Is this a good plane to buy for 11000$

I wouldn't buy a plane off eBay. You NEED to do a good prebuy inspection before buying. Also need to find if there are an leans on the aircraft.

Because of eBay if something is wrong with the aircraft you will not have any negotiating room with the seller.
 
Miss one AD, SB or maintenance issue and you've just added thousands of dollars to the cost of your training, and delayed it by weeks/months while your bird is in the shop.

I don't understand why people think that buying an airplane makes economic sense when starting their training.
 
Well it's $13,000 not $11,000.

It's going to need a new overhaul soon. It's at 1800 hours. Look at what an overhaul will cost and compare that to what 150's in that condition and equipment are going for with lower engine times. Look at SOLD ones NOT "listed" prices...people can list for anything they want.

It was used by a university for flight training so one would *assume* it was extremely well maintained, flown often, and in general taken care of save for the random hard landings, of which Cessnas can take fairly well.

If it's able to be used under IFR, you could conceivably do your private, instrument, and most of your commercial except for the handful of hours in a complex aircraft in it. I know at ERAU they did most of the commercial in the 172 and used an M20J to do the landings and stuff. On your checkride day you did two flights.

If going all the way thru the commercial, you'd do what, around 250 hours or something, at least 230 of them in a single (additional for multi and complex). What is the going rate for a 150 wet in your area? Factor that in, now do the numbers with owning your plane. Something might break, but if the cost difference is huge you might come out ahead. Insurance will be expensive at first but should drop considerably after you get some time in it.

Some quick numbers. 150 renting for $75 wet, of that what, $35/hr is fuel/oil consumables. Who knows about insurance. We won't worry about that now. So $40/hr roughly for just the plane.

230 hours X $40/hr = $9200 in plane "rental" outside of consumables which you would pay anyway.

$13,000-$9200 = $3,800 + $15,000 = $18,300.

If you could sell your 150 for $18,300 with an overhauled engine you'd break even. That is absolute best case scenario...

IMO it's not worth it...
 
Thanks for the input, especailly you wheelsup. I know it says 13, but they said they would go for 11. looks like it wouldnt save much. There is a place right by me I could rent for 60 an hour wet plus 20 for the instructor,
 
splash333 said:
Thanks for the input, especailly you wheelsup. I know it says 13, but they said they would go for 11. looks like it wouldnt save much. There is a place right by me I could rent for 60 an hour wet plus 20 for the instructor,
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That's a sweet deal. If you can tough through it, and do your instrument in that same plane, you're looking at roughly

200 hours instruction $20/hr = $4000
230 hours C150 = $13,800
15 hours complex Piper Arrow etc. $120 = $1800
10-15 hours multi $200/hr = $2000-$3000

Checkride fees $2000 (?)

Roughly $24k for 0 to Multi Commerical. Not sure what CFI's are going for these days, you could probably do everything for under $30k. Not a bad deal IMO.
 
In general for a 150 with that amount of time it's 10k for the airframe and 10k for the engine, meaning if the airframe is perfect you pay 10k for it, likewise for the engine. The fact that it was used by a university flight department means that its maintenance history is probably at least solid if not stellar, but you never know. a pre-buy is always a good recommendation and I certainly wouldn't pay anything close to full price without one. So, I would say 13,000 for this airplane in fly-it-home condition isn't totally out of line provided everything else checks out.

The Cessna radio it has in it will need to be replaced the first time it breaks, I don't know about where you are but where I am no one will work on them anymore. A KX-155 (still kinda the gold standard) goes on E-bay for around $1800 for a 12 volt one and a wire harness can be had for around $400.00, then you'll have installation labor. You wont get any of this expense back out of it when you sell it.

The good news about 150's is that the parts are relatively cheap and are widely available, so if you're looking to own on a budget you could do a lot worse, but if you're only used to buying car parts prepare to be staggered anyway.
 
I warn people to proceed with great caution when thinking about buying an airplane as a student pilot, but along with my warning I like to work out facts and yes it is "possible" you might save money (it's also possible you might pay a lot more)... the main reason to buy an airplane is because of the freedom of having an airplane available to you whenever you want it and the simple pride of owning a flying machine. There are definitely some good deals available, but there are even more neglected airplanes sitting around that haven't been flown regularly or maintained well and the owner is trying to dump them cheap to get rid of the headache.

I currently have two student pilots I'm training who own their own airplanes, one actually bought a plane before he'd ever even ridden in a small airplane!

