Wed May 13, 2020 11:43 am
#1769141
Our group Jodel DR1050 ( LAA Permit so we can do the work) cost about £24k to purchase, with an older engine, which we know we will need to replaced soon. However with needing to build a hanger to put it in, we've put about £40k of capital info the group, as an initial outlay.
We pay £50 post month across 17 of us to cover known fixed costs such as hangerage, insurance, annual maintenance and fees, then £60 per hour to fly, which aims to cover fuel and depreciation in engine (engines are scheduled to last only so many flooding hours), so the age and therefore value of the engine is built into the purchase price). The aircraft is flying 80 hours a year.
We are now looking at cost of a replacement engine, which is likely in the region of £18k, and have built up a fund of around £12k so will need to all put in a little more cash.
In our first year we spent around £3500 on maintenance, this year would have been at least that but one of the group has re made the seats from scratch after a crack was found, so it's time rather than money draining.
So on initial purchase of £24k, with an additional £11K for a shared hanger and initial maintenance of £3500, our group is putting in about 10K a year plus lots of labour before the aircraft leaves the ground, to fly at £60 per hour.
On my other LAA aircraft we had hundreds of hours of labour this annual by group members...