Your average flying time is 10 hours a month. You're talking about $250/HR or say 2.5 hours of maintenance for every hour flown. Sounds worse than a helicopter. What breaks in that small amount of flight hours? What's the base cost of an annual?

Your average flying time is 10 hours a month. You're talking about $250/HR or say 2.5 hours of maintenance for every hour flown. Sounds worse than a helicopter. What breaks in that small amount of flight hours? What's the base cost of an annual?

That includes upgrades and reserves . Everything on my 421 works right down to the lights in the baggage compartment. Some might say it's over maintained.

Tom the point is , if a pilot can't afford 60,000 a year for all expenses (operating 100 hours per year) they Should not buy a 421C.

A King Air will be a least 100,000 to 150,000 per year for 100 hours .

KingAir expenses are nutzo. I fly a 15 year old C90 for corporate and it's very well maintained, runs easily 60k a year in mx expenses. This year will be closer to 100k and the engines have only 400 hrs on them. The owner is throwing in the towel and going to a CJ.

The turboprop price/reliability advantage over piston only comes through with high utilization. The 5 year items alone will kill a private owner flying a KA 120 hrs a year. If I ever go turboprop I'll partner on it unless I'm flying a ton.

I would agree with what this owner has concluded.

When I sold my 340 that I was flying a ton (and costing about 600/hr), I really wanted a KA. With fairly good data, I ran the numbers and re-ran the numbers and came to the conclusion it didn't make sense. I went straight for a CJ. On a cost per hour basis it could be comparable - on a cost per mile basis the choice was clear.

Back to the 340/414/421, I agree with Gerald - budget and be prepared to spend 60K a year all in for 100 hours on a well maintained airplane. A fixer-uper like the one being discussed could have so many surprises it could be very painful to own and operate.

Hey guys, I've been out of the country and dealing with kidney stones... a lot to talk about, but I'll hit one issue for now.

And I have seen this before on here so I'm not picking on anyone... if you are spending $60k - $70k a year to maintain a C90 something is wrong!

It may be the airplane... let's dump it and find you a good King Air.

It may be your shop... let's dump them and find a good shop.

It may be more than normal maintenance... you're throwing avionics upgrades, or basing the year where you do gear or props and saying every year is that bad, but something is wrong.

On any C90 King Air that has been maintained properly you should average less than $35k a year. Sure it's an airplane and you can have a bad couple of years... but $60k plus every year... no way to get there.

Lets hash it out on here or call me, but this just makes me sad! I hate to see aircraft owners get taken to the cleaners...

I reread all the comments about King Air maintenance cost and noticed a trend.. California... and I guess that could be some of it.

What are you guys paying for a flat rate on a 1 & 2?

Should be less than $10k... that leaves $60k for squawks! What the heck can break on a King Air to add up that kind of a bill?

For years I've been running King Air B200 / 300 / 350's through full phase 1-4's and not spending $70k

We just acquired a King Air 350 for a client in Mississippi, we ran it through Stevens in Nashville, the 1 - 4 and all of the pre-buy work was less than $25k

Obviously no 5 or 6 year items were due... but still... we could have done gear and props and not hit $70k!

Are you kidding me, tons of expensive stuff can and does break on a KA. bus sense switch replacement module? 13k. aft blower motor... 5k. A burned out current limiter can easily be 20 hrs of labor. EFD-84 on the fritz? exchange unit only $17,800 ! the Proline ones are even worse if something breaks. We had one annunciating a failure event though everything seemed to work, 35k fix! The plane's I've flown have gone to the Textron service center, but time is money and these guys run a 24/7 shop and turn the planes quickly. I think your prices are in a best case year where nothing went wrong, no 5 year items are due and uncle Vinny is doing the maintenance.

Are you kidding me, tons of expensive stuff can and does break on a KA. bus sense switch replacement module? 13k. aft blower motor... 5k. A burned out current limiter can easily be 20 hrs of labor. EFD-84 on the fritz? exchange unit only $17,800 ! the Proline ones are even worse if something breaks. We had one annunciating a failure event though everything seemed to work, 35k fix! The plane's I've flown have gone to the Textron service center, but time is money and these guys run a 24/7 shop and turn the planes quickly. I think your prices are in a best case year where nothing went wrong, no 5 year items are due and uncle Vinny is doing the maintenance.

Here's the new thread viewtopic.php?f=4&t=128237&p=1752467#p1752467

Are you kidding me, tons of expensive stuff can and does break on a KA. bus sense switch replacement module? 13k. aft blower motor... 5k. A burned out current limiter can easily be 20 hrs of labor. EFD-84 on the fritz? exchange unit only $17,800 ! the Proline ones are even worse if something breaks. We had one annunciating a failure event though everything seemed to work, 35k fix! The plane's I've flown have gone to the Textron service center, but time is money and these guys run a 24/7 shop and turn the planes quickly. I think your prices are in a best case year where nothing went wrong, no 5 year items are due and uncle Vinny is doing the maintenance.

When Gerald Alves speaks about the Cessna 300/400 series aircraft, I listen. He knows what's up.