I have been thinking about what airplane I'd like to fly next for quite a while. I love airplanes and almost all of them appeal to me in one way or another. At different times, and for different reasons, I really like one or the other. If you read a lot, as I do, about why one person or another thinks a particular airplane is "best" it can get awfully confusing! One of the areas that I think is most confusing is cost.

We're iced in here and I'm going a bit stir crazy. For something to do I decided to do some airplane cost comparisons. First I picked a few airplanes using the following criteria: turbine powered, 250 KTAS (or so) or better cruise speed, 800 NM or better range, Pressurized, well supported. There are a lot of other planes I could have picked but these have been of interest to me for awhile.

To determine cost I used JetAviva's most current market report averages, or I tried to determine that from listing prices on Controller. For depreciation I used the most recent 3 year numbers on JetAviva or 5% and projected them forward. The balance of the information comes from http://www.aircraftcostcalculator.com a subscription service I have been using for a few months. For hourly calculations they only use time in 25 hour increments so I used their cruise airspeeds for each model to get as close to the number of hours per year that I could assuming 50,000 hours per year.

These are the airplanes I compared: Piper Meridian, TBM 700B, TBM 700C2,Pilatus PC12/45, Pilatus PC 12/47, Beech KA C90 Blackhawk, KA B200 Raisbeck, Eclipse 500 IFMS, Citation CJ1, Cessna Mustang. Obviously, there are a lot of dissimilarities in these planes. But they are all fast, pressurized, have my range and can carry 4 people and bags 800 miles or more. They vary fairly widely in purchase price (and I didn't factor in the capital cost of the down payment) but I assumed a loan of 80% of purchase price at 5% for 20 years to put most of the capital cost into the comparison.

What's interesting to me is that airplanes that you might think would be a lot less expensive to operate aren't necessarily and one that is the most expensive to purchase (Pilatus) has a relatively low capital cost because they are actually increasing in value slightly rather than depreciating.

The cost winner? TBM 700B by a pretty good margin. Next was the Pilatus PC 12/45 and coming in 3rd was the Piper Meridian tied with the CJ1. This is not what I expected. The Eclipse was 4th followed by the KA C90 and TBM 700C2 tied for 5th. Sixth was the Mustang followed by the PC12/47 then the KA F90-1 then the KA200. I think the results are a bit weird. But I've played around with this program and looked at enough individual planes to see that there is some consistency. Obviously, there is a lot of variation in price but I'm attempting to find a good average across each airplane for comparison.

Take a look and see what you think. If there is a plane I've overlooked, or I've made an egregious error I can easily update the data.

I got a request to add the long body MU2. So, I have attached the same basic analysis for the Solitaire and the Marquise here.

Tony,
Shopping for your next plane is always fun to me.

Back when I was in the market I also got a online subscription to Vref for 90 days it costs a hundred bucks. It was a lot of fun to dream.

I also think that the Eclipse costs are high but of course what else would I say.

Also from what I read you can get a supported Eclipse for 800K

It all really comes down to what floats your boat. If you want to go into really small fields you want a Turboprop. Want to go above almost all the weather or want a second engine get a jet.

For me I got a Eclipse with 7 hours on it and basic avionics for less than a 10 yr old 1200hr TBM. I would make the same decision today.

Tony-- Good work. I got to ask about the Conquest 2.. I've know them to be fast and priced right. Sorry to add to the mix..

Tony,

Nice job. I think some of the numbers on the MU-2s are off. For example you show the Marquise being much cheaper than a Solitaire. In general, a Marquise with same equipment, engine hours will run about 50K more than a Marquise.

Your calculator appears to assume an average of 80 GPH for the Marquise. In reality, average is more like 75 GPH, but that could be a function of altitudes flown/trip length.

Airframe maintenance seems very high. I think it is about 1/3 of that.

SFAR requires annual training, so about 3K/year for that would be a good number, but maybe you are just going 0 on that for all planes for apples to apples?

Hangar seems very high. I'm in Metro DC (not as high as NYC or LA, but still high) and pay about $1000/month.

You show a depreciation cost for a Marqise, none for a Solitaire. Doesn't make sense.

All in a all a good effort. I haven't looked at your other one (the owe with King Airs, etc.) but you may want to look at some of the assumptions you are using. It appears you have some data that is throwing things off and thus could really throw off the results....

Dave

David,

I have corrected the depreciation in the attached. I got in a hurry before.

The maintenance is from the website's database and I actually used their average pricing for these two airplanes rather than adjusting it based on Controller pricing. I was attempting to get this posted for someone who requested it.

