How to BUY YOUR FIRST PLANE

so you want to buy a plane but you want to know what plane to actually buy where to find that plane and of course how much it's all going to cost you well that's what I want to help you with in this video today see this is the big in Hill Air Show I used to go here as a kid every year when I lived in England watching the displays gazing up at those red arrows flying above me yes that's me watching the displays back in 1982 when I would spend my summers in the UK at air shows like there streaming of one day becoming a pilot fast-forward several decades now I'm a qualified pilot and I'm lucky enough to own my own plane it's this one Iko yankee zulu a secondhand Cirrus sr22 built in 2007 which I bought in 2019 I've owned it for just over a year now as I record this and in that time I've learnt quite a lot about what it's like to own to manage and to operate your own aircraft the good things and the bad things so today I want to share with you some advice and pointers on what it is actually like to buy your own plane and how to go about it if you're thinking of taking the leap now my good friend Philippe is not only a flight instructor in the UK but he's also a professional aircraft broker he buys and sells planes for a living so I figured if anyone is going to be able to answer the question how do you buy a plane it's probably gonna be him Philippe if I would have come to you before I bought a co Yankee Zulu what what would you have told me where do I start like in buying a plane the first thing is do you want to own or do you want to have a different structure of getting your aviation fix it can be your local flight school right you might just be a renter for life which is totally fine and sometimes the economics make that easier right or you might be in shared ownership or you might be in a non equity ownership group or it might be full outright 100% ownership or you might have a buddy who you want to get into ownership with and there's just the two of you guys sharing the fixed costs on it on an airplane so that's your thinking about what structure of ownership is probably an initial first you know first port of call I'd say but how do I know which plane like is gonna be right for me because I'd flown serious before right so I was kind of leading that way and then I found a co Yankees early pretty quick and I did jump it it was like the first plane I flew and tested and it's the the plane that I bought but how did how do you go about deciding which is the right plane that you should buy people will always talk about define the mission okay so what is it that you want to do will determine ultimately what an airplane you end up buying you don't buy a sports car to move house you don't buy a truck to bring your kids to school in the morning to find the mission as many things how many people you're gonna care where you want to go like what it is you want to do do you want to fly invert it fly to your second home regularly like are you taking lots of friends seems define the mission I think there's many facets to it and then you're not gonna find me airplane that does 100 percent of that list is that airplane is the elusive bird it doesn't exists right so find one that's 95 percent of what is on your top list of requirements for the plane now just before we go on with that chat with Philly just on that list of requirements I distinctly remember emailing a list of requirements to Steven at Blue Demon Aviation the maintenance company who look after echo Yankee Zulu with a list of my priority a and priority B items and I found that email I thought you might be interested to see what my requirements were before I actually went ahead and bought the aircraft so priority a you can see I thought that it needs to be IFR certified which echo Yankee Zulu is I put down Viki flight into known icing which I ended up not going ahead with okay Yankee Zoo is not a fix aircraft it has basic ice protection but it's not legally allowed to fly into known icing I wanted a traffic alert system which it does have a digital autopilot while it has the DFC 90 built in and ice put in there the ability to fit an extra tank in the back for around the world which the serious aircraft can actually do then the priority be items in the email with things like a metal prop I didn't want to have a composite prop because I thought the metal would be more durable air conditioning which was a nice to have I actually ended up getting an aircraft with air conditioning in which is a real nice to have especially in Australia Barrow vina which I now have with the GTN 650 s that I put in afterwards into the aircraft XM weather it doesn't have any sort of weather or anything like that in the aircraft at the moment jeferson charts in the MFD no it doesn't have that either I use Jefferson charts on an iPad and managed by Blue Demon which the aircraft actually is so you can see from that list of priorities not everything that I originally wanted from the aircraft is in the aircraft that I now own but I was lucky because I knew that I wanted to buy a very specific aircraft I was looking for a Cirrus sr22 but what happens if you don't know what aircraft you want to buy what happens if you don't have enough experience in different types of aircraft to I went down to the one that you want to purchase that's what I asked Philippe next it's probably cuz you have an experience enough right so invest a little bit of capital upfront and you know Beggan and barter for rides and different types of aircraft and if you haven't had that experience then you really can't make that informed decision so if you if you're waffling on the define the mission bit then maybe it's just because you haven't fought enough different types so try try before you buy where you can you try and get rides from friends and stuff in their aircraft exactly exactly and you know sometimes you'll have to pay for that going for those little test days and like investing a little bit in that exploration it's gonna make you so much happier down down the road well I found the plane I know kind of what I'm after I there's one available it's right for me it meets my mission objectives but what are the options then when it comes to financing and actually affording this yeah no that's it listen that's a great question and there's a