Business class as a sensible hourly budget benchmark

Link to the auction: https://en.bva-auctions.com/auction/index/15994?top

as you can’t travel anywhere meaningful in a Cub or C120.

I’d disagree with that. I flew a Cessna 140 coast to coast in the United States. That’s travelling as meaningfully as you can get.

Weather radar is for heavy iron multi crew.

While the caution in the post is called for I can’t agree with this. Flying in any sort of IMC in convective conditions with radar is very comforting single pilot or not. It is not solely(or even mostly) for departing into thunderstorms.

The info I get from pilots with the current model (GBP 50k+) radars is that they work well enough for CB and TCU avoidance. There is much discussion of it on US sites. However one does need type specific training to know how to use the system. And sometimes it has odd non-obvious faults e.g. the pitch/roll data from the AHRS (or the KI256) is not working so the radar doesn’t compensate for the aircraft attitude.

Here in the US we’re blessed with the Nexrad system that updates on the GPS (if it’s got the capability) or the iPad. Although I had radar in the Aerostar, I never used it and relied on Nexrad exclusively. It has a 5 minute delay in updating the imagery, so in critical situations you’re still much better off with radar. But in the kind of IFR I was flying in, it was a useful tool.

While we don’t have NEXRAD a € 2000 ADL120 gives you four radar images per hour on your iPad for a big part of Central Europe.

I don’t own an aircraft but if I had to compare prices I would also include these points:

• You have fixed costs (hangar, insurance) that are split by more hours when you fly more, so your flights get cheaper by the hour.
• In general you want to remain current and for that you need to fly. So you need at least the 12 hours per year and if you want to stay sharp, you need more. Now if you need to go to Salzburg as the example of Mooney_Driver anyway, why not combine the trip with the time you have to and want to fly? Including that in the calculation makes an hour of that trip cheaper for your annual budget.

12 hours per year

With 12 hours per year the average pilot is sharp enough to fly in the traffic pattern on a cloudless day without wind. And only if there is no traffic.

Flyer59 wrote:

With 12 hours per year the average pilot is sharp enough to fly in the traffic pattern on a cloudless day without wind. And only if there is no traffic.

Exactly. So you want to do more than 12 hours. And if you need/want to go somewhere and combine it with flying to stay sharp, you should reflect that in the price calculation.

Vladimir wrote:

Exactly. So you want to do more than 12 hours. And if you need/want to go somewhere and combine it with flying to stay sharp, you should reflect that in the price calculation.

What you are saying makes great sense but is not a view commonly held by people with a pure cost control mindset.

The cost control mindset tries to avoid investments and expenses to maintain the gained capability. Instead it tries to buy services rendered by someone else. Essentially it is a race to the bottom.