Ownership questions

[PapaHotel]

Hey guys! My first post here and thank you for having me.
I am here to ask veteran and first-time aircraft owners how deep maintenance costs can make your wallet thin. Specifically, I am looking at a 152, 172, piper 140 all mid 70's, mostly for time building. I'm a 500+ hr. pilot (ASEL, AMEL, Instrument, CFII) and tried the instructing thing for a while, but as most CFI's come to find out, the bills have to get paid somehow and it ain't going to happen in the dog-eat-dog world of hustling students. So I figured owning my own aircraft would be a good way to build 1500 to 2000 hours over the next 3 or 4 years.
In short I'd like to hear testimonials from a/c owners.

Thanks everyone.

[SFDukie]

Hi PH,
I'm a renter, but I'd like to be an owner eventually. avweb has an excellent comapro of various types of planes called "cheap to keep" here:
http://www.avweb.com/news/usedacft/181782-1.html
Searching aopa.org for various aiplanes gives tons of info about most of the ones you mentioned as well. Budd Davisson's site has reviews of lots of planes with pros/cons as well- but mostly about flight considerations (load, economy, performance, flying "feel) and less about maint. concerns.
Are you going to instruct in the airplane? Obviously that would affect the situation. My old flying club had a top notch instructor who flew after "work" and on weekends and I would have loved to have had him as my instructor, but he had limited time and I didn't have the option of waiting a year until he had an opening...
Don

[PapaHotel]

Thanks SF,
What I'm really looking for is maintenance estimates. I can research AD's for various aircraft at the FAA's website to find out whether or not there recurring, one-time, etc. What I want to find out is some concrete maintenance costs for Cherokee 140's, 180's, Cessna 172's, 177's, etc.
Any one of those aircraft can be had for the price of a new car and with insurance being comparible, I want to know, roughly, how much I can expect to pay for overhauls, AD's, annuals and so on.

PapaHotel

[SFDukie]

I don't know how to estimate costs for the various aircraft. I do know that costs for my club are very close between comparable 172s and warriors/archers, and that within rounding, it's pretty much a tossup. Here's a pdf comparing warrior to 172r- very close. http://www.airplanenoise.com/article...vs.Warrior.pdf. It is a few years old (5?) but comparitive costs should still hold (less than 5% difference). You might try to talk to the maint. mgr of a Phonix flying club which has a variety of planes.
Don

[Denny of Oakland]

PapaHotel,

There is no crystal ball to look into and come up with any really good number as each aircraft is different. The aircraft may for example be a Cessna CE-172, but there are several different 172 models and even say it is a CE-172-N each CE-172-N is different depending on what is installed. What is important is who last owned it and how did they maintain it. If you find and aircraft you like asked the current owner to show you the aircraft records and costs it cost them for the repairs and annuals.

The aircraft maintenance records should match the paid bills. If they don’t keep shopping. I would recommend going to your local airport land ask local owners.

Denny of Oakland

[PapaHotel]

Thanks guys,
It'll be a while before I decide on which model 172 I want, but I appreciate your guidance and input.

PapaHotel