Hey everyone,

I am buying my first airplane. I'm buying an older King Air 90 and putting in new Garmin Avionics as well as a new interior and painting the outside. The engines were overhauled only 500 hours ago so I will pretty much have a new plane and I'm amped about it.

Quick questions: I have no idea wether I need a management company or not. I only plan on flying 50-100s per year and I've gotten daily pilot rates from $300-$800...most of my trips are short (under 2 hours).

1) Any idea what the best avenue is to reach out to finding a qualified daily pilot that I can work stuff out with?
2) For this type of use and coming off fresh inspections, does a management company make sense in the $2,000 per month range... I guess I'm having trouble seeing the value add considering I don't plan on chartering it out.

Any and all advice would be awesome!

Thanks

Welcome to BT.
That’s a hell of a 1st plane, attaboy

Buddy,

Congratulations! Where are you located?

Greensboro NC... thanks guys

First flight is Thursday to my in laws in Kentucky

I can't tell you whether $2K/month is a fair rate for a management company, or if you even need one. But the rates you've been quoted for a daily pilot rate are right in the ballpark...

I managed my B200 maintenance myself with just a spreadsheet. My CJ2 is more involved so now I have a camp subscription and I pay $1200/mo to manage it.

$2000 for a king air sounds high if its just the maintenance but if you get more, it might be worth it especially if you are new to aviation. Do they also manage insurance, hangar, fuel contracts, cleaning, accounting & provide pilots? If so, that'd be a valuable service.

Are you going to employ a pilots or use contract guys? Around here, contract guys are hard to find and not extremely reliable. They tend to have day-jobs and pick up trips in between, but if the day job calls, you can get dropped without much notice.

If you employ a pilot, they can manage the airplane for you.

Buddy, welcome to BT.

I am always puzzled by management fees. Why can't the shop you use tell you when you need something done? Must just all be in some program or spreadsheet that already exists. Are such things sold for owners. 2K a month seems a lot fro tracking hours and cycles.

Will be nice with the Garmin panel though, congrats!