Hello, I'm Brandon Martini, a commercial pilot and flight instructor.
And I'm Carson Vasquez.
I'm a private pilot.
And you're listening to the Aviation Mentors podcast sponsored by Stratis Financial.
So buckle up because the aviation mentors are taking off.
Welcome back everybody.
We're going to be talking about something kind of near and dear to my heart.
And it's something that I've got to deal with for, I don't know, about six, seven, eight
years or something now.
And that is ownership of an airplane.
Airplane ownership can be amazing.
It can also be detrimental to your health at some points.
So we're going to talk about kind of all sorts of things today relating to owning an airplane
and what that kind of takes.
And I'm really excited about this one because, like I said, I've been an airplane owner for
several years now and multiple airplane owner at some times.
And the icon has been fun.
And right now it's still in maintenance and it's kind of the bane of my existence at the
moment.
So it makes me feel like I want to get rid of it.
As much as I love my icon, that maintenance is killing me right now, especially because
I can't get the parts for it.
So we're going to talk about airplane ownership today.
And as always, if you guys ever have questions, please feel free, shoot them over to us.
A couple of these questions we're going to talk about today, we actually got from some
listeners.
So thank you for sending those over to us.
So let's start on a positive note then.
I don't want Brandon being all sad and negative about how much his plane is costing him.
And I don't have an airplane yet.
Like we talked about last time is I'm looking for a plane about the cost of a bike.
And he did offer me a plane about that cost.
But since I don't have it, I don't have to worry about maintenance costs.
So on a happy note, what are the benefits of owning your own airplane?
First off, freedom.
That is a big benefit.
I know my friend Anthony, he's the CEO of Stratis Financial.
He was on the podcast maybe a month or two ago.
But he told the story, we were at a conference together last week, and I think he told the
story five times on what the major benefit of owning an airplane is.
And it is freedom.
It gives you the ultimate freedom.
I think that everybody who goes and does their first flight, at least on their first solo,
they realize that they're all by themselves in an environment that a human is not supposed
to be in.
In the air, in the sky, we're like a bird.
For thousands of years, our ancestors tried to become birds and learn to fly.
And it really wasn't until the last 100, 120 years until we could actually make that a
reality.
So it's pretty amazing.
And the benefit of owning your own plane is you get that first benefit of just having
freedom like you get by renting an airplane as well.
But now you don't have to put it on a schedule.
You don't have to airline somewhere in particular.
You don't have to sit in traffic on the 405 freeway or the 15 freeway going to Las Vegas
or I was just in Miami last week or that traffic coming from Key Largo all the way up to Miami,
which took me two and a half hours at seven in the morning.
You could just fly and go above all the traffic and get around those things.
You can also take your friends and family places that they never thought they could.
You can go get the $100 hamburger, so to speak, which nowadays is probably more like a $400
hamburger, but you can go do lots of things like that.
You can just take a day trip that's somewhere a lot further away that you wouldn't really
be able to drive to for a day trip.
I know that I love just going out and going and having lunch.
Camarillo Airport, Charlie Mike Alpha, that airport has the best tri-tip sandwich you'll
ever have in your life.
And they only do it on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
I don't know if they do it on Sundays anymore.
I think just Wednesday and Saturday.
Carson's nodding his head like, yep, you're right.
It's only Wednesday and Saturday.
But if they ever have leftovers, they do a spicy version the day after, which is also
really good.
And then going out to, there's a place in Southern California called Casa Manchados,
and that's at, it's at MYF Montgomery Field.
That place is fantastic too.
I'm telling you guys all my secret places.
Now everybody's going to flock there.
I'm a little scared now.
But those are some really cool places Southern California I like to go to.
Catalina Island.
I mean, that's a benefit.
You can go there and go hiking for the day.
You can go get a Buffalo Burger.
You can do what I do and go to the Catalina wine mixer there and go for the weekend and
just make it a fun little trip.
So I mean, I could literally talk about benefits to flying all day long.
And plus it's cool.
Who doesn't like to say I'm a pilot?
There's always a joke that you always hear.
How do you know when a pilot walks into a bar?
I guess he'll tell you.
And it's true.
And we're all proud to be pilots.
And I don't think we're trying to brag or anything like that.
I think that everyone talks about being a pilot because it's something that we have
so much passion for and so much fun.
And it's really enjoyable.
I know I absolutely love being a pilot.
It's one of my favorite things.
