Airplane Ownership: N29350

After passing my checkride and becoming the proud owner of a new Private Pilot's License, I promptly stopped flying. The stress and study and weather wore me down to the point that passing my checkride was like finishing a very exhausting marathon. Don't get me wrong, it was stimulating, challenging, fun, exciting, frightening and nerve-racking...and I still can't believe I am a pilot.

Perhaps the reason that I stopped flying for almost 3 months after my checkride has more to do with finances than burnout. I started to research the possibility of buying my own airplane early last summer. Endless hours surfing the web and I became a man possessed with trying to debunk the theory that it is extremely expensive to fly. I hatched all sorts of schemes but in the end there was simply no way around it. Owning an airplane is very expensive.

The costs to fly are only a small piece of the total costs. You can't park an airplane in your driveway so you are forced to pay to park your airplane in a hanger or on the ramp at the airport. You must pay insurance, annual inspection fees, property tax (in Virginia), maintenance, etc., etc. Everything for an airplane costs about double or triple what you would expect to pay. Sadly, there appeared to be no way I could ever buy an airplane.

But...I am stubborn and hate to give up. In my research on hundreds of potential airplanes, I was intrigued by the Cessna C177 Cardinal. This beautiful creature was manufactured by Cessna for a decade in the late 60's and 70s. She was created to replace the workhorse of all airplanes, the C172. She is faster, with sporty lines and a huge interior. The doors on the Cardinal make it easy for even the most clumsy pilot to enter and exit with ease. There just happened to be a Cardinal that was owned by a partnership in Lynchburg, and one partner wanted to sell his share. In September I took my first flight in N29350...I fell in love. Love does strange things to a middle-aged man. He walks about in a daze, consumed with thoughts of payload, cruising speeds, fuel consumption and cost per hour calculations. By the end of my first flight I knew that I was smitten. I would visit her on the ramp and just admire her beauty. I would imagine firing up her 180 hp engine and climbing away from all the earthbound stress and landing at some distant airport....a little secret getaway. Well...I guess you can tell where this is headed.

In February of 2010, my madness reached new heights as I purchased a 25% share in N29350. She is a 1968 (beware of the lure of a younger woman) C177 with a 180hp Lycoming engine. She is a dream to fly and after completing the mandatory insurance checkout, I'm now free to fly...anytime the weather dictates that VFR guys can play.

How does fractional airplane ownership work? Imagine the expense of owning your own airplane and divide it by 4. The Cardinal's insured value is $60,000. So a 25% share costs $15,000.00. I agree that $15K is not cheap but realistically, you can't even buy a decent car for $15K anymore, and a classy bird like the N29350 will not lose her value at the same rate as a car, truck, or boat. All expenses are split into quarters which makes our fixed costs $80/month/owner. This covers insurance, tiedown on the ramp, taxes, and other minor costs. When I fly I pay $25/ tach hour. For non-pilots, you pay for airplanes by either tachometer time or what is known as Hobbs time. A Hobbs meter basically runs at a standard rate constantly whenever the airplane is running. The tachometer also keeps time but depends largely on how fast the engine is running. For my recent flight from Lynchburg to Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport and back, the Hobbs time would have been 1.4 hrs. However, the tach time was only 1.0 hrs. What a deal! Can you see why I fell in love with this airplane? She's beautiful, cheap, and fun to be with. OK....that might be taking the analogy a little too far.


My purpose in writing today is to say that I have found an economical way to fly...and an airplane that I'm thrilled to fly. My cost to fly is now $60/hr (25/hr for time in the air plus fuel @ 10gph), compared to rental charges that averaged $125/hr for the Piper Warrior...and the Warrior is no Cardinal.

So, life is exciting and I keep finding excuses to get up really early in the predawn darkness, slip away to the airport and steal away for those special moments when the rest of the city sleeps, and I can steal away in the Cardinal...high above the cares and concerns of life.