Can’t Make the Numbers Work to Buy an Aircraft? Here’s Some Help

There are options at your disposal that can put that airplane you want within reach.

Jason Depew

Thursday, January 13, 2022 at 10:27 AM ET

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What keeps you from buying that airplane you've been eyeing? [Photo: Adobe Stock]

Key Takeaways:

Reducing or eliminating debt, through higher down payments or better interest rates, is the most significant way to cut airplane ownership costs.
Forming a partnership with other pilots drastically reduces individual fixed costs and makes ownership more affordable, even with increased aircraft utilization.
Selecting an aircraft with a smaller, less fuel-hungry engine and a common, less expensive overhaul cost (e.g., Lycoming O-320/360) helps manage ongoing fuel and maintenance expenses.
By combining strategies like debt reduction, shared ownership, and choosing an economical aircraft/engine, annual and hourly flying costs can be substantially lowered.

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We recently covered the basic costs involved with owning an airplane. The numbers we found were high, even for a 47-year-old Cessna 172 with practically original avionics. This week, we’ll use our spreadsheet to find which line items drive most of our costs, and consider ways to reduce them.

Debt

While debt has its place in business transactions, I don’t like using it to fund luxuries…like airplanes are for many aviators. In our example, more than $9,000 of our annual $30,000 ownership expense was taken up by our loan. The biggest way to save money is to pay it off!