Which engine lasted longer?

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

A ) Averages 10 hours per year for 30 years and starts making metal with only 300 hours on the tach.

B ) Averages 500 hours per year for 6 years and goes in for an overhaul at 3000 hours.

 

[Geico266]

It depends what your definition of "longer" is.

 

[Ted]

Engine B cost less per flight hour. Engine A cost less per year.

Lycoming publishes TBO based on both hours and calendar, so one could make either argument.

But I'd go for engine B...

 

[Apache123]

Sounds to me like both engine owners got a good deal given their independent usage of the engines.

 

[John221us]

I am not sure what the point of the question is. Are you asking whether there is more value in an engine functioning after 30 years of little use or after 6 years of heavy use? If that is the question, I would choose B. I wouldn't even climb in the plane on A after 30 years of disuse, but I would trust B, as long as there were no serious squawks.

 

[Ted]

Sounds to me like both engine owners got a good deal given their independent usage of the engines.

Depends on how you look at it.

The 300 hour owner paid 10x per hour of use of the engine vs the 3000 hour owner. We talk about high hourly costs, that's enormous. So I'd say the 300 hour owner got a very poor return on investment.

 

[Apache123]

Depends on how you look at it.

The 300 hour owner paid 10x per hour of use of the engine vs the 3000 hour owner. We talk about high hourly costs, that's enormous. So I'd say the 300 hour owner got a very poor return on investment.

I say the glass is half full, he got 30 years of flying between overhauls. =)

 

[PBristolJr]

I say the glass is half full, he got 30 years of flying between overhauls. =)

But he only has 300 hours to show for that 30 years!

(Sorry for tipping over your glass )

 

[LDJones]

Engine B cost less per flight hour. Engine A cost less per year.

Lycoming publishes TBO based on both hours and calendar, so one could make either argument.

But I'd go for engine B...

The fully loaded cost per flight hour would be much higher on A when factoring the fixed costs of ownership. Insurance, hangar, annual inspection, calendar-based oil changes, etc. Each of those 10 hours each year were very expensive.

 

[Ted]

I say the glass is half full, he got 30 years of flying between overhauls. =)

And therein lies the difference between the hobbyist and the businessman.

The businessman says "I spent $30k on that overhaul, but it only cost me $10 per hour! Bob's overhaul cost him $100 per hour!"

The hobbyist says "I got 30 years out of that engine! That's only $1,000 per year! Steve over there paid $6,000 per year!"

Being on the businessman side that has a plane that works for a living, my position is obvious.

 

[Ted]

The fully loaded cost per flight hour would be much higher on A when factoring the fixed costs of ownership. Insurance, hangar, annual inspection, calendar-based oil changes, etc. Each of those 10 hours each year very expensive.

Exactly my point, and this is why I think the folks who are in the 300 hours in 30 years category would be much, much better off renting.

But, I'm a businessman...

 

[Henning]

And therein lies the difference between the hobbyist and the businessman.

The businessman says "I spent $30k on that overhaul, but it only cost me $10 per hour! Bob's overhaul cost him $100 per hour!"

The hobbyist says "I got 30 years out of that engine! That's only $1,000 per year! Steve over there paid $6,000 per year!"

Being on the businessman side that has a plane that works for a living, my position is obvious.

Thank you, same things involved in buying a plane as well, hobbies serve a different purpose than business and business style valuation doesn't apply.

 

[1600vw]

I wouldn't even climb in the plane on A after 30 years of disuse, but I would trust B, as long as there were no serious squawks.[/QUOTE]


Two years ago when I found my hangar there sat a 172. She had not moved or been touched in over 20 years.

The engine was locked up and she did not even have a front wheel. Within a couple months she was outside and purring.

I asked the A&P what it took to unlock the engine and he smiled and said some love and a little oil down the cylinders for a couple weeks.

Since then this bird has made two trips to Oshkosh and another to St.Louis for a radio package upgrade.

 

[Henning]

I got in my plane that had just finished 12 years of restoration work where it hadn't flown and flew it from Pheonix to Reno landing at night. I proceded to fly 100 trouble free hours after that. There are a few small issues to take care of with the engines, some dried out seals amountind to about $5000 in total repair cost, nothing that will result in a failure, just excess oil consumption.

It all depends HOW it was stored.

 

[denverpilot]

Exactly my point, and this is why I think the folks who are in the 300 hours in 30 years category would be much, much better off renting.

Why? They're going to pay more than their fair share of that overhaul on most rentals.

The owner of the rental will pocket the difference (well, really he'll fly it off at a reduced rate for himself).

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

 

[Everskyward]

Why? They're going to pay more than their fair share of that overhaul on most rentals.

The owner of the rental will pocket the difference (well, really he'll fly it off at a reduced rate for himself).

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

300 hours in 30 years is only 10 hours/year. Even if the airplane rented for $200/hour that would still only be $2,000/year. There's no way you can own and fly a plane for $2,000/year even if you only fly for 10 hours. That doesn't count acquisition costs either.

