Plane Owner Shares Owning Experience! Thinking about buying a plane? Cost of ownership pros and cons

hey guys from from outside of the airplane this time unfortunately but want to answer some of the questions that I that I get a lot from from number different people either people like me that I already have a job and missed they're calling to go to the airlines if you will but and then also just from students that it that are looking to you know get their license you know one of the most common questions that we get when were cruising around talking to people is hey how did you decide to buy a plane or why did you decide to buy a plane and then quickly after that comes well what's it really like to own a plane so opinion of one experience of one we've bought and sold a few just trying to figure out what's right for us and you know I'm happy to share our experience but just know that that's our experience and these are the opinions that we've formed along the way and you know happy to have any feedback and comments just leave it down below and if I miss anything or say anything wrong let me know or if you have any questions about what you know what I can go into in more detail by all means leave that down below as well and we're happy to have those have that feedback and and happy to address any questions that you might have but so I think one of the first things that I had to kind of wrestle with and the first thing that I would tell people that ask and you know hey you know should I have my own plane it's really the decision about buying or renting I mean most people know what they're gonna do from a flying perspective so really it comes down to why are you looking to fly and until you know why you want to get your pilot's license or why you want to buy a blind until then it's really hard to determine in my mind if you should buy or or rent so let me let me kind of walk you through what I mean so for me brand-new I was gonna go do my discovery flight or I guess I did do a discovery flight and I made the decision that I was going to commit it and and get my pilot's license with the intent of not going to the airlines I've missed my calling like I said earlier but with the intent of being the family pilot so flying our family around we're Canadian now or we're Canadian but we're living in Texas now we'll always be Canadian but we wanted to do trips we want to explore Texas who wanted to explore all around us who wanted to you know stay true to those Canadian roots and find some places to go snowboarding and you know Utah Colorado are nearby we love just traveling around we've already done a few trips we've bounced around Texas quite a bit we've gone over to Florida I've picked up a plane up in Iowa that was one of the longer flights that we've done although this recent one we picked up an arrow that was a good time as my flight instructor one of our friends who's a knee and air traffic controller at Houston Center and I flew over in picked up an arrow so that was a good experience but that was what we wanted my pilot's license for was to do trips and ultimately so I bought an arrow so that we could do trips further and faster but so I knew then that that was what I wanted to do so then a couple things came to mind one so getting my pilot's license let's call that a hundred to 150 hours of training and then just for estimating there I'm sure those people that are tougher that can do it in less but looking at the regulations you're gonna have to fly quite a bit to get your instrument rating and your private pilot rating so let's plan for a hundred two hundred fifty hours renting a plane probably 125 let's say so it's significant money right it's over twelve thousand dollars in and basically rent that you're gonna have to pay now that rent does include the fuel right so most of these planes are rented wet avgas very expensive it it's you know in the five dollar range if you find the right kind of Regional Airport you can get it down into the into the fours but for budgeting and planning let's just use five dollars because it can even be higher if you want to be spoiled and fly into some of these bigger Bravos Airport so let's use five bucks a gallon as kind of a baseline but just for renting the plane you're gonna probably spend to get your ratings about 12,500 to $15,000 in renting the plane and then if you actually want to fly if you actually want to use it and go somewhere and do trips and that really comes back to the why are you looking to buy an airplane for me we wanted to do trips I didn't want to have a minimum daily rate that I had to have the plane on unreserve for I wanted to fly for a weekend fly for a week do a trip and have that flexibility so for me it really became quite clear if that was my goal renting it really wasn't gonna work for us but yet the contrary to that if your goal is to not do those types of trips if your goal is maybe once or twice a year that you want to fly somewhere for a trip but you just predominately want to build time get your ratings get your commercial and then maybe become a CFI and then really crank up your hours owning a plane might not be right for you you know the the jokingly I'll say the least expensive part about buying a plane is actually paying for the plane so you know when you're what I mean by that is you know you're shopping for a plane and you know you're gonna say okay to a high wing or a low wing and then you have this big debate and then you realize just how cool the throttle body is on the Pipers and you're like okay well I got to get a low wing alright maybe that's a that's biased but I chose Piper so alright you pick your