One of the reasons why we started this podcast to kind of share my knowledge and Carson's
fun knowledge that he's had over the years and enjoy it with people who are listening
like yourselves.
So those are all major benefits to owning your own airplane.
And just it all comes back to freedom.
That freedom is pretty much what got me into flight training in the first place.
When I was in high school, Matt and I were scraping together pennies to pay for gas to
just go and fly after school and then scraping together a couple more to go and get a hundred
dollar hamburger.
My spot was French Valley.
So Foxtrot 7-0 went to the cafe there and split the little slider deal they had every
time.
That was the thing.
I'm glad somebody likes that airport cafe because I'm not really a fan.
Every time I've gone there, I just the food is just not been fantastic.
But maybe I need to give it another shot.
If you like it, I should probably give it another shot.
I know that the airport cafe at Riverside is amazing though.
Especially mama, the owner there, she just kicks butt with with her restaurant.
So they even have a menu item named after me.
So I'm not going to say it on here.
You got to come here.
You got to come and ask me and then I'll show you what the menu item is.
It's pretty neat.
Dude, I wasn't even a pilot yet.
I couldn't tell Matt, hey, I want to go fly to Camarillo and go get some tri tip or a
pilot.
I was like, OK, I'm happy with the French Valley.
This is what I got.
I'm happy I'm getting here.
I guess that's really true.
I mean, you should have him take you to Big Bear.
Big Bear's got a phenomenal restaurant there too.
Yeah.
And I don't even like breakfast.
I know I'm weird.
I don't like breakfast, but I actually like the breakfast.
They actually have a Big Bear.
So we're giving everybody all the good spots.
And if you want to go pick up growlers of beer, can't drink it there, obviously.
Eight hours bottle throttle.
We've talked about that before.
But hangar 24 at Redlands Airport is right across the way.
So I've done like a run to go grab a growler of beer and bring it to a hangar party at
Gino before.
I mean, that is the type of stuff.
That's why you own an airplane.
You do it so you can go pick up growlers of beer or you want to go pick up some sandwiches
from somewhere else and bring it and feed your friends and family.
Like those are the fun parts about being a pilot and owning your own airplane.
It gives you that freedom.
You can't necessarily go jump in an airplane and say, hey, I want to go rent this because
I just want to go 10 minutes away and I'll be back in a half an hour.
You can't do that with a rental airplane.
That's more planned and that's more thought through with your own airplane.
You can literally just jump in it and go.
Today Carson asked me if I'm flying today and I was like, no, I don't think so, but
I need to go see my friends who hail at Gino.
And I was going to drive there.
I looked at my, I thought to myself, he's giving me a weird look.
Like why the heck would you drive there?
So I decided that I'm probably just going to take my 120 there.
I want to get some table landings under my belt, some more of them.
I don't have that many of my log books, so might as well go practice with that and go
have a good time.
Plus it doesn't burn much gas, but that's just something I'm just going to go outside
and say, Hey, the weather's good enough, let's go.
And I'm just going to go take the airplane and go.
I don't have to talk to anybody about it.
I don't have to rent it.
I don't have to do anything like that, which that's pretty phenomenal.
I think that there's a certain number you have to hit of hours that you fly where renting
no longer makes sense and buying the plane does.
I'm not sure about that number or the equation, figure that one out.
But I figure, you know, aside from from the monthly payments on the plane, unless you
just bought it outright and then the fuel, it is cheaper at some point to just have your
own plane when you go and fly it all the time and go and do all those cool things.
But it sounds like Brandon's a pretty passionate and he's feeling pretty good.
So let's talk about bad things now.
What are the downsides of owning your own airplane?
Well, to answer that first part, the number varies on what type of airplane, how old it
is, what you're currently renting, how much that costs.
All those things are play a factor.
What insurance cost is, et cetera.
But typically it's somewhere around 100 hours of you renting a comparable airplane per year
when it will start changing.
The numbers will start making more sense for you to own an airplane.
But it really depends.
I've seen some as low as like 40 hours.
I've seen some as 200 hours.
So it really depends on you, depends on reserves and different things that you like to keep.
And everyone has a different way of doing it.
But just break down the math, break down the numbers and see what it will cost.
Even some flight schools require you to have renter's insurance.
Some don't.
So you can get rid of that and just put it towards your regular plane insurance.
There's a bunch of different factors.
So it really changes.
Some downsides.
First off, whenever you buy an airplane, I tell everybody whatever the purchase price
is, if it's a $20,000 airplane, plan on an extra $2,000 immediately that you're going
to have to probably put into it.
