Out Of The Pattern

Racking Up Hours

We did it. Finally. In the past year, the partners in our Cessna 210 managed to rack up more than 150 hours on the airframe-that's more flying time than the airplane has seen in quite a while. Typically, we log some 75 to 120 hours annually between three families (once or twice it was only 50 hours). That's just not enough time to fend off annoying electrical glitches and the infamous Cessna landing gear quirks. It's not enough time to keep all of the airplane's pilots as proficient as they'd like to be in that particular bird. And it is certainly not enough time to effectively amortize out hangar, regular maintenance, and insurance costs. The result is that in a slow flying year it simply costs us more money per hour to fly. We didn't always know this, though.

About a year and a half ago, it became apparent that the airplane's expenses were becoming untenable for a couple of us, and there was talk of looking for more partners or even selling out. We did not want to sell the airplane, not after it has given us nearly 24 years of faithful service. So we crunched the numbers to try and figure out what was wrong with the way we were operating it. We made some interesting discoveries.

The airplane, flying or not, generates about $300 to $500 a month in fixed expenses. We can pay that out of our pockets or try to bundle it into a "cost-per-hour" and have the families who use the airplane more pick up more of the costs. We chose the "bundle" method of divvying up fixed expenses because it seemed more fair. If you use the airplane you pay for it. Except the airplane wasn't being used enough. The result: Every couple of months all of the partners had to reach in their pockets equally and ante up some change.

It turns out that fuel and oil are the only true variable costs on the airplane, and they amount to less than $40 per hour of the cost of flying this bird. The partnership charges each pilot considerably more than that to amortize maintenance costs, hangar rent, and aircraft insurance.

You do the math. If you are paying all that money just to have an airplane available, what's $40 more? The audit we did made it all clear: Flying the airplane more was the only affordable alternative to finding new partners or selling out altogether.

With our new operating philosophy in hand, we all got out there and started flying. Need instrument proficiency time? Don't use a flight training device; fly the airplane (the difference in cost is less than $20 for an hour's time). Need to make a quick trip to Miami or Tampa? Don't drive, fly; it'll help you maintain your proficiency. Planning a family vacation? Then why not take the airplane, and make the journey part of your vacation adventure.

Enough of that attitude and before you know it the airplane has had a banner year of flight. The partners seem happier (flying pilots are happy pilots, you know), but I'd swear, the airplane seems happier, too. In return for navigating her across the continent and to the Caribbean, the bird has rewarded us with significantly fewer maintenance squawks this year. Yes, certain time and cycle limited items had to be replaced (including a vacuum pump and gyro instruments), but the finicky landing gear has performed cycle after cycle, and even the "bug" that lived in the push-to-talk switch has found somewhere else to nest.

Besides the airplane's happy state, a secondary reward for more flying is that her pilots are inspired to do just that-fly her even more. You see, proficiency feels good. Each time we arrive home safe from an airborne expedition it seems to propel us to naturally think about using the airplane on our next journey. Suddenly we realized we were no longer thinking, "Oh, airlining it is more economical." Instead we were saying, "Let's fly ourselves because we'll have more flexibility and more fun."

This year's annual inspection yielded the fewest problems in years, and that is music to the partners' collective ears. No one talks about selling out or searching for another partner to help bear costs these days.

The cost of flying your own airplane, when you look at it the right way, seems awfully reasonable for the rewards garnered. Now that's the kind of accounting I like.