by a 180 horse lycoming engine and a constant speed prop it has the famed johnson bar retractable landing gear system and manual flaps it's ifr capable although it's not currently certified it does have a non-wasp kln 94 gps which we use extensively for vfr flight there is no working autopilot in the plane although it flies so straight i'd be hard-pressed to ever spend the money on one there are around 3 700 total hours on the airplane 840 hours on the engine and about 75 or so on a new prop from before our purchase the paint is a little thin and the interior is original but not too shabby if you're interested in more detail about the moonie specifically i'll link a video in the description below of a walk around i did back in the spring it's also important for you to know that the plane is hangered at a small airport just outside of grand rapids michigan it's clear to me that your geography can have a profound impact on the total cost of ownership it's also worth noting that i do own the plane in a partnership although that means many of the costs i'll talk about are cut in half i think it makes sense to talk about the total sum of costs in this case if the totals are more than you want to spend then perhaps you should also pursue a partner or a couple finally i'm not including any costs associated with financing the airplane there are so many ways to approach buying an airplane i could even start to guess what your situation might be i'll make a video detailing some airplane financing options later on whether you're paying cash or financing the plane it is my opinion that general aviation airplanes are currently appreciating at a rate that will allow you to get your money back out of the plane when and if you choose to sell it assuming you approach ownership with the mindset of improving the airplane throughout your ownership that is so without further ado let's dig into the numbers i'll begin with the fixed costs first being insurance i know there is a lot of talk about the cost of insurance rising and many factors play into the cost of your premium in our case both of the owners are low time pilots with now about 25 hours of complex time neither of us are ifr rated either perhaps our saving grace is that the whole value on our airplane is fairly low with that said our insurance premium is two thousand seventy four dollars annually for those of you who are interested we are insured through avemco who i've been quite impressed with next up is our hangar rent like i mentioned before we live in a suburb of grand rapids michigan which fortunately is a fairly low rent area the airport where we hanger 8 delta 4 is owned and operated by the village of sparta perhaps the best aspect of our airport is that our airport manager is a great pilot advocate he does a great job making decisions that truly benefit the pilots and aircraft owners so anyways our hangar is nothing special it's a standard t-hanger which some might call stacked the building houses 10 or so airplanes with no dividing walls between the aircraft there's electrical but no heat and all the doors are manual you can get a better idea from my video where i took some time to clean out the hanger you can find that in the cart above anyway we do feel blessed to have our airplane at 8 delta 4 especially since our hangar only runs 162 a month which is 1953 a year the next set of expenses do begin to blend fixed and variable costs you probably guessed it maintenance costs let me start by saying we've been extremely lucky during the first year we haven't really had any unexpected maintenance costs i know i shouldn't even say those words but hey it's the truth in this case so i classify the fixed side of maintenance expenses to be anything happening at annual we all know our planes have to go through annual each year and there's a cost to that work sure you're able to spend more if you choose to perform upgrades at that time or you can skimp out and defer a bunch of maintenance which i certainly don't recommend this year we did have a bit of extra work completed including some painting on the bottom panels anyway our total for the annual this year was two thousand five hundred and seventy dollars and six cents if you're interested you can see a further breakdown in the video linked above [Music] the variable maintenance costs are things like oil headlights nav lights all the little things that quit on you throughout the year this year we spent 479 dollars and 74 cents on those extras so our total maintenance spend was just a hair over three thousand dollars [Music] the final category of costs are those which are completely variable that is costs only caused by flying the plane this might include items such as fuel and tie down fees i'm sure there are more but those are the only variable costs that come to mind in our case our only variable cost was fuel this year we spent two thousand twenty five dollars in fuel of course i haven't told you how many hours we flew quite yet so in 2020 the total cost of ownership on our 63 mooney m20c was approximately nine thousand one hundred and two dollars in that time we flew 52.3 hours on the tack after a little easy math it cost us 174 dollars an hour to fly the money in 2020. like i said that cost was per hour based on tact time those 52 hours would likely have been 65 or even 70 hours out of hob speeder which every flight school uses so based on hot time our cost was only about 130 an hour for a quick reference at the same airport we can rent an ifr-capable cessna 172 for 140 an hour wet so of course the question of the day is is it worth it my answer is of course it's worth it first it's quite rare to find a rentable mooney and if you did you'd likely pay more than you could run a 172 for beyond that i would much rather share a plane with one other pilot or none at all rather than 10 20 or even 50 other pilots renting this means that when you have good days it's much more likely the plane will be available and in good condition i also find a lot of confidence in knowing exactly who has been flying the aircraft i'm taking my family in i'm not suggesting that people are intentionally abusing the rental fleet i just struggle to believe the level of attention on reynolds is anywhere near that of a typical owner so to sum it all up it costs just as much money to own your own plane per hour than it would to rent if you were able to fly about five hours a month or more anything less than that you might be better off running that is unless the peace of mind of having your own bird is more important on the other side of the equation if you can't stand the risk of the inevitable large maintenance expense it might just be worth continuing down the path of renting either way i'm glad to have the mooney it's afforded me some great adventures so far with many more to come don't forget to subscribe if you want to follow along on those adventures and as always i encourage you to find your time to fly [Music] you

Channel: My Time To Fly

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Keywords: Mooney, cost of owning an airplane, plane cost, airplane costs, aviation, Mooney M20, mooneyzoom, flying, IFR, VFR, cessna, piper, familyadventure, m20c, privatepilot, flymichigan, Aviation, Airport, Flight Vlog, Airplane, Landing, Pilot, Cockpit, General Aviation, Pilot Vlog, Flying Video, Aircraft, Travel Vlog, VFR Flying, Small Plane, liveatc, atc, air traffic control, flight following, cross country, KLN94, fly, pilot, owning a plane, airplane, learn to fly, how to fly, my time to fly

Id: Gqz5Pd1J6ys

Length: 9min 3sec (543 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 02 2021