If it's a $100,000 airplane, I say immediately $10,000 you're going to have to put into it.
Whatever the purchase price is, plan on 10% of that cost.
Actually sometimes I'll say 10 to 20 depending on the airplane.
But at least 10% of the purchase cost you're going to have to put back into the airplane
within the first three to nine months, for sure within the next year.
That doesn't include the annual or anything like that.
That is just things that are going to break that haven't been used a lot.
Most people sell airplanes because they're not using them.
When things sit and don't work or are not used a lot, things are going to break.
So if you have not used those gyroscopic instruments or they've only been used like five times
in the past year and now you're all of a sudden flying it 100 times in the next year, guess
what?
Things are going to start breaking on it.
So that might be considered a downside of owning an airplane.
Things are going to break and sometimes you can't really know when that's going to happen.
You don't know when your radio is going to go out.
You don't know.
You don't even know when the engine is going to start making metal or you don't know when
the engine is going to stop running like it should.
There are ways that you can tell and there's time before overhaul times, but I've seen
engines fail at 200 hours and I've seen engines continue to 4,000 hours.
I would actually prefer to be in the engine with 4,000 hours than I would to be in the
with the engine with 150 hours because statistically more engines will fail at a lower time motor
than at a higher time.
We could go way into TBO and kind of the Mike Bush philosophy on TBO, which I'm a supporter
of, but the biggest thing are costs are unknown.
You could rent an airplane.
The costs are always fixed.
Now you own an airplane.
Costs can be cheaper, but the one time you get an annual that you thought was going to
be $2,000 is now $10,000 because your last ANP missed things or the person you had did
the pre-buy did a really poor one and it actually had a bunch of airworthy issues that really
need to get fixed.
Or another downside could be what happens when the airplane's down for maintenance and
you can't find a part.
I know I have a Dutchess.
I've had a Dutchess and on the hydraulic power pack, which moves the gear up and down, there's
a pressure switch on it.
That pressure switch is near impossible to find.
The last time I looked it up, it was $7,000 for this little switch the size of my thumb.
$7,000 and they were near impossible to find because they weren't made anymore.
You literally had to find an existing one from somewhere else and just take that power
pack and make sure that it worked.
It was impossible to find.
I don't remember how I found it.
I might have taken off another airplane or did something.
I don't remember how we figured it out, but somehow I got the part and I definitely did
not spend $7,000 on it, but it was near impossible to find.
So the airplane was down for like five months because of that.
So if your airplane is down for five, six, seven, heck, it being down for a year if you
can't find the right part.
Now if you buy an airplane that a lot of people have like a Cessna 172 or less moving parts
to break, that's the less likelihood of it actually being down.
But that's a big downside.
If you were planning on taking your family somewhere, planning on taking your friends
somewhere and now all of a sudden you can't, that's a downside.
The airplane is down for maintenance, costing you time, costing you money.
It'd be worth it to start renting again at that point until your airplane's up.
So the biggest downside is really money because you get all the freedom, you get all the time,
you get everything else.
The fixed costs can be the insurance, which has actually been going up 20 to 30% every
year for the past few years.
So it's not getting cheaper to insure an airplane.
The fuel prices, that's also going up, but it's also going up for airplane rentals as
well.
So that doesn't really matter.
Oil consumption, but the unknowns are really the maintenance.
The maintenance can really kill it.
So how do you predict those maintenance costs?
I know it's completely variable and you don't know when things are going to break, but how
do you see them coming in any sort of way?
And how do you handle that maintenance costs?
That's $7,000 for a switch out of nowhere, which albeit you didn't pay, is quite a bit.
Do you dump the plane when you can't handle it anymore?
What's the solution?
Well there's a lot of derelict airplanes at airports.
You can go to any airport and you see airplanes that are just sitting and they've been sitting
there for 20 years.
I can't say on every instance this is the reason, but I'll say probably the majority
of the reasons why airplanes sit there is because people can't afford the maintenance
on them.
And something's finally broke and they're not getting it fixed because either they don't
have the money or they don't want to spend the money on something that's just a hobby
or something like that.
So you can predict some maintenance.
Every engine has a TBO, a time before overhaul time, and that is a manufacturer recommended
overhaul time when that motor needs to be changed.
On most Cessna 172s, for example, the TBO is around 2,000 hours.
That varies on certain models obviously, but in general, somewhere around 2,000 hours.