low wing because you know you like seeing the airport in the pattern and do you think the throttle body is just really cool so you pick your Piper's and then you start jumping in all the websites and controllers and Barnstormers and your message and people but don't get me wrong buying the plane was actually a really fun experience you get to talk to a lot of really cool people you see a lot of passion for that plane when you're buying it from a private seller and just a lot of really cool stories so enjoy that enjoy the process if you're if you're going to shop for one but do make up your mind what is it you're going to look for and kind of know what you want know what you like to fly rent a bunch times before if you're gonna choose to own a plane go rent it first go rent it and five others that are that are different or that are like it and and just make sure that you really that really really like it and then you know what you're looking for and you know you're gonna get into so do that enjoy it and then kind of have a better idea of what are you looking to train in or looking to buy again it goes back to why are you buying the plane because buying a plane for trips and buying a train for time building there are two very different planes you're gonna be looking at fuel economy versus useful load and there's one example but a very good example of some of the big differences so for me useful load was it was an important one so that also excused to the benefit of the Pipers so we ended up buying an archer it's the one in the picture actually right in there behind me two one four eight nine or you'll hear it on the videos the recent videos of me bringing the arrow back from Florida you'll also hear me answering radio calls four four seven Charlie as four eight Niner so I'm gonna have to work on that but that's the plane that we chose and then I just want to give a little bit of perspective of what that's like once you own a plane so easy things to get your mind around pay gonna pay for insurance depending on your hours that could be you know few hundred bucks a month and and as you get your ratings you know you can work and getting that rate down but when you start out it's gonna be you know couples of a three to a few hundred dollars a month for insurance you gotta have opposed to hanger it you gotta have a place to kind of you know you park it you probably want to leave it tied down depending on where you live you know whether you know you're gonna get pretty attached to this thing so you might not want to leave it outside so you're gonna want to get a hanger that's a few hundred bucks a month and again still so far easy to get your mind around right you gotta have it insured make sense gotta have an a hanger also makes sense easy got it good to go so let's talk about the things that are that are not so obvious right so you know cold day jump out you've run into the rapport jump in the plane dead battery so a battery for a car we go to Costco you pick up a battery for $70 battery for an airplane both $300 depending on what kind of battery you're gonna buy and that you know you're kind of like okay well you know parts are more expensive that's okay and then you to crank up that plane you start to go and again cold morning and look at your attitude indicator and you know it's not quite popping up the way that it usually does and like I know you know that might not be your all right so you start kind of looking at it and well I'm gonna get a checked an attitude indicator yeah they're expensive you know seven hundred and fifty dollars installed call it five hundred for the part 250 to get it installed they're expensive your gyro is the same thing right your heading indicator same idea you know four or five dollars for the part come on or bucks get it installed you know they're expensive but as you go through your instrument ratings I mean these these instruments your life's really depend on them and it's not something that you're going to leave inoperative legally or just for your own your own safety and no CFI is gonna fly with you unless all of these parts are maintained and you know getting a check ride obviously you need to have everything in air worthiness condition so gonna make sure that's well maintained you know struts in an airplane just filling up the struts you walk out and you see one wings kind of drooping down maybe you need to repair some struts you know that can be a couple hundred bucks I was flying back into our home Airport we're actually used with a friend of mine and he's actually the owner of the flight school and we were doing practice approaches it was late it was dark it was night and just doing the panel scan see my my amps dropped to zero so we said hey you know we either have a bad gauge or the alternator failed and we got a we got to get we got to get on the ground to Davey told ATC hey you know we might lose comms with you but this is exactly what we're gonna do we're just gonna go direct you know direct backhand and you know if we lose comms with you let the tower know and they were great they worked with us we got down we kept our comms it was fine the battery 300 bucks just replaced it so the battery the battery kept us going there but alternator twelve hundred bucks so you got to buy the part got to get it installed twelve hundred bucks for an alternator and you know I remember growing up working on cars a little Chrysler car and the alternator and that thing was about $80.00 brand new aftermarket and you know bolt on bolts off takes about an hour not the same when it when it's an aviation part so very expensive and you'd be careful for that let's talk