The maintenance, fuel burn and sometimes cruise speeds all appear to be conservative to me in the database. However, for the purpose of comparison they seem to be fairly valid in that the error, to the high side, seems consistent.

As far as hangar is concerned I do think there is a wide variance. I tried to use a figure I know I could find locally.

I removed training from the comparisons as it varies pretty widely. The software also includes figures for crew expenses which seem to average about $160 per hour but I also removed them. I also removed crew salaries and benefits as they are not meaningful to me.

Generally, I have attempted to treat each aircraft the same though. Conklin and Dedecker and BC&A have the same kinds of issues. Depending on how and where you maintain a given airframe there is a wide disparity in costs. If one were actually developing a budget I think these numbers are just the beginning point.

I hope you find it interesting.

I think your PC12 acquisition pricing is low. I have never seen a /45 for under $2MM and have never seen a /47 under $3MM.

But your annual budget for each is pretty spot on.

Mine costs me $300K a year for 300 hours a year.

January 1 I write a check for $250K. Then I buy gas when I want to fly it and that adds up to $50K for the year.

Tim,

I had done the work on the Conquest II a while ago so it was easy to add. I have updated the spreadsheet with the Conquest II with -10 engines.

Tony

I thought that as well Jason and think you are probably right. However, I took the figures from JetAviva's Market Report for the Fall 2015 here:

http://www.jetaviva.com/market-reports/ ... all-15.php

I assumed that they are tracking the market (they certainly claim to be). I realize most assumptions are faulty…still, the interesting thing to me about the PC 12 market report is that it supports what you have said a number of times: Pilatus' are not depreciating.

If I increase the purchase price of the two PC 12 versions by $300,000 it increases annual total cost by $20,000 mol. So not a big deal in the whole scheme of things.

Andy,

As with the other aircraft I have no doubt that an involved owner could impact the costs significantly. My effort was to try to put them all on an even playing field. I have done the same thing hundreds of times with Vref which I've had a subscription to, off and on, for years. It doesn't tell you what an individual airframe is worth but is a good ballpark for assessing relative value. I think BC&A, Conklin and Dedecker and Aircraftcostcalculator are similar tools with similar limitations.

With that said, the Eclipse is on the lower end of the cost spectrum, as is generally claimed, if you believe these numbers. It isn't as inexpensive, however, as its adherents claim. Neither are any of the other planes! Taking a real look at things like depreciation and capital cost take some of the fun out of it for certain.

Why they difference in hours flown/year for the Meridian and the Pilatus? Aren't they virtually the same speed? I think the Meridian is 260 versus 270 for the Pilatus, a difference of 4%. Yet the difference in hours flown is 14%. Payment, depreciation, and insurance would also be dramatically lower for Meridian of the same vintage as the TBM B and C2 models. The numbers are going to be skewed based on the model year. A newer plane is going to have higher depreciation, hull value, and capital costs.

Greg,

Using 255KTAS for the Meridian yields 196 hours for 50,000 miles and 280KTAS for the Pilatus gives 178 so I just used the closest hourly figure available in the software. I wish that it would allow exact numbers but it doesn't.

If I change the PC12/45 hours to 200 it changes the total annual cost to $296,162, $1480.81 per hour and $5.92 per mile. On the PC12/47 the total annual at 200 hours changes to $330,057, $1650.29 per hour and $6.60 per mile. That compares to $5.61 and $6.28 in the original spreadsheet respectively.

What you say about the age, etc. skewing the results is correct I think. But the only way I can think of to compare the other items you mention with more precision would be to compare airplanes of the same year, time and condition. Knowing the price in advance of course. Obviously, this is impossible. The value of using averages is that all the airplanes are averaged over age, time and condition. The value of the exercise is to develop relative cost.

If there is a better way please tell me!

Involved owners have more leverage some places than others. Some twin turboprop inspection plans (KA) are worse than others (MU2) Some singles (pc12, tbm) have market expectations of optional maintenance, others (meridian) don't.

But very interesting data for a first cut.

Tony,

This is great to see. I'm not trying to tear it down. I would like understand where the data came from for an "apples to apples" comparison. I do think the Meridian speed is understated and Pilatus speed overstated but that may be negligible. The only suggestion I would have for "apples to apples" is to compare a Meridian, King Air, etc. with a similar vintage, which could make it a quite large spreadsheet. For instance, for a fair comparison with an TBM B model I would compare a similar year Meridian and King Air. Avex has a pretty good aircraft comparison tool on their web site at:

http://www.newavex.com/comparison.htm

I think I might try to compare some vintages to see how it comes out. If I dare tackle it. It looks like a lot of work.

Fair and useful may be different concepts in this case. The issue is what options the market provides, not a strict comparison of one airframe vs another.