I know I am not original in thinking this, but as airplanes get older-the ratio between the annual ownership costs and the purchase price can far exceed 1.0.

For example, I think you can buy a Gulfstream III for about $500,000, but it will cost you in excess of $1,000,000 a year to operate. So the ratio is 2.0.

For a new G58, the ratio is about .05 ($1,000,000 to purchase new, $50,000 annual operating costs).

Brand new airplanes and older big jets skew the ratios (as do annual hours flown) but I was wondering if this ratio is meaningful and how it varies for popular airplanes. Is total cost of ownership (including capital costs and depreciation) more meaningful?

It is interesting to me that I always focus on asking price when looking through Controller. You can buy a GIII, Falcon 10, Silver Eagle P210, C90, and Citation for the same price. Vastly different ownership costs and costs per mile.

Depending on options new G58=$1,400,000

You have to break down the list of aircraft into capability. If you want to cross the atlantic in a nap and a movie with friends it will cost.

Put another way, is anybody buying this $225,000 GII https://www.controller.com/listings/air ... tream-iisp ?

Is the owner better off giving it away for scrap? Does it have negative value because it costs too much to own? Assuming this airframe is airworthy and current on its inspections (I don't see a hush kit), it is a very capable airplane. Is it just a liability on somebody's balance sheet?

It looks like they have a Stage II hush kit installed but one certainly is not listed. It isn’t a Stage III. The avionics aren’t half bad. It would be fun to have the money and staff to fly the wings off of it for a few years. The acquisition price is spot on!
The old hush kits were about $1M and the new ones are double that. If you have $2.5M to spend on a G-II or a G-III, the 90s G-IV is tempting.

I’m not sure it breaks down to an actual math equation... but “operating cost x ___ = reduced acquisition cost”

It's really hard to quantify, but I'm flying more and spending less downtime, if not money, after getting into a much new, albeit, more expensive to buy aircraft. I'm really good at fixing things too.

There are no cheap airplanes. It just depends how you want to allocate the budget. Add in the cost of money, which has been really low last few years, and it may work out better to fly something newer rather than to keep after an older plane.

Yes, I know, someone will be along shortly to tell us about the 1962 Flivver High-Flyer Special Deluxe that has never had a dime spent on it, been near a wrench and doesn't leak a drop of oil in 8000 hours.

But that hasn't matched my experience across 3 aircraft.