 

[Ted]

Why? They're going to pay more than their fair share of that overhaul on most rentals.

The owner of the rental will pocket the difference (well, really he'll fly it off at a reduced rate for himself).

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Let's assume that it's a $150/hr rental, and we'll assume no inflation to make the math easy, and remember that all costs will go up.

$150/hr * 300 hrs = $45,000

And that's all you pay.

Insurance: $1,000/yr for 30 years = $30,000
Hangar: $100/month * 12 months/year * 30 years = $36,000
Annual: $1,000/yr for 30 years = $30,000

Already, you've laid out $96,000 before you've even burned a drop of fuel. Even if you cut all those numbers in half for a cheap tie-down, do your own annual, and don't get hull insurance, now you're still at $48,000 before you've burned any fuel.

Alright, let's say that you've got a free place to park it because the airport manager looked at your wife longingly at that Christmas party and you said "Give me a free place to park my plane or I'll tell YOUR wife," and his wife's good with a .45 Glock. You don't mess around with annuals because who's going to check anyway, and why waste the money on insurance? If you crash, you're going to die, and you don't think anything will happen to the plane.

Assuming that you don't get hail damage, your plane stolen (or set on fire by the airport manager), or crash it, you will still have to pay for oil changes, which will end up running you about $100/year just for oil and a filter. You probably aren't stealing the fuel, so that's still going to be $60/hr these days for a 172. And things WILL break that you will have to fix.

$3,000 + $18,000 = $21,000. $24,000 worth of stuff to break is pretty easy to do over 30 years. Especially when the airport manager then busts your window and steals your radios every year to pay for the fact that you've got him over a barrel.

Now you've got depreciation. You buy the plane for however much, you had to put an engine in it (at least, we're assuming you put one in), and then you flew it for 30 years before it quit. Now you have to put in ANOTHER engine. With the rental, the engine was in there, if the plane got stolen it was insured, and if you didn't like it, you could just go rent a different plane.

Obviously, there's some room for differences there. If you bought a FlyBaby for $10k, it can't depreciate much. Fuel is 4 GPH @ ~$3.50/gallon for MoGas, so let's say $4,000 for fuel. I don't know what insurance is, but it's cheap, and at that point you may be able to do it for not much more money than renting. Plus it's a fun plane. But what I see more often are people who buy 172s through Bonanzas, and the things just rot.

 

[denverpilot]

I hear ya. I wasn't doing a full own/rent analysis and obviously that's the bottom line.

What I was saying is, that rental costs include a portion of the overhaul. It's not like renting gets you out of paying for some portion of it.

And unless the rental place isn't turning a profit (I know, many aren't...), there's some money in every rental hour going into the owner's pocket and not necessarily into the airplane.

There's rentals sitting and rotting too, because the owner isn't maintaining the rental any better than your 30 hour a year guy.

Mostly it just pays to know how much you're going to fly and where the break-even is. And your tolerance for scheduling.

Mix in that many places are renting absolute junk, and it's not too hard to say there's intangibles that are hard to quantify to a dollar value.

 

[Ted]

If you're going to own a plane that's not absolute junk, then your price per year goes up even further...

 

[Tom-D]

Today I pulled a 0-200 that has been in place running great for 43 years and is just over 2300 TT.

In the last 2 years it has used a qt of oil every 20 hours, on aeroshell W80 or W100 changed every 25 hours. The lowest compression during last years annual was 68/80.

cylinders have never been off, cases have never been split, IOWs there has been no major maintenance issues in 43 years and 2300 hours with no filter.

It had the mags replaced 5 years ago, because the dildo with a wrench scared the owner into changing them, it had been running fine with 50/50 mag drops on the old Bendix mags and the 500 AD complied with.

The records are perfect, the owner bought this 150 new, and has placed every minute of time on it.

you care for them, they will last for ever.

 

[Ken Ibold]

I think Henning had it right. Not everything is -- or should be -- reduced to cost per hour or cost per use. Maybe the owner got off on polishing the wings and picking the gravel out of the tires and took huge pride in the fact that he had an airplane that was all his. Can't put a value on that.

Flying is expensive, yes, but not everyone is trying to squeeze it down to the last nickel. I owned a Citabria for several years that, all told, cost me something like $800 an hour to fly. Do I wish it had been less? Yes. Do I care that it was that high? Not really. Would I buy a factory new airplane again? You betcha.

 

[zaitcev]

Exactly my point, and this is why I think the folks who are in the 300 hours in 30 years category would be much, much better off renting.

They aren't getting the same value renting. I'm struggling with FBOs disallowing grass. No grass - no Gaston's! That's a good reason to buy all by itself.

 

[Henning]

Thing is, the 300hr engine isn't going to need a full overhaul most likely, just a camshaft on an IRAN.

 

[Ted]

They aren't getting the same value renting. I'm struggling with FBOs disallowing grass. No grass - no Gaston's! That's a good reason to buy all by itself.

Depends on the rental arrangement, but you have a good point.

One must then consider whether the extra benefits of owning are worth the costs.