What kind of jet was that?

Hawker 4000?

Hawker 850xp... before I knew anything about flying or planes.
Perhaps it wasn't completely unsaleable, there was a bid down ~80% from what it was worth pre-financial crisis.

Oof

I put my stake back to the fractional operator at down ~50% which was below bluebook but a relatively good outcome, for me. Heard they had a bunch of 400xps and hawker 800, 850s just parked somewhere... i suspect those netjets and netjets Europe 400xp fleets are what are being re-engined by the Nextant program. They must have eventually sold off the 850s, at a good deal lower price than down 50%.
Edit: This the problem when you have a single operator owning a lot of a type, and then not getting much utilization on their fleet or running into financial issues. It also was a long in the tooth aircraft with relatively high operating costs, faced with a number of new competitors, or at least, evolving competitors. It did have a great cabin and was a great plane from a passenger perspective.

The PC12 price holds if you look back in time. They started delivering them in 1994. The didn't just hit the market.

A new 2016 PC12NG is $4.9MM. That's a lot more than I paid for my 2008 NG.

Patrick,

I spent a lot of time considering Commanders. They were built here and an old friend of mine's family financed the company in the early days and he once owned a large repair station here. He knows the history of practically every serial number. We also have a great repair facility here. I think it is a fabulous airplane. But after a lot of investigation I decided it wasn't for me. I'm glad it is working for you.

Similarly, I'm not interested in some of the older MU 2's and other older airplanes that have been suggested.

However, most of this thread's exercise was just to look at at the comparison of cost of planes I find intriguing not necessarily ones I would buy. So, I added the Marquise and Solitaire for someone and the Conquest for someone else. When I have time I'd be happy to look at others.

In the meantime my Cessna rep called offering a screaming deal on a 2010 trade in...

I get your point. But to ignore depreciation is to ignore a significant component of overall cost (which may be better from a mental health standpoint ). There are other ways, I suppose, to estimate what future depreciation will be than looking at the recent past but I do think that is a valid way to make what is, in the best case, as speculative assumption. Since all the analyses I did involved a 3 year hold period I used the most recent 3 year actual depreciation rate as nearly as I could determine it. Is there a better, more logical and/or more consistent way to apply a depreciation factor to a range of airplanes? What framework would you make projections based on?

If you seek to know what something really costs you can't ignore depreciation any more than you can ignore the cost of capital.

Tony, I probably was unclear earlier. I certainly don't think you should ignore depreciation, my objection was only to looking at the last few years and using only those numbers, and then saying that the next three years will be the same, and then making a decision weighing too heavily on what has lost how much value lately. E.g., because a TBM 700b has declined less recently, because it might not continue that way. I think it is dangerous to confidently model a single figure for depreciation. It may be a wide range of numbers over a three year period. Will you still be happy with your choice if it is 3x what you modeled over a three year period?

I think there is a qualitative difference between this depreciation cost variable and other operating cost items.

If you look at aircraft blue book if you have a subscription or the Jet Aviva reports which are free, long term there is a variable but eventual decline in the value of these assets towards scrap value. (The PC-12 is a rare exception, so far, it's a great plane with great utility and no competition in its niche. It is manufactured by a company which has innovated slowly and managed production well to maintain scarcity, and when they have come out with a new product they have priced it higher, [not at the same price, to the detriment of legacy owners.]) You might even catch a good stretch of years where prices are flat or actually appreciate, it helps to be buying during a financial crisis or buying something well depreciated already (that 700B had lost over 50% of its initial purchase price since new, before slowing the rate of decline). Or, you might catch a hell of a bad stretch of three years time, where everything is down a ton. The biggest way to protect yourself from this risk is to buy stuff pretty well depreciated already.

I am reminded of a rather entertaining and enlightening posting in the TBM owners forum by a rather disappointed owner who had bought a new plane and sold it years later. He provided all of his operating costs, including depreciation (realized, not some accounting figure), and his total ownership costs were a significant multiple of the widely distributed TBM or AVEX published numbers. The guy lost his shirt. Should he have believed the marketing numbers? Of course not.

That's funny right there.

Show me an airplane that has innovated faster?

That's funny right there.

Show me an airplane that has innovated faster?

Sorry, to be clear, I recommend a running a sensitivity analysis using a range of depreciation percentages... Use higher figures than recent historical and if you can stomach the cost for an aircraft which fits your mission and you really want to fly, then go for it.
From an extensive amount of time reviewing lots of historical data in aircraft blue book several years ago, my recollection is roughly for most aircraft:
- In the first 5-7 years depreciation is typically meaningfully high, 5-10% of price new.
- after that it then tends to trail off, to say 5-10% of prior year price
- if the market tanks, everything falls
- old stuff is different...
- certain planes are different (pc-12s appear immune to gravity)

This advice is worth exactly what you paid for it.
Wish I'd bought that PC-12 I was looking at in 2009 or GE or JPM or any REIT or just about anything traded on an exchange...

You beat me to it.
I didn't mean it as a dig.
I also mean they don't come up with a new paint job, model name with a bigger number every year, or keep upgrading panels but not performance,or slightly improving performance but using a new model number, to intentionally make this year's model appear the next new thing (and by extension, last year's model obsolete).
The PC-12 is a great product, but they have been relatively slow to improve it, certainly in terms of panel.
If they do the PC24, that will be huge.
I'd say Cessna and Embraer are more innovative, but I suppose that's a matter for discussion.

Disagree mate.

Go fly legacy, go fly NG

Two different airplanes.

Cirrus is a great and phenom of an airplane.

Like the PC12 they have upgraded the avionics, the useful load and added a stick shaker and wing leveler.

Both are innovators coming out with a Jet. PC12's will be better

I think Cirrus has done an incredible job innovating. Vans is also killing it on the 'upgrade' front.

An RV10 will equal a Cirri. Find me an airplane that will equal a PC12.

Here is another way to look at it.
A plane is a set of compromises. When comparing similar mission and capabilities, the same basic trade offs and design criteria will lead to similar constraints.
The result, the price and the operating costs will tend to similar for any design which is successful and stays in production. Any design which sacrifices cost (initial or ongoing) to much when compared to others in the same basic class will eventually get slaughtered by the market.
Therefore, when comparing the aircraft only three things truly matter when doing an apple to apple comparison:
-- Passengers opinion/comfort
-- Pilot flying preference
-- The actual airframes being compared

All the rest is noise.

Tim