As a student you likely know nothing about airplanes and could end up buying something that needs a lot of work, or you might end up buying a very sound airplane. You should have a pre-purchase inspection completed by a qualified A&P/IA and have them complete the inspection as an Annual Inspection if you decide to complete the purchase. Then you know the status of the airplane and can fly it with confidence for the next year.

With a Cessna 150 (and many other tricycle gear small planes) expect to pay somewhere around $750 per year as a student pilot for quality insurance. Estimate $1,000 for an Annual Inspection with a few small repairs (if there are problems this can go up quickly). Tie down or hangar will vary a lot by location, but if you assume $500/year for cheap storage (tie-down) you're now at $2,300 per year before it's moved.

At ~5.5 gal/hour you're paying $35/hour for 100LL or $18/hour for ethanol free autofuel (after paying $150 for the AutoFuel STC if it doesn't have one already). Add $2/hour for oil changes (doing them yourself).

On a simple airplane with relatively low time on a quality engine you'll want to add in a $15/hour engine and maintenance reserve because at 1,500-2,500 hours you'll need to get the engine overhauled and somewhere before then you'll probably get one or two top overhauls and cylinder replacements, and various accessories repaired/overhauled.

So, if you fly 200 hours per year (4 hours per week) and could find a 150 for $80/hour wet you'd pay $16,000 for rental with no maintenance worries to deal with.

If it's your airplane burning auto fuel you'd come out to $35/hour for fuel, oil, maintenance and another $12/hour to cover fixed costs, for a total of about $9,500 for 200 hours. A $6,500 savings. Now, you might break some stuff, but $6,500 goes a long ways on a Cessna 150.

Now, if you were flying 75 hours per year... the picture changes quite a bit and it starts to be about the same price... until something breaks and then your own plane is costing you more. Also, if you dont have a reliable and convenient way to use auto fuel and are paying $6+/gallon for 100LL... the cost savings are not as significant.

Also, dont forget sales tax and other state fees which could add $1,000+ to your acquisition costs for a cheap plane.

Edit: Note also I'm assuming a cash purchase, where you're looking at this as an equitable money pit. If you're financing it and making payments.... ick.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
Does anyone other than a CFI want to spend 200 hours/year in a 150?
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LOL, ya I'm assuming the OP is a career-oriented time builder just because of the nature of the forum...

Actually it's funny, I know several guys with 150's who fly them like crazy. One guy I know put somewhere over 300 hours on his last year, strictly recreational flying too. I think it's the $ factor, they can afford to fly them so they go do it more often... dunno.
 
If you are going to look at it from a straight financial standpoint, owning an airplane only makes sense when you fly a bunch per year. Now, when you take into consideration all the non-financial stuff, the ability to fly when you want, the ability to not have to pay to a daily minimum rental fee on a multiday trip, the game changes a bit.
 
KSCessnaDriver said:
Why, its no different than the other places, unless you treat it different. Go do a prebuy if you are interested in a plane.
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Because on controller, and trade a plane you HAVE to do a pre-buy. All they are is a list of planes to check out in one centralized place... eBay you can just outright buy it with no pre-buy... hence why I recommended the other 2......
 
KHanson said:
Because on controller, and trade a plane you HAVE to do a pre-buy. All they are is a list of planes to check out in one centralized place... eBay you can just outright buy it with no pre-buy... hence why I recommended the other 2......
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When did it become required to do a pre-buy?
 
upup89 said:
Required or not why wouldnt you want to?
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Buying very simple fixed gear single engine aircraft from out of state with well documented maintenance histories from reputable shops, where I have maintenance experience and full awareness of AD's and issues on type, and a recent annual (not pencil whipped from some unknown IA), if I was able to do a good log review and thorough preflight inspection and test flight prior to taking delivery, then I might not hire out a pre-purchase inspection because I would rather not hire some local I dont even know and the cost of flying in a mechanic I do know and trust would probably outweigh the costs of just fixing stuff when I got home.

The other end of the spectrum is the real low end fixers, where you're basically buying a ball of parts that you're going to take home and go over bit by bit and rebuild, and the price reflects that... but really only people with maintenance experience are going to pull that off and if the thing is going to be a ferry then you'll need a mechanic to help with the certificate anyway.

But other than that, for the average new buyer, it'd be pretty foolish to skip a good pre-purchase inspection before closing the sale.
 
I think I paid a little more than that for a 66 Cessna 150 once. My first airplane. The year was, as I recall, 1984. Crazy how cheap airplanes are now.
 
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