That is a lot of plane for what you are paying. There are some potential big ticket items that could spoil it, but hopefully that bird stays reliable until you part ways with it.

If something comes up, I am confident I can deal with as well as anyone could.

If I had to part it out tomorrow, I would be sad but I would be able to manage the financial impact. I never put money into an airplane that I can't lose.

Paying larger sums of money to service centers and engine programs doesn't actually change much of the downside risk. It just means you paid more. I figure the sums I am saving will equal or exceed the benefit I would have gotten from the programs. The amount some people pay for all the programs they are on is staggering. In less than 10 years, those programs could add up to the entire amount I paid for the plane in the first place.

Mike C.

There are plenty of folks who think the same of owning a Baron.

Mike C.

Because (presumably) you don't charter/rent your plane out when you are not using it. If someone is sharing the plane in this way, engine programs are one of the few ways to make it sensible to all of the bean counters involved, and also to easily explain costs of ownership and usage to a larger company's CFO

The programs that Jets are on do seem pretty high. In the baby jet and baby turbo prop market, been following a thread on the programs for the Cirrus jet. If we flew a series, check the number of nautical miles per year that we fly our M600, we will be putting $200,000 a year just into jet stream. We could buy a brand new PT6, and just throw the basically new used PT6 out on the highway every four years and more than break even. Jetstream covers some additional things like databases and training, but those things are dirt cheap in an M600. Seems weird to me that Jets are on programs, and similarly sized turboprops never are. The manufacturers are definitely making significant money on these programs.

In the (larger) corporate world there is something to be said for linearity of expenses. Finance people love to have predictable expenses instead of lumpy ones, even if they are higher in the long run. Also, many programs have an insurance aspect where the vendor will provide loaner or rental equipment during an event so they are not AOG. That has value to some people that need/want a very high dispatch rate, even for a random event.

I would assume corporate TPs are on programs for the reasons I outlined above. I have a friend whose company has a PC-12 and a CJ3. I will ask if the PC-12 is on programs.

Since our plane is a Family Truckster, programs don't make any sense at all for us but I can understand it makes sense for some people. I also shy away from Williams and the newer Pratt engines because they require programs.

There are a ton of places that can CNC machine polycarbonate, carbon fiber, etc. I had a PC cover made for a placard that's on the floor and was constantly getting ruined by people stepping on it. Don't know why Cessna put a placard on the floor but whatever. I paid for about 30 min of CAD time from my ME and bought 50 covers for less than $100.

If that’s the case, why don’t you get two (or five) owners together that live in the same region, and buy a spare which can be used by whoever is AOG at the time. You can split the capital cost equally and split the fixed costs equally, and whoever is using it will pay variable cost plus an additional hourly bump, which will go back to cover a portion of the fixed cost. That way whoever is actually using it subsidizes it for those that are not.

I’m guessing then, that before reading this thread, you thought you’ll need to hit the mega Billions…

Yeah, but if astronomic fuel costs forces this into being a low utilization aircraft, now your training cost/time per hour skyrockets instead. In the eyes of the FAA, this is a 2-crew plane that you only by the grace of the admins and with rigorous training are allowed to fly SP.

Crandall's "with training, this makes it the slowest plane I've owned" quote comes into play for all jets. Let's be honest - most people here, would be faster in an Aerostar than any jet, when you count the time and money going to FlightSafety.

Yeah, but if astronomic fuel costs forces this into being a low utilization aircraft, now your training cost/time per hour skyrockets instead. In the eyes of the FAA, this is a 2-crew plane that you only by the grace of the admins and with rigorous training are allowed to fly SP.

Jason Crandall's "with training, this makes it the slowest plane I've owned" quote comes into play for all jets. Most people here, would be faster door to door in an Aerostar than any jet, when you count the time and money going to FlightSafety.

Chatham County property taxes and the assessor will squeeze water out of a rock! I had to fight my plane’s assessment one year. Fortunately, I didn’t have to pay the property tax on the shade hangar once it was installed.

I paid for two recurrent 61.58 SPE courses at Flightsafety, $6400 each. I used one in 2022. I will be using one this year.

Regardless of what it costs per hour, training is a vacation for me and I enjoy it.

As to the "rigorous" training for SP, if you can't pass it, you should be flying any turbine. It isn't that hard and good training is the number one safety strategy in aviation, bar none.

My training costs for the Citation have gone down versus the MU2. I did two training sessions per year in the MU2 (one official, another self directed). Now I do one yearly Citation course. This change was somewhat forced in that renting Citation sims for self directed use is rare, and because the Citation is simpler to handle emergency situations.


And then he bought a jet. So much for his logic.


Maybe, but that's not the total benefit. I rarely fly solo, and so the benefit is what it does for my passengers. As a business tool, being able to fly my team somewhere in a jet is hugely advantageous over an Aerostar.

You can use the logic above to criticize almost all activities we do, like posting on BT, or watching TV, etc. Humans are just not some machine that needs to run 24/7 being profitable. In this case, my time invested in preparing myself and the plane to be a reliable corporate tool is worth it.

Mike C.

I think the training/sim time requirement is a bit specious.

Yes, it must be done. But wouldn't you do the same in a high-performance turboprop? Maybe not exactly the same, but I know folks with TBM-900 and the like, and one of my CFI friends regularly flies with them for proficiency.

Depends a lot on the hours a year the PIC is going to put in. For 100 hour a year pilot, currency-training is going to represent a big chunk of time vs. actual flight time. For a 400hr a year PIC, not so much.

Arguably, the less time you spend in the left seat, the more vital the training is. Even for a lowly piston pilot like me, I can tell with absolute certainty, that skills rust faster than bare steel by the surf side.

When I was about eight, three years after Dad bought the Bonanza, I asked, "How much money have you spent since you bought "Tango"?" Referring to all the upgrades and maintenance squawks he had done.

He looked at me with his chin lowered, his eyes glaring into my soul. "Do me a favor. NEVER ask me that again."

"Yes sir." I didn't really know why he said that, then, but now I know why he said that. Because, he didn't want to think know.