Dear All
Im interested in buying an aircraft and then leasing it to a flight school
Are there any ideas or forums or websites as to how to go about doing this
I really need the ins and outs of owning a plane
This may not be the venue but I thought I would put it out there
Kind regards
Ravi Mahajani
Outside my ambit, Ravi, so I can't offer anything specific.
However, there are plenty of folks who do what you are proposing. I would track down several who have purchased aircraft similar to what you have in mind (I presume that the strategy is to subsidise your own flying even if you don't make a profit) and seek their historical data for evaluation of your potential situation. It would also be appropriate to check what the accountant's views are regarding financial structuring strategy.
Engineering specialist in aircraft performance and weight control.
Ravi,
Buying an aircraft is not like buying a used Car, there are Zero warranties, and honestly a lot of aircraft being sold that should not be flying.
Having bought a few aircraft over the years, this is my advise.
have an independent maintenance organisation (someone preferably that has never worked the aircraft before) do a pre-buy inspection expect to pay $1000 or more. There will be outstanding maintenance items you cannot see. Sometimes the best presented aircraft can be the worst ones.
The aircraft needs to fly a minimum of 300 hours per year for you to break even. Your fixed costs will be around 10k per year. Shop around and find out what other schools are paying as DRY hire rates to flight schools.
Make sure you have a solid hire agreement. that covers damage cause by students, flying school aircraft can fly a lot, but students don't yet know how to care for the aircraft so expect damage. Don't expect to get much of a return on this investment essentially the return is that you own an aircraft and can use it when you want to. the Profit margins on flight schools is very low and they don't have a lot of wriggle room and are always being undercut by aircraft owners wanting more hours to offset costs.
Hope this helps
Thank you so very much for the sound advice. I agree, my aim is not to generate an income as such. It is really to have a plane that I want to use once a weekend. The rest of the time, I would like the flight school I associate with to use the aircraft. If I can then hire out the aircraft to the school and the return pays for the annual return on the aircraft, then I am happy with this.
Kind regards as always.
Ravi
Thanks as always John. This is always great advice as always.
Kind regards
Ravi
