Not sure what the record is, but I know one guy that has built 15 aircraft…
Jim Clement has built about that many, Wittman Tailwinds or near relatives including a half Tailwind, half Buttercup Link A Tailwind is built from very rudimentary plans and he has probably recreated them himself by now. Obviously kits are not a factor, nobody had invented the concept when Tailwinds were being built in quantity.
Steve Wittman was always in a hurry and didn’t have much time for plans, he laid them out on the hangar floor, full scale.
I regard aircraft maintenance work as a chore, like gardening
Well… same here. There’s some enjoyment as in tinkering, but as I’m forced into it, it becomes a chore…
@Graham, yes and luckily the homebuilt kits have improved massively. Good progress on yours!
Generally, it is said that the limit to where a plane (any plane) becomes cheaper to own than to rent in terms of operating cost and with similar cost structure is around 100.
Costs are one thing. The other is all the admin work, as in paying the bills, organizing parts/maintenance/hangar/insurance/NAA stuff/etc. My absolute number’s always been 50… and I’m still surprised at how few privately owned craft ever reach these yearly numbers. And interestingly enough, the more expensive those toys are, the less they are being flown… on my field at least.
Talking about my field, some refreshing stuff: a group of young folks bought shares into a VariEze, and flew it for a while. When this deal collapsed due to maintenance issues, they turned their interest into building a T-51 Mustang homebuilt. Another group is operating a Kitfox III homebuilt at very low costs. And yet another group of 4 youngsters bought an old Pulsar, refurbished it and it is now being flown quite intensely.
Generally speaking, owning/maintaining/flying a homebuilt is way more affordable than any certified spam can. Oh no, you can’t legally play airliner, but you sure will have more fun flying a performing and rewarding aircraft 
The puzzling issue to me was that ATC seemed to think they were flying the plane, as opposed to perhaps advising the pilot that a SIGMET was in effect or providing pilot reports to the other pilots directly, for the pilot’s decision making.
An interesting observation and knowing US / EU flying I have some thoughts that might explain your experience (or even astonishment).
1) Innsbruck ATC involuntarily gets to do a load of babysitting. A fair number of private flying in this area is done as a rare or marginal recreational (in-)activity. In other words, pilots don’t have the routine, experience, proficiency and casualness US pilots possess.
It’s often about localized joyrides in two seaters, some even ULs without pilot’s license. The „flying self confidence“ and radio proficiency is often on the lower end, and ATC is „manifested in the minds“ as a redtape and some sort of authoritarian air police. Subservience ensues and gets what it deserves (just trying to reason here).We all know that a nervous sounding pilot with marginal radio skills missing 2 MVRPs causes attention, even more so in the topographically challenging area that is Innsbruck, which gets very busy sometimes. Additionally, it is a bottle neck for a lot of this type of traffic making it’s way through the alps. So these guys have to keep everybody happy but separate in their valley, be it some UL, gliders, bizzers, airline and GA. At some point, sorting everybody who doesn’t get paid for flying around into the proficiency drawer they deserve gets old for ATC, and the consequence sometimes is a one size fits all approach (for the lowest common denominator).
2) The subservience of pilots to ATC is mirrored by local regulations being king over the airport and anything that happens there, acting as a stressor on ATC and pilot stakeholders. Noise, pollution, general complaints, extremely high property prices due to finite space in the valley and subsequent proximity of housing to the airport is serious and can quickly cause trouble. There may well be a note in the AIP about intersection departures being forbidden.
3) Pilots underestimate the local met phenomena, especially the chop caused by Foehn. There’s ample reading material about it. If turbulence was reported over the city, you don’t want to be there low and slow, for real! As Luke said, they were watching your backs.
Isn’t Innsbruck a “tight setup” where you can land but can’t park, because the local club did a deal with the airport to keep it for themselves? At least that’s how it always was, for years. A real shame; been there enough times by road and they do have space. Various previous threads. Maybe only in the winter but that’s a good time to go there, obviously.
No it isn’t and I wouldn’t understand what it’d have to do with the local aeroclub at all.