You can bank on, you're probably going to need to replace that engine at 2,000 hours
and probably get the replace meaning overhaul the engine, which just you make it like new
again.
And same thing with the propeller.
You're probably going to do that on the propeller.
On a fixed blade prop, it's not as important.
It's getting dressed and cleaned every time you go get a manual or a hundred hour inspection
anyways, but they're really, they're pretty cheap.
It's 800 to a thousand bucks to overhaul a fixed propeller now.
So you bank on having to overhaul your prop.
You have to bank on overhauling your engine and you have to bank on all the maintenance
involved.
So it's 40 to 60 hours to remove and reinstall an engine and propeller on like a 172 typically
could be a little less depending on the maintenance shop and whatnot.
But then also you have to think about the overhaul cost and used to be able to overhaul
an engine on a 172 with an O three 20 in it for somewhere around 18 to $22,000.
Now I think that number is getting closer to 30,000.
And if you want a factory remanufactured or something like that, you can add another 10
grand to it.
So you're talking about a significant dollar amount that you have to put into this airplane.
Some, some people finance the engines if they already have the airplane paid off.
There's lots of things you can do, but that's probably the biggest factor.
So if you've got an engine that has a TBO 2000 and you have a thousand hours on it,
just plan on replacing that engine in a thousand hours.
And if you get more time out of it, fantastic, but there's also a chance you can get less
time out of it.
So just be prepared.
You should start having a healthy reserve or savings.
If that's how you manage your dollars for your airplane.
I come from a different perspective.
I like to take my money and invest it in certain ways.
So I have positive cashflow.
And then if I need to, I can pull out that investment and use utilize it to, to purchase
that engine or I'll have positive cashflow asset that, that is paying me a higher interest
than I would be paying on the, on the motor.
And I could take a loan out against that motor and have still positive cashflow.
There's different ways that people do it.
I do it with cashflow.
Some others will create a savings account where it creates a reserve, but I would say
keep it in an engine reserve of some sort, however you want to do it or just plan on
it.
So if you keep an avionics reserve, I would say probably 10% of your airplane costs because
the avionics will go out.
And when they go out, I bet you you're going to want to replace them with something newer,
shinier for you just to replace a radio, by the way.
It's like 40 hours to replace one radio, one calm nav hooked up to your audio panel.
It's around 40 hours.
It's a lot of labor, a lot of work.
So sometimes when you do that, you might as well replace the whole stack because it's
not too much longer to replace all of them rather than just place one radio.
And then I also say have another 10% saved of the airplane total cost for your annual.
Now granted, these are just kind of round numbers.
There's other people that have broken it down and they know exact numbers they need to keep
for an airplane.
But if you're a first time airplane owner, these are really round numbers that are easy
to know and remember.
That's what you should expect to have to put in the airplane.
And the 10% per year is probably pretty accurate.
If you have a $100,000 airplane, you're probably going to put, I don't know, five to 10 grand
per year into a Cessna 172 or 182.
It's just going to happen.
Your annual is going to be $2,500.
Your petrostatic is going to be a few hundred dollars.
And that's if no squawks and you don't want to replace anything or you don't want to upgrade
any of the panel plastics or none of the anything goes out.
So there are possibilities to get things done cheaper, but just remember you're playing
with your life.
And so don't just get things done cheap, get them done right.
Cheaper is not the best way always.
You can find a deal though.
I always love a deal.
Yeah.
My philosophy is always just buy the best that your money can buy you at the time.
And that's going to treat you pretty well.
If you can only afford to replace it with the same exact piece, then do it.
But if you can afford to upgrade it, do it.
But that was a terrifying amount of money that we just talked about.
So let's get back to the good stuff.
How does owning a plane impact your travel decisions?
So this is a pretty good one that I think Brandon would love to answer considering I
can't remember the last time this guy has driven to Vegas.
I think you've only ever flown to Vegas since you've got your pilot license, except for
maybe one or two exceptions.
But I think pretty much every time you've flown.
So how does owning a plane impact where you're going to travel?
Unfortunately, the last few times I've went to Vegas, I think two or three, the weather
was just terrible and I had to drive.
But owning a plane does impact your travel decisions.
Like I like going to wine country.
I like going to go find great places to eat.
I just love going and visiting some of my friends.
I know last year I got to visit one of my friends and mentors who ended up passing away
about a month later, Joe Connolly.
I ended up going to go visit him.
And the fact that I owned an airplane and I can just get up and go to Deer Valley Airport
in Phoenix area and just go visit him.
