Nice presentation Mike. It demonstrates your innate passion. And one should be applauded for just doing that; whatever the cost. So youre at about $1300hr; as reported the CJ2 around $1800 hr. A $500/hr difference. Perhaps quite a sum of money. But I dont think this is really about the money: Its knowing your plane. And having an older plane (as I have a couple) you need to.

Interesting; Im not detail oriented yet just bought a craftsman tool box for the hangar.
Some of you guys built the balsa airplanes years ago: I bought the plastic ones that were done and flying in 30 minutes.

As Don C mentioned: its comes down to what your time is worth. I quit hobbies years ago and am flat out to make changes in this world. YMMV.

Thanks again for the effort. You and Tarver may convince me yet.

When you replace (as an example) lav door hardware with your own concoction or with a similar part that wasn't sourced from Textron, what paperwork needs to be signed off on if any at all? How is it logged (if it needs to be)?

Chip-

It is a minor alteration at worst, and could simply be logged as a "repair".

The hardware is identical (same manufacturer, model stamped on it). Who is to know it was new versus original? Sometimes you got to not sweat the small stuff.

My mod was no more "creative" than what mechanics had been trying to fix it in years past and failing, mine just worked and will never have to be fixed again.

Mike C.

Mike's number leaves out engine reserves which are in the CJ2 number.

That makes Mike's actual hourly $1700 vs $1800 for the CJ2... which is still really good because the 525's are typically quite a bit less than the 560's.

Most of the money I have saved was done with a web browser, email, and a phone.

The rest is saved with careful diagnosis of problems through video, experiments, and systems knowledge.

The actual wrench turning is a relatively minor part of it. My operating costs would have increased maybe $6K last year if I had not touched a single wrench or turned any screws.

Forums like BT and CJP are valuable resources. I know CJP saves me more than my dues, and I know I have saved others a lot, too. To some degree, owner involved maintenance is a "cause" that seeks to empower owners to manage their planes inexpensively and not be beholding to the high dollar shops treating you like a blank check. Anything I can do to return that power to the owners and away from the shops is a good thing.

That's one reason why I find it objectionable that some folks think you can't properly maintain your aircraft outside the high priced shops. That just feeds the myth.

Mike C.

Engine reserve is a market value. You pay for it when you buy and you pay for it when you sell. Any other accounting is a nice fantasy for the low use operator.

Right now, if I were to sell, my actual engine reserve figure would be negative, my plane has gone up in value a lot even with the 250 hours I have put on it.


$500 more an hour? Not likely, that's Williams type numbers due to the monopoly they have.

My plan is to fly past TBO with a hot section. With what I have left and a new HSI, I get 2200 hours for a pair of hots. That's not going to cost anywhere near $500/hour ($1.1M for two hots is way off scale). I figure $150K for a pair based on what I've seen it being done for. For that year I do it, my costs will spike, but spread over the 2200 hours, it is only $68/hour.

At that point, if I still own the airplane (unlikely, 15 years of my flying), then the engines have cycle limits that make an OH reasonable for another TBO period. Nothing major times out. So that would be another 3600 hours. An overhaul would run about $400K/side.

Thus I could get 5800 hours for two HSI and one OH, that works out to be about $200/hour reserves (in today's dollars).

That's a lot less than the Williams tax on the 525 series.

BTW, my costs in 2020 were astronomical. I flew the plane just once for less than an hour, and spent about $240,000 on it. The flight was to the avionics shop, and the $240K was prepaying the panel upgrade. So that year, my hourly costs were north of $250,000/hour.


There's no way I can operate a 525 for less than my 560. The options to reduce my costs are so severely limited on the 525. You have to pay the Williams tax (or you pay more at the next engine event), you don't have a good LUMP program to extend inspections, you don't have nearly the availability of salvage parts, and the 525 series has less independent shop experience. As a general rule, the newer the plane, the more costly the parts are and the more onerous the inspection profiles are, too.

Textron no longer sells planes, they sell financial obligations which generate huge amounts of recurring revenue for them. That's certainly true for Williams as well. Over a 5000 hour TBO period, they collect about $1M per engine, $2M per plane. There are plenty of Williams equipped planes that aren't worth $2M in total.

Mike C.

I get the math Mike... but the value of your engines is $400 an hour ($1,300,000.00 divided by 3500 hours) so if we are comparing apples and apples... both have engine reserves in or both have it out.

If you take the engine reserves out of the CJ2 it drops to $1400 an hour or $100 an hour more than your V.

Which, as I said is still really good, the 525's have very low operating cost, so if you can beat that with an older, faster, more capable airplane that's really good!

If I overhauled my engines when they runout, my plane's value will not rise by $1.3M.

Just isn't going to happen.

Mike C.

Sounds like California problems

My dad was blessed that he was able to retire (for the most part) at 60, and enjoyed 15 years of retirement.

He used to say, "If not for airplanes I could have retired at 50."

Mike's number leaves out engine reserves which are in the CJ2 number.

That makes Mike's actual hourly $1700 vs $1800 for the CJ2... which is still really good because the 525's are typically quite a bit less than the 560's.

Fact, truth. A legacy citation costs about $1200 an hour to run.

Thanks Mike C .

My wife and I had this conversation recently. I said "We could retire right now, today, if we sell the planes."

We're both still working.

Community hangar run by the FBO, $720/month, valet service, and they plug in my batteryminder when they put it in the hangar (or move it). I have that setup so all it take is plugging in an extension cord.

Hangar has a little bit of a bird problem, but then the $1800/month hangar at KEVV Tri State had that, too!

Mike C.

The PW500 series are way too much $$$ for my taste. Most of them are on a program and that runs about $500/hour for a pair. There are no truly independent shops that work on them (Dallas and PWC are the only ones).


Yes, but you can still be more resourceful than sending the engine to PWC or Dallas for a gold plated repair.

Worst case, you buy a used engine somewhere. Somewhere around $500K can get me a serviceable replacement engine. It doesn't take long to reach that number if you take the engine payment money and put it into investments instead.

Another factor is that if you pay into the programs for your engine, your plane is more valuable and that drives insurance and taxes. You end up paying taxes on a hull value where a big fraction of it is money you sent to someone and not truly reflected in the actual airplane value.


Isn't that what defines airplane ownership?

All of us owners are hoping the engine stays healthy and economical during our ownership. This is true for every class airplane, having that engine fail catastrophically would be a major financial headache. That's true of the Cessna 150 owner and the Citation owner.

The vast majority of Citation engines run without major difficulty. You could be that unlucky guy whose engine falls apart, but most don't end up that way.

The risk isn't just engines. You could that guy who finds bad corrosion that totals the airplane. No program exists to cover that.

Mike C.