It’s a public airport that MUST serve you. There is a period during winter where weekend parking is limited due to 15+ airliners parked on the tiny ramp bringing UK skiers for the day (to save on lodging). However, if you call up ahead and tell them you have a small SEP and can push it far back towards the edge of the apron they might just say “Okche, kimmscht halt” in a friendly tyrolean accent.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
What worries me more almost however is how extremely confrontational our society has become. It is scary to see that political parties not only in the US but all over the place are moving further and further away from politics of consent and purpose towards open hostility and outright hate between the political sides. It is scary that a larger and larger group of people appear to believe into most crazy conspiracies and outlandish rubbish theories just because they fit their own rage and dissatisfaction and give them something to focus their frustration in. IMHO this is the even larger danger than someone pressing “the button” in which case most likely mankind would cease to exist in it’s current form. But what I do see in immediate danger is the way how democracy has been the foundation of how our societies have worked over the last decades we can remember. What is happening here reminds me strongly of the very ugly happenings of the last century where hate and territorial ambition lead the world into a world wide conflict. By the looks of it, we are darn close to see the next of those.
Yes indeed. Here in US it’s extra visible, but it’s everywhere. Hell, the Swedish nationalist party was a mere few percents when I left my home country – this election they were the 2nd biggest party in the country! What happened in the last 20 years?
But, one good thing that comes out of recessions is that the extremes pipe down a bit. It becomes more about survival and a sense of understanding of your fellow man. Humanity seems to creep back in when everyone is struggling equally.
I don’t know if there is any special agreement, but the aeroclub has their apron on the north part of the field, no visiting aircraft allowed. All visitors go the main apron in the south.
Kindly asking for a parking space during winter has worked in the past, but no longer does, is my experience.
AdamFrisch wrote:
What happened in the last 20 years?
Social media happened.
This year I thought I might do the MEIR prorogation/revalidation on a Seneca. As I haven’t flown 6 levers for over 2 years I will need some difference training. The Seneca I have the opportunity to fly, rents out at quite a lot more than I thought. To be fair it is a beautifully turned out 5, equipped with G500 and 2 x430W plus weather radar and traffic system and Radar Altimeter. In other words all options.
I decided to look how the rental cost would compare to the cost of ownership of this aircraft. The following is what I discovered:-
I am leaving out the cost of buying and the cost of depreciation. After all if you want a classic Aston Martin or Ferrari you just buy it if you can afford to do so. It is after all a toy, even if its something you’ve always wanted.
So I will just deal with the real running costs and 100 hours per annum:-
The largest hourly cost is fuel; Based on 80 litres per hour @€2.97 = €238 p/h (you can on long journeys cut costs by bringing this down to 60litres p/h or push it to over 100 l/p/h.
The second highest cost would be the engine reserve. If you decided to avoid what is currently nearly 1 year of down time by having an overhaul by buying new. The price includes demounting the engine, sending it off to get a discount on the core, transport and remounting of engine and all ancilliaries (many also new)
Looking at the bills for the a/c I am thinking of renting works out at around €200,000/2000 =€100 p/h
3rd highest cost is the databases and other subscription based stuff. Cost €5000 p/a so at for 100hours = €50 p/h.
I am lumping several things together now because I don’t have near exact figures as it is difficult to extrapolate figures for own use from an aircraft owned by a business and flown by a professional pilot. But I’ve tried to get as near as possible, figures for 50hr 100hr Annual plus an allowance for things that can need replacement during or outside normal maintenance .
50hr approx €2000 100hr plus annual €4000, heating and landing gear maintenance. My best estimate is around €140p/h.
Prop overhauls I calculate at €20 p/h
Insurance including hull = €40 p/h
Hangarage €150 per month so €18 p/h
De icing boot renewal can be anywhere between 3 to 10 years at a cost for a twin of around €20,000. So I have calculated a figure based on 6 years to replace = €34 p/h
So my rough calculation would be that the hourly cost of a fully modern equipped Seneca V is around €640 per hour so the rental rate I have been quoted at present ( I am still negotiating exact figures for a package deal) is not so exhorbitant as I first thought.
