The other thing to consider is gliding as an option.
I am actually apprehensive about flying a plane without an engine. Its very comforting to have artificial power up front, and one that makes a noise :-) I can skirt around some of the cost challenges and make them happen, but when you have something good on your doorstep, and a good aircraft, and then there are significant changes, there is the time and effort factor or changing with it, or seeking other adventures. Time is defintely a limiter at the moment. Potentially a break will allow me to come back with new challenges. When you fly about 4 – 5 hours a month, there is only so far you can go without being somewhere you have been before, and I am driven by new challenges, and think I’ve clocked up 75 different airfields so I am quite happy with that.
is to move to a type which can operate from a farm strip
A few people have done that, though moved to established farm strips. We decided against that due to wet grass issues (soft ground) reported at some, plus lack of fuel facilities. There is some talk of a consortium buying the nothern part of Panshanger and setting up an alternate runway, but when someone’s descendants wants to sell the land just for the money and housing opportuities and doesnt have Aviation in their blood, unlike their lineage, its a tough nut to crack.
You can always move away from PA-28 flying to an LAA permit type equipped with a tailwheel. You can probably find a suitable aircraft for half the cost of a typical PA-28, many can be equipped with fatter wheels so wet grass is much less of an issue, and the general costs of a permit aircraft are lower than an EASA regulated aircraft. With most EU countries allowing permit aircraft into each others airspace, trips aren’t too much of a problem.
Peter wrote:
Sure you could do a lot of gliding for 3k but the impression I got from the OP was that this ws powered fixed wing flying.
I think I posted my costs at various times on EuroGA. Sure the fixed costs come to quite a lot e.g.
insurance 2.8k
hangarage 6k
annual 5k (if you use a company, which I don’t anymore)
But you don’t have to spend that much to do a lot of flying (what I’m saying you don’t have to be a highly infrequent flyer to be in the sub-6K spend bracket). Your hangar costs alone are more than my annual, insurance, hangar costs and avgas bill all put together. For your fixed costs, we could actually put new fabric on the whole aircraft every year and still have money left over afterwards! (On the other hand you probably have a nice hangar. Ours is pretty awful and you’d never want to run a TB20 out of Andreas despite being allegedly hard surfaced).
Somehow, I have the feeling that Silvaire will be around shortly…. and tell us how an oil change costs him $30, an annual $300, and an engine overhaul $3000… 
You’re high, my annuals are $200 plus parts
My hangar is the biggest cost in my aviation life, $5160 per year but it holds two planes and a bunch of other stuff… and only I have the key. Well worth it.
Interesting thread, indeed.
I fly 30 to 40 hours per year in the club, for about 150eur/hr wet (TB10 and Cessna 172 mostly); that’s 5000eur to 6000 eur/ year including small fees for maps / pens…
For “long” trips (more than 2 hours) or local discovery flights I tend to share costs with my passengers, so my actual personal budget is lower.
At this point in my career/life, that’s all I can afford!
Ours is pretty awful and you’d never want to run a TB20 out of Andreas despite being allegedly hard surfaced).
I have been there by car and the surface is terrible, with big chunks of loose tarmac.
But the whole runway could be resurfaced for the cost of a single TBM engine overhaul so where exactly is the problem? AFAIK there is a difficult political situation there, with the landowner doing some funny stuff, and Ronaldsway lobbying the authorities hard to prevent Andreas getting fixed because they would lose the lucrative piston business. Just like Biggin is trying to stop Redhill getting a hard runway.
We decided against that due to wet grass issues (soft ground) reported at some, plus lack of fuel facilities.
That, however, is “simply” a lack of pilots who (a) want to keep flying but (b) don’t want to pay anything for it. You can mole drain a runway for a few k, plus a few k to dig the ditch and put in an electric pump. I looked into this at one 750m x 20m strip.
Keeping an avgas bowser is more complicated. I don’t know anything about that. But clearly it is possible because farmers keep big tanks of diesel fuel.
I think that a lot of pilots are passively willing to lose an airfield at which they used to spend a lot of money, but are not willing to spend similar money elsewhere where they would get proper security of tenure, plus a “shed” where a freelance engineer can do their maintenance and that one thing alone is worth a few k a year.
If you want an engine in your glider you can shop for an old SF-25 Falke or the Slingsby built Falke. They are dirt cheap to operate and fun to fly. The SZD Ogar may be another plane of interest. Some motorgliders cruise with 90 kts on less than 18 liters mogas.
As a member of a Group of 6 operating a Jodel DR1050, I flew 71.7 hours in 2013, for £600 in monthly for insurance and hangarage at Inverness + £4302.60, including mogas fuel, for flying. Home landings cost £420. I don’t have a record of away landings. It earned £30.49 per hour towards maintenance after oil and filters. The Permit cost about £100 without the payment to the LAA.
It’s what I’ve always said. Anyone can afford aviation, anyone can afford to be an aircraft owner. Even if you work at McDonalds.