about an annual right so an annual inspection and this is really where it starts to get interesting so when you're flying the plane and you're using it you know you're gonna want to make sure that it has a good annual I mean this isn't the time to really be the kind of skipping maintenance stuff right when it when it's the plane that you're going to jump in to strap yourself into a fly around and especially with your family in it so your annual you wanna wanna make sure that you get a good annual very thorough you know that can be a big bill that could be scary it it's all things that need to be done to keep you safe and keep the plane air worthy but you know here's some examples of one of my last my last annuals oil cooler baffle supports were we're failing so had to get that fixed parts 30 bucks hey that's not gonna be that bad no big deal thirty bucks in parts it's great four hundred and twenty dollars in labor mmm-hmm air hoses so these carburetor engines we got air hoses coming in well all engines we have air hoses coming in sorry parts 300 bucks labor seventy so three hundred seventy dollars just for those air hoses if there's a tear or crack in there those air hoses plug into an air box and that air box if you have a warm seal the air box is eight hundred dollars in our box and another 300 to get it installed then you're gonna have miscellaneous stuff and again you know I'm happy to go into this in more detail if anybody has any questions but things like elts and tires and whatnot I mean tires can be a few hundred bucks but you'll just have miscellaneous stuff and you know they'll be 500 bucks or so at least on an annual so you your annuals can be very expensive to other points that I want to make and then then we'll chop this off I want to talk about engines and and TB OS and what that means so when you're thinking about when you start to shop you'll see yeah acronyms on on the on the website so that or the message boards for buying different planes and there's an acronym since major overhaul or since field overhaul so let's talk about what those means so since major overhaul these engines on on the planes you know that the Pipers and the Cessna typically have a 2000 hour tbo and that 2000 hours is kind of the recommendation from the manufacturer to say hey after 2000 hours you should get the play you should get the engine inspected and you know you may need to be preparing yourself for an overhaul the overhaul is you actually remove the engine and and you send it back to a company specializes in doing the overhauls or Center it back to the manufacturer and they really tear down the engine and and build it all the way back up and then the end result is great you're left with a brand-new engine you break that in and off you go and you and you're good for another 2,000 hours but the downside is and maybe this is the piece that the people often miss when they're debating about buying or renting but that engine that overhaul it can be twenty-five thirty thousand dollars all in so if you're if you're excited about buying a plane at fifty thousand dollars you found it a great deal it's your uncle Lou's neighbors third kid that says hey I'm not gonna fly anymore I'll give you this great deal but if the plane is 500 hours over overhaul over tbo then you may be getting a great deal that may come with a 30 thousand dollar bill either at your next annual or you know hopefully not but maybe when you're flying you start to notice something's wrong and you land safely get a checked out and say hey your engines aged and it's well well beyond tbo and you got to get it checked out now don't don't get me wrong I don't believe that as an engine turns 2001 hours that you got to tear it off and send it out but when you're thinking about buying a plane and you're planning on what that would look like you have to have in your mind that that will be the reality that that is going to be what happens and that you need to have that money on hand and ready to go and don't take money from you know kids college funds or or the the grocery bill or anything else so before you before you pull the trigger on buying a plane just make sure that you have that that available to you in case you need it so you're not you're not either grounding the plane and leaving it there or you're not sacrificing something that you wouldn't naturally want to sacrifice in doing that overhaul because they are quite expensive last thing I wanted to talk about around buying a plane is so we talked about since major overhaul and since tbo being at 2000 hours and that's that's great and and keep an eye for it let's talk about total time so airframe total time that's just like it says the total time that the plane has been in the air or the total time the planes been running and then also the age right so there's components in the planes that not only have an hour limit or shelf life if you will but they also have an age so two things to look for one is the age of components in the plane so when you do a pre buy make sure that your mechanic that you have chosen so you're neutral mechanic is going through and and write down the age of the parts write down the the hoses what's the date on those hoses what's the date on the vacuum pump what's the date on there's just kind of go through those key components and understand the date so that's the time and engines are the same way you can have a 300 hour engine which is which is great since major overhaul hey you get 1,700 hours away from TV oh that sounds perfect but if the last overhaul was was 10 years ago you know that planes been sitting an awful lot and and a real rule of thumb is we