Extrapolating these figures to a 6 seat retractable with similar avionics and anti or de icing equipment would work out at around €433 p/h. I would be interested to see what others think, if they are honest with their figures.
Add to this cost of landing, parking and handling fees and one can see why certain sectors of GA
are in decline.
@gallois, it depends on hours flown!
Another major thing of course, is how do you (as a renter or owner) conside the fixed costs:
1. some say that this is part of hourly costs, period, not discussion, don’t even think about it differently;
2. others say that the fixed costs are the “fee for access to”, be that aircraft, vehicle or vessel. In the end not many people calculate cost per mile when they compare own car or a rental – you pay for convenience.
@arj1 you perhaps didn’t notice that I based my hourly rate on 100 hours per annum. Having owned in the past I didn’t often go above this. And at the time I was still working and able to use rhe aircraft to travel for business.
I agree everyone has a choice whether to count certain costs or not. Everyone can mitigate the costs anyway they wish. I was trying to compare actual costs of renting against the cost of ownership. It was for that reason I did not count the cost of purchasing an aircraft to suit most of my missions or any depreciation because having them available was something I bore in mind. I got a bit of a surprise how much running costs have risen over the last 10 years when you factor in the new technology and fuel increases.
Neither Lycoming or Continental have done much to improve things. 10 years ago they were promising FADEC systems for their engines which would have improved engine efficiency a great deal. Gami produced a system called Prime, but that seemed to die a death quickly.
We knew long ago that Avgas 100LL was likely to be banned. But its replacement 100UL is not likelybto be widely available until 2030.
For classic cars, clubs did their own research and found that on many cars, if one changed the valve seats for hardened ones, unleaded fuels were more efficient.
Why hasn’t the GA industry buried their heads in the sand since the 1970’s and simply believed pilot owners would just accept old technology and pay a high price for it. IMO its no wonder there are so many that give GA a try and then leave, never having owned an aircraft. I know many who went solo and thatwas enough. Been there, done that, got the T shirt.
For classic cars, clubs did their own research and found that on many cars, if one changed the valve seats for hardened ones, unleaded fuels were more efficient.
The necessity for hardened valve seats is in most cases a myth, although a widespread one in Europe. It is only on the very oldest engines (say 1920s era) where this is a real world issue. There are a lot of interesting stories in this area, for example BMW (on air cooled motorcycles) introducing harder valve seats in 1981, for US unleaded fuel that was introduced much earlier than in Europe. As a result BMW didn’t have any relevant experience, made a preemptive change anyway and the new seats turned out to be much worse with unleaded fuel than what they replaced, due to lower thermal conductivity that came along with the hardened alloy. Earlier engines meanwhile ran fine with what that had, for just as long as they did on mid-70s leaded fuel. By the mid-80s BMW had again changed the valve/seat materials and the problem went away.
Aircraft engine design has been discussed again and again on EuroGA. Most aircraft engines (numerically) can run on almost anything as long as it doesn’t have alcohol: 80/87 had only trace amounts of lead if any, and as well as being designed for 80/87 my O-320 ran on unleaded car fuel for decades before it became laced with alcohol and made unsuitable. The reason some aircraft engines need leaded fuel is octane, nothing else, a requirement that comes along with large cylinder bore. To make an engine for the same job that doesn’t need as much octane it has to have smaller cylinders. That then leads the design in the direction of more cylinders, higher RPM, water cooling and propeller reduction drive, none of which the open market is interested in buying.
The answer the market will buy is higher octane unleaded fuel, which is now slowly becoming possible after a very long development cycle. This will allow the ongoing operation of practical engines in high power classes that need 100 octane. These simple, practical air cooled engines are a big part of what make aircraft ownership possible for many people, for instance me, although my low power (150HP), low compression, low fuel consumption O-320 would as mentioned run on almost anything if it was available without alcohol. 80/87 would be my preference but I bought my last tank of it in Porterville, California circa 2004.
