clipperstall

I am looking to purchase a Cessna 150/152 for pure enjoyment flying, weekend vacations to bordering states, and $100 hamburgers. I figure if I can't fly for a living then I want to fly for fun on the side. With that said...

Does anyone have any good resources or recommendations on the process to purchase an airplane. I have the book by Ron Wanttaja Airplane Ownership, but I was looking for some other (free) references that are more current.

I am looking for general info like current finance rates, terms, insurance costs, operating expenses, best values, pre-purchase inspections, general ownership tips etc...

Cost calculators and the like would also be appreciated. I have googled some but most websites are outdated or don't let you adjust numbers properly.

Thanks.
clipperstall

Side Note: Why doesn't this forum have an "ownership" forum for people who own/want to own their own airplanes? I guess that surprised me a little bit.

Cubdriver

There are some light airplane owners at APC, and they use various other forums that relate best to the purpose. But since APC is mostly about airlines we do not get a ton of pilots wanting to talk about light aircraft ownership. When they do it is usually in connection with flight training to become an airline pilot. We can create new forums if enough threads start on a topic such they are crowding out other topics, or if the threads are too highly scattered and need to be grouped together. I can think of several pilots who own 150s and 152s here, so use the search window at the upper left to find any threads or posts they made about it.

As far as where to go for GA ownership topics you need to take a look at AOPA. They cater to light piston ownership in the extreme. The membership fee is not high and they have a ton of materials to help you decide which airplane to buy, how much airplane you can afford, and a million other GA topics.

AOPA

N9373M

Another vote for AOPA.

Some a/c models have their own groups set up for financing and purchasing. I have a Mooney and there are specific companies that deal in financing and insuring just Mooney's. Since you're looking at a 150, this really does not apply, but wanted to let you know if you go "off brand".

I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have about the cost of ownership for a light single and how we set ourselves up. After purchase, everything is in two categories - fixed costs (hangar, insurance) and operating (fuel, oil). Where you base the plane, your number of hours, ratings, and the number of hours per year flown determine the real cost of ownership.

I stole a really cool Excel spreadsheet from the Interweb that I'd be happy to share with you. I doubt you have PM privileges on this board yet (takes about 25 posts), feel free to email me at [email protected]

Chris

clipperstall

Thanks!

I do have PM's (go figure).

As far as AOPA- I used to be a member but decided that saving money was more important (every dollar helps lol). Probably about time to fire up that membership again though.

I have read everything I can find spending literally hours and hours consumed with ownership. From borrowed Flying magazines to Plane & Pilot and everything in-between. It just seems like this information would be best served by an actual owner themselves. (ex: Joe Schmoe's First Time Airplane Owner Blog)

For example, it's hard to obtain the cost of an annual inspection on a 1970's Cessna 150. People will post to estimate about "$1200," but I would be more interested in seeing a 5 year breakdown of the cost of each annual and the things that had to be replaced with their respective costs. I can't find specifics.

I think the name of the game would be flying as inexpensively as possible per flight hour with the lowest price point of purchase, reliability, and dependability. That is what led to me to the Cessna 150/152 with an autogas STC.

Other things I am looking for are websites such as airnav that aggregate data such as fuel prices. Is there a website for tiedown/hangar costs?

I have a general idea of ownership costs but the devil is the in the details when it comes to spending large sums of money on a hobby/passion.

