Well, it has been a LONG TIME. I'm in a class called information systems and technology this semester and it deals with working with word, excel, powerpoint, etc... So I've been messing around with it using functions and such. I decided to make a excel spreadsheet seeing how long it would take me to make a profit if I were to purchase an aircraft and use it as a flight training aircraft. I needed to figure out how much I would have to instruct per month to eventually make a profit. What I found was kind of interesting, I'll go into a little detail in a bit. But first, this is like another post of mine where I evaluated purchasing your own aircraft for your private pilot flight training. I wanted to see if it would make more sense to purchase or rent an aircraft. Here is the link to "Rent or Buy". This was one of my favorite posts so far along with "Holy $**T Moment".
So here are the numbers I used.
Costs:
Aircraft Purchase(1970's 172) - $50,000
Annual costs (Insurance, Hanger, Maintenance) - $6,200
Rental Fees:
Aircraft Hourly Fee - $135
Instruction Hourly Fee - $45
So heres what I figured out. To break even in year 1, pay for the cost of the aircraft and other costs, I would have to fly 324 hours that year. This breaks down into just under 27 hours per month. Probably very do able, with exceptions.
There are many hard parts about flying 324 hours in year 1. The major one is getting enough customers. This is and will always be a problem for instructors. Lets say I find 3 customers in my first year working towards their private. If each of them requires 30 hours of Dual instruction I would earn $16,200 that year. Providing good instruction and recommendations then I could easily double that the next year, $32,400.
I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of stuff, including fuel costs since all aircraft rentals are usually "wet".
Just another interesting option that popped into my head. Has anybody gone this route? Could be an option in the future for this Right Seat Pilot.