like planes that fly no different than cars I mean a car that sits on a lawn for for three years you're not just gonna jump and do it crank it up and drive without having any problems right you're gonna have brake lines that are cracked and leaking you might have oil pressure issues I mean just the list goes on so be aware of that understand that understand the age of the components but make sure the plane has been flying and and again I'm gonna give you an opinion of one or my opinion of my experience but buying a plane online you know a lot of these ads you'll see things like hey this plane was never in a flight school never a trainer and that's great and that's really important information to know and to understand and it's really cool to see how much pride the these sellers have in their planes and they're really fun to talk to the aviation community is just a really good group of people but as you look at that you just you just need to be aware that hey planes and flight schools you know students fly them we are all students at one point and they fly them with CF eyes right in there with them there's probably harder landings in a trainer plane than there are in other planes but just know that and try to understand it but also know that that means that that plane is flying that plane is typically very well maintained and then compare that to you know some private owner that has a mechanic on the field the mechanic sees the plane you know once a year an annual or if there's an issue but those flight schools well why I bring that up and just as factual as I can be the you know there are they're regulated they have students doing check rides in those logbooks on maintenance are meticulously maintained because they have to be you've got examiner's in the plains doing check rides you have the FAA regulations or audits and making sure that all the planes maintenance is up-to-date all the IDS are complied with every the Interactive's making sure that all of that stuff is done well so yes you have students in the plane we've all been students there's also usually a CFI in the plane too yes you have more airframe time and and and depending on where you're at in the engine time yeah your engine could have higher times but the planes also been flying a lot the planes also been maintained look at the logbooks look at the maintenance records understand what's been done what's not been done do a look on some of the more expensive components of of the plane that you're looking to buy and and understand hey when were those last done and when when you do pick your plane have a mechanic do a pre buy and and ask them to fill that out say hey when you know when was the vacuum pump last replaced how old were the hoses in the plane what is the exhaust last worked on yeah if you're buying a retractable gear hey you know what's the deal with the hydraulics one was the maintenance left Donna on the gear where's the prop governor if it's a complex you know just all of those big ticket items light bulbs not a big deal you don't got to get the date of a stroke but do get the date of a prop governor do get the date of the hydraulics for your landing gear do get the date of these engine houses and just understand exactly what you're getting into but go in wha eyes wide open and and if you want that flexibility of owning a plane I think it's great it's really rewarding we love it we love the flexibility love the adventures we're having a great time flying around meeting different people talking to different people putting these videos together is has come to be a fun pastime for me I'm not going to need it another hobby but but I enjoy that and if for nothing else then just mean looking back at our own trips but we have we have a great time doing it the aviation community is amazing some of the just just great people all around whether you're stopping at an FBO or you're going into some of the fly-ins there's just really great great community of people to be associated with and you know a lot of passion and around aviation around flying and and just kind of sharing that with our friends and family and as many people as we can so any questions for me I mean do do feel free to leave comments just wanted to give some perspective on some of the costs that surround maintenance some of the costs around buying a plane engine times TB owes things that we looked at when we were PI when we were buying things that we learned learn the hard way when we were buying but overall it's been great we loved every minute of it and just being able to kind of share these experiences with our young kids and bounce around they think that this is normal they think that everybody just pops around in planes and goes you know day trips to Six Flags and then flies back so we think it's great we we love it I love it and every day just trying to be a better safer pilot alright thanks for watching guys if you like these videos please do subscribe and give us a thumbs up so I can convince the wife that I should keep doing them and she won't give me such a hard time alright Cheers

Channel: Family Pilot

Views: 10,375

Rating: 4.9470201 out of 5

Keywords: pilot, imc, instrument, texas, ifr, vfr, piper, archer, travel, kids, general aviation, student pilot, fir, family pilot, instrument approach, buying airplane, buy, airplane, plane, buy or rent, instrument rating, instrument checkride, checkride, check ride, cesna, flight school, own a plane, cost to own a plane, cost of ownership, piper archer, piper arrow, pa-28-181, pa-28-161, pa-28-151

Id: 3zpkfXq0LfA

Length: 23min 42sec (1422 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 01 2019