rpatte1637

I use to own a 1972 Piper Cherokee,that I bought in 2001 about a month before 9/11. It had about 500 hour on the overhauled engine and I paid $32,000 for it, the normal maintenance and other costs were not that bad considering what you would pay to rent an aircraft for the same number of hour as you actual fly you own. Private insurance was a little over $500 a year, which was less than my car insurance, but when I put on a leaseback it went to about $5000 because that had to be considered commercial. At the time there were only about three companies that insure planes and still probably are, because it is a very small market. Annuals (and 100 hours if you leaseback) ran around $800 a year, and 50 hour oil changes, if you do them yourself (if you can do your car, you should be able to do your own plane) ran about $50 for oil and filter. Doing a check on aircraft loans or most any loan site will have loan calculators to figure out payments and most aviation loans can be done for up to 10 years, when I bought my plane. Pre-buy inspection can be done by any A&P and usually run about the same as an annual, be sure to work out with the seller, if any major problems are found that you were not told about, they are to be fixed by him/her before purchase or the pre-buy will be split by both parties. Personally, I did not do a pre-buy inspection on the plane I bought and it was fine, but I have some non-aviation mechanical experience and a good check of all log books from the last annual looked good. Just remember everything on a plane has to be FAA certified, so it going to cost anywhere from 3 to 10 time as much as the same none FAA certified part. Overall the experience I had with owning a plane was good, I did a few upgrades to mine, mostly with direct replacement radios and a new ILS to do my instrument training. I flew the plane a little over 3 years and built a little over 200 hours on it before I had to sell, but even then it still sold for $35,000 which was more than I paid for it. The way I look at it is, it would have cost me atleast $20,000 to rent a plane for 200 hours (200 hrs X $100/hr rental = $20,000), atleast this way I got something to show for the money I put out for those same 200 hours. Anyway, good luck and the main thing to remember is to check the logbooks good, if they are good and the plane has been inspected regularly, then the plane is probably going to be good, most A&Ps are not going to risk there license by not doing what is required on any plane.

Tiedown on mine in the Atlanta, GA are were between $50 to $85 a month and the the overall cost for parts not covered under annuals and oil changes were less than $2000 for the time I own the plane. (tires, vacuum pump, etc.). Also just ask the local A&P take a quick look at the engine logbook to see if there are any major ADs with the engine make and model (such as a crankshaft replacement, etc.), they should know right off hand and it would probably cost you at most one hour labor charge if anything.

clipperstall

rpatte,

Great information. This keeps in line with pretty much everything else I have read, although your annual price seemed a bit low. Did you use controller, barnstormers, find-a-plane, 'the web' etc.. to find the aircraft? Why did you personally choose to buy an airplane?

On a separate but related note, did your ownership experience curb your drive to fly professionally?

GalaxyIFE

My experience is about the same as Rpatte. I too have a Cherokee ('73) that I have had for about 3 years. Annuals have run about 800-1000 a year and my hanger is 150/mo in San Antonio, TX. I could tie it out for $35 a month, but I am paranoid about hail damage. Insurance runs about $700 for the year. Since I have owned it, I have put about 350 hours on it. I have had to replace and alternator and a fuel float. I have replaced a couple of odds and ends, but that was done during annual and included in the price. I do need a new DG (between 600-800 bucks) but since I fly VFR in it, I am not in a big hurry to replace it. For fuel costs, take a look at airnav, they have a good planning tool on there. I figure I burn about 8-9 GPH and fuel here is 3.49/gallon, so about $30 an hour for fuel. As for the MoGas...that sounds great, but it's getting harder and harder to find MoGas that doesn't have ethanol in it (can't run in an airplane), and I imagine it will be all but impossible in the near future.

The only thing I would do different is do a partnership, but my job could have me transferred ANYTIME, so it's not a great idea for me. If you have stability in where you live, perhaps give that some thought. Can certainly save you some money!

rpatte1637

Clipperstall,

I don't remember the exact place I found the plane listed, but I looked through several sources for a few months before I found the plane I wanted. It happen to be a local owner, and I had flown about 10 hour in a rental cherokee and like the feel and stablity over the cessna at the time. My wife and I drove down and looked at the aircraft and after talking to the owner and seeing the condition it was in (New paint and interior) I knew that I wanted this plane. My wife was in an accident a year or so before and we had some money from the settlement, so we decided to put it into a plane instead of continuing to rent. We orginal planned to keep the plane for a while, but other bills from the accident continued to build up and we ended up having to sell it.

As for your other question, while we had the plane, we used it often and enjoyed every minute. I think this was one of the best uses of our money at the time. I was just starting my instrument training and I also used it for most of my commercial time building to get the 250 hours needed for that rating. Like I said earlier, to me it was a win-win situation, either put the money in a plane or give the money to a FBO for rental. I now have about 900 hours, flew SIC on a turboprop Beech 1900 and I still missing having my own plane to fly when and where I want.

jonnyjetprop

Cherokee Chat - Out of the ashes of the CPA

MooneySpace.com - The place for all things about Mooney aircraft and their owners!

Index page • BeechTalk.com • Beechcraft Owners & Pilots Group Web Forums Index page

These three forums are free to join. There are many real life examples of the costs of ownership on them. Another good place to look are type clubs. You can find a listing on AOPA's site.