Robinson R22 Aircraft Cost Calculations
A lot of you have been emailing me and are interested in my Robinson R22 cost calculations that I mentioned in this post. I came up with this spreadsheet (posted as a JPEG file below) after looking at lots of new and used Robinson R22s and concluded that if you have the appropriate cash flow, it can be cheaper to buy a new Robinson R22 for initial helicopter training and fly it for 5 years vs renting. I’d welcome your comments on my cost estimations.
Find out all the details after the jump.
Assumptions
- 10% down payment
- Pathfinder insurance
- You have desire to administer (paperwork, etc) all aspects of owning your own aircraft
- You are okay with flying your own (brand new) helicopter for your initial training
- Acquisition January 1 of year 1 and sale of aircraft on December 31 of year 5
- Flight time of at least 100 hours per year
- Inculdes some cost for a CFI in year 1 and recurrent training (you may need more or less)
Robinson R22 Ownership Cost Calculation
Disclaimer: This information is strictly hypothetical and should not be relied upon as advice to help you with your specific situation. Each aircraft purchase situation is unique and must be analyzed by professionals including, but not limited to, an attorney and tax professional licensed to practice in your area.
If you are interested in the actual spreadsheet so you can customize your own figures, please contact me.
Let me know what you think!
September 24th, 2007 at 10:01
Great breakdown! Anyone prepared to shell out $50-60k into their training should take a look at this possibility. I’ll do some more research on it myself. I’d much rather have some of that $250/hour go back into my pocket!
May 31st, 2009 at 13:15
Whoa.
First of all, why would you buy a brand new one? Right now, the market is flooded with perfectly good used R22s from failed flight schools (think Silver State) and over-extended “rich guys.” I think you can get a fine used one for around $100-$120K. When I bought mine in 2000, it was a 1999 model with only 168 hours on it; it looked brand new — and it only cost $132K. (I sold it for $105K in 2004 with 1068 hours on it.)
Don’t buy used from a broker. Use Trade-a-Plane.
Second, anyone who finances anything over 20 years is throwing away huge amounts of money paid in interest. Why would you do that unless you could get a tax deduction on interest paid? (Like for a business?) I borrowed $100K on my R22 and financed it over 6 years. Payments came in around $2000/month. I borrowed $160K on my R44 and financed over 7 years for the same monthly payment (interest was lower; about 7.5% now). I want to OWN the aircraft one day. I don’t want to pay for it until I sell it. And I don’t want to give more of my hard earned money to a bank than I have to — even though I CAN deduct the interest since the helicopter is a business expense.
But maybe that’s just me.
As I mentioned in your original post on this topic(http://www.pilotmikekc.com/2006/01/10/purchase-vs-rent-robinson-r22/), I think you can work the numbers a little better and, with a partner or two, can make it quite affordable.
Another other option is to lease from someone like the Spitzers in California or Rich Carter in Seattle. Rich has at least a half dozen R22s sitting on the ramp at Boeing field; I bet he’d love to get one of them into the hands of a couple of folks who would fly it a dozen or more hours a month.
There are a lot of options out there with so many helicopters not being flown. Work this idea a bit. If you’re serious about getting a helicopter rating, why not try to find a few local pilots like yourself who are willing to take the plunge with you?
March 2nd, 2010 at 07:56
Maria, Mike,
Interesting stuff here. I was indulging in the similar thoughts for ages.
One of the suggestions (Maria) was to go with CFI directly. In that sense after gaining CPL for further hour building, would you offer your services? That would include dual as well solo once confidence inthe client builds after some time.
This would require you to hold a CFI rating but would bring in cash for your flying time and same time wouold be reasonably cheaper to an individual client?
Its assuming that ownership of helo by single individual out of question.
Please comment.
March 11th, 2010 at 21:18
Someone, like Maria, would probably known better the ins-and-outs of sharing time in a helicopter as my only experience with sharing time was when practicing for my instrument rating for ASEL.
I would think that if your goal was to build time, I would certainly explore multiple options. I have seen where people will look for other pilots to share time when transporting an aircraft for maintenance, etc. A lot of it depends on what your goals are, how much flexibility you have in your timeline, and the quality of the time you want to put in.
I highly recommend checking out Maria’s blog. She has a lot of experience with helicopters and has a lot of great posts on various helicopter – as well as other – topics.