I literally just said the night before I said, I'm going to leave tomorrow and I'm just going
to go.
I jumped in the airplane.
I left.
I went there.
I was able to get a crew car for an hour and a half for free.
People at the FBO are always fantastic over there at Qatar Aviation.
Got in that crew car, went and visited Joe for about an hour and a half, two hours, whatever
it was, hopped back in the car, went back and I flew back home.
And that was something kind of impactful.
I mean, that did impact my travel decisions because either I was going to do that.
I was going to drive six to eight hours each way with or without traffic or I was going
to hop in in Southwest or something and go jump on a big airplane and go into Phoenix.
I have to go through TSA and all that other stuff.
Regardless, it was going to take me a heck of a lot longer than it would if I just jumped
on my own airplane.
So owning your own airplane can affect your travel decisions quite a bit.
I mean, that's a big one right there, just alone.
And then flying to Vegas, it only takes an hour and a half and a 172, maybe up to two
hours depends how the winds are.
But I've flown an Aerostar to Vegas and it took me like 50 minutes.
So you can fly to Vegas really quick.
50 minutes to Vegas from Southern California is actually quicker than taking an airline
if you're flying VFR because you can just fly direct.
There's some restricted airspace that you have kind of skirt through the middle of in
between restricted and restricted and some MoAs and stuff.
But you can go straight there compared to like a big airline while they're flying a
route, an IFR route, no matter what, VFR or IFR.
So those are some ways that it can really impact your travel decisions.
And then also if it's icing out or something like that where a big plane would have been
able to get you there, you might not be able to go because of that.
And you seem to be ready to drive or cancel your trip.
But that's being a pilot in general.
You have to know your limitations if you'll be able to fly or not fly.
But that's really the same thing as being an airplane owner, except for you have more
flexibility and you don't have cancellation fees from the flight schools.
That's for sure.
And if we're talking about cheap, owning your own airplane is probably not the way to go.
But how do you figure out at what point you're going to drive or at what point you're going
to fly yourself or fly commercially?
You know, flying to Utah is about a four hour flight and 172.
So how do you determine if you're going to do that flight or if you're just going to
hop on an airline and fly there?
It depends on what airplanes available to me, to be honest.
If it's a really fast airplane, I'd fly to Utah in a fast airplane like my friend's
Aerostar, I'd fly that.
If it was a 172, I'd probably take a commercial airplane.
If it's the icon, depends.
If I'm going to go see go to Lake Mead, then I would take that or go to Lake Habas.
So I'd take that.
If I'm going to Orlando or Miami or somewhere in Florida, like I've been, which is all the
way across the United States for me, like seven times in the past three months, then
I would definitely pick an airline.
So it's really kind of a time equation, right?
Time versus convenience or both really.
So I always pick what's both time, cost, effective and convenient.
The cost effective kind of goes out of the way for the freedom perspective of it because
it costs a lot more money to go fly your own airplane to Vegas than it would take a $120
Southwest flight, right?
But the convenience, the lack of having to go through TSA and getting a free crew car
and all those different things factor, obviously.
So that's kind of how it impacts my travel decisions and where I want to go.
I don't think that any of us became pilots because it's cheap.
We became pilots because it's fun, because it gave us that freedom.
And it's an amazing thing that we get to do.
And owning your own airplane just kind of gives you that access to go and do those amazing
things and have even more freedom.
You don't have to ask someone for permission aside from ATC to go anywhere.
You can just go and do it.
So owning an airplane, it's absolutely in my future.
It's in Brandon's past, present and future.
So he enjoys his own airplanes quite a bit and I really appreciate everyone listening
today.
Hope you have some incentive to go and own your own airplane now.
100%.
Don't let the negative things affect your positive decisions on that unless you really
just don't have the funds to handle that unexpected maintenance event.
I think that's probably the only downside that would really affect my decision on purchasing
an airplane because I've owned several over the years and I absolutely love owning my
own airplane.
I don't think I could ever go back.
It's something that I have to have now.
It's just one of those things.
But as always, thank you guys for listening so much.
If you'd like to reach out to either one of us, you can reach us at Twitter or Instagram
at MrMartiniGuy for me or at Carson underscore AV17.
You can also reach us on our emails, Brandon at AviationMentors.com or Carson at AviationMentors.com.
And thanks for submitting these questions too.
Keep them coming.
We love answering them.
And as always, as we wrap up for the day, remember, we're here to guide you in your
aviation journey.
So fly safe and enjoy the ride.