lot of hidden costs even just before you even own the airplane depending on the size of it there'll be a lawyer involved there might be an escrow agent involved you know there's potentially you're using a buyer's agent which I would highly recommend right they do transactions over and over and over and over again and understand all the pitfalls especially if it's your first airplane but there are finance solutions out there right and aircraft ownership doesn't have to be a big money game at all right there are airplanes out there for fifteen twenty thirty thousand dollars and and they don't depreciate at that point they're not depreciating like cars right and that's I think a big point right if you're putting in 30,000 40,000 into an airplane it's not like as soon as you take delivery of that pre-owned aircraft it's worth now 20,000 you're just holding value in the plane you know at the end of the day but what are some things that you should really consider for you know an ongoing budget for flying the biggest ticket items are finance then you have insurance which is most likely your next highest number hang ring is a big expense and your annual inspection there's normally also a big inspect expense the way to learn it's a way to define those numbers are to talk to people right talk to the mechanic talk to the previous owner of an airplane that you're interested in like really try to get in touch with the owner himself there's no reason why you should give directly with the seller and get a bit of insights to what you know the proper ownership costs have been in the past on that helmet specific airframe a lot of the big OEMs have very active ownership groups right Cirrus has the Cirrus owners and Pilots Association TBM has TVM OPA Piper hat has I mean they you know they all have ownership groups and then some more active than others but on those you'll find lots of insights I want to buy plane I've got a rough idea of what I want I've got a kind of budget that I've got in mind but I've got no idea where to start looking or what the process is how would you kind of map out the steps then kind of to answer that elusive question how do you buy a plane I'll tell you what it's really difficult and you should seek professional advice wherever possible no no I mean in all honesty you know the process can can normally be quite simple right and there's a there's a title on the aircraft it's owned by you know person a and that title needs to be changed to person B where there are complications is where the the transaction is international right or where there's a rewrite restoration of the aircraft onto a different aircraft register that can get quite complicated if there's finance then that's also you know can increase a bit to complexity you know if you're buying a pre-owned aircraft you know it's prudent as the buyer to seek a pre-purchase inspection sorry if I've decided to go ahead I do want to buy the aircraft can you do you honestly think an aircraft can be considered an investment that you would get money back from or is it an investment in just yourself and you're flying to say that an aircraft is gonna go up in value is if I said that it's probably not true I mean there are some right if you look at super cup values I don't know why would they keep going up but is it an investment you know I don't think so right you could probably put that money in in the stock market and get significantly better returns most airplanes will depreciate yeah and you know the cost to keep an airplane going you know so every time you start the engine off actually it's and quite a lot of money right so you want to want to make sure you're enjoying it right and that should be the principle reason for getting into aircraft ownership is that there's actually utility to it and I might be an enjoyment utility it might be a business utility right but there's a reason for it if you've got the option to buy should you should you rent instead should you rent or should you buy how do you make the decision between renting and buying so there's nothing like getting to your airplane and your headset is already plugged in and you're flying glasses are already in the in the pouch and your checklist is where you want it and it's clean like there's there's no feeling like that right were you and you you must feel it every time you open the hangar doors and you see Eko Yankee Zulu sitting there and your heart flutters and you're like ah everything's in slow motion as I skip towards it that feeling can't can't be replaced with renting for sure right but just on the pure economics of it I generally say that if you're flying more than 60 70 hours a year then owning starts to make sense there's not a hard rule like nobody come down on me for for giving up a hard number because it's not a hard number right it depends very much on what aircraft you're looking at buying see time we'd someone let yourself and do the calculations exactly that's I guess that's part of this defining the mission bit right it's like if you're gonna fly you know 150 hours a year right or if you're using it if you have a very specific purpose right which is that you're you're you're looking at an airplane to get to the the lake house right or to you know to get to the second home then a flight school is probably not gonna be the right solution for that if you're going on that sunny weekend and you're flying two hours to the lake house on Friday Saturday Sunday it's sitting on the ground there and Monday morning you're flying it back the flights was not gonna be happy with that and actually owning that air of renting that airplane if you're doing that consistently is actually gonna start mounting up the costs more than if you just on the plane outright if you're not subscribed to the channel do consider clicking on this subscribe button here it means a lot to me to see the channel grow and helps me do a lot more here on YouTube in the future otherwise thanks as always for watching [Music]

Channel: Stefan Drury

Views: 352,934

Rating: 4.9211292 out of 5

Keywords: private pilot, buying a plane, flight training, pilot training, how to buy an airplane, buying a planer, buying an old airplane, cheap new airplanes, how to buy a helicopter, how to buy a plane

Id: ejhyKmiewEM

Length: 11min 35sec (695 seconds)

Published: Thu May 07 2020