Fast private aircraft...

[Lefty Guns]

Kind of inspired by the "What would you do if you won £110m" thread...

Say I was reasonably wealthy (not £110m but worth say £20m and high disposable income) and wanted an airaft I could fly myself to take some friends/family around Europe/North Africa in comfort and at speed, what are my options?

Commercial airliners cruise at, what, 500mph? I don't imagine many prop aircraft getting close to that, what small jets can cruise at that speed but won't cost more than, say £1m to buy and £100k/year to maintain?

Purely hypothetical unfortunately...

Edited by Lefty Guns on Thursday 7th May 13:31

[Nicholas Blair]

Lear jet or

Embrear http://www.embraer.com/english/content/home/

[Lefty Guns]

I like this:



Embraer Phenom 100. Any idea on price, running costs?

Ok, just found the price $3.5m. Not tooo bad I spose. Cruise at 722kmph.

Edited by Lefty Guns on Thursday 7th May 13:16

[FourWheelDrift]

Old Learjet or Cessna Citation for around £1million
http://www.aerotrader.com/find/search-results/Type...



Although if it was me I'd go for a nice little fast 400+mph 2 seater - http://www.courtesyaircraft.com/N42SF%20Sea%20Fury...

Or maybe something that can carry the duty free back - http://www.courtesyaircraft.com/N1944H%20DC-3%20Sp... or http://www.courtesyaircraft.com/N47FK%20Douglas%20...

[Lefty Guns]

I like this very much:

http://www.eclipseaviation.com/#/eclipse400/

any ideas on price?

Edited by Lefty Guns on Thursday 7th May 13:24

[hugo a gogo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerion_SBJ

Aerion SBJ, mach 1.6, $80 million

[Lefty Guns]

FourWheelDrift said:

Although if it was me I'd go for a nice little fast 400+mph 2 seater - http://www.courtesyaircraft.com/N42SF%20Sea%20Fury...

that would just be a toy



I know feck-all about warbirds, would that get up from a 550m grass strip? I have a local aerodrome...

[FourWheelDrift]

Lefty Guns said:

I liek this:

http://www.eclipseaviation.com/#/eclipse400/

any ideas on price?

Quoted £1.35million when on sale in 2011.

[Merritt]

Lefty Guns said:

I liek this:

http://www.eclipseaviation.com/#/eclipse400/

any ideas on price?

$1.35M apparently...


LINKY

[Invisible man]

Gulf Stream II every time, 936kph or mach 0.85



may be a tad pricey though

[Lefty Guns]

Merritt said:

Lefty Guns said:

I liek this:

http://www.eclipseaviation.com/#/eclipse400/

any ideas on price?

$1.35M apparently...


LINKY

'kin ell. £1m? Sounds perfect.

Now I just need to work a bit harder and try to persuade my contract holder I need a rate increase...

Oh, and learn to fly.

[Merritt]

Invisible man said:

Gulf Stream II every time, 936kph or mach 0.85



may be a tad pricey though

"MAY BE" Lol - you couldn't run a GII on $1M / year!!

[Invisible man]

Merritt said:

Invisible man said:

Gulf Stream II every time, 936kph or mach 0.85



may be a tad pricey though

"MAY BE" Lol - you couldn't run a GII on $1M / year!!

well......he did say 'high disposable income'

[Lefty Guns]

That eclipse 400 uses less than 1lb of fuel for each NM.

Seems not much?

[Merritt]

Invisible man said:

Merritt said:

Invisible man said:

Gulf Stream II every time, 936kph or mach 0.85



may be a tad pricey though

"MAY BE" Lol - you couldn't run a GII on $1M / year!!

well......he did say 'high disposable income'

True.. and I do like your thinking..


However, if I had a very high disposable income (or a corporate customer), I would use Netjets rather than own my own Aircraft...

check out http://www.netjets.com/

You can buy 25 hour private jet cards from approx $130k which give you access to aircraft from the Citation upwards. Much cheaper than owning and running your own A/C with a first class service...

Steve

[Lefty Guns]

$130k/25 hours is, what, £3,500 per hour?



I suppose it would depend on how much you used your aircraft, at some point there is bound to be a break-even point where it's cheaper to buy than rent...

EDIT


OK, since I'm bored at work I tried building a quick and dirty cost model.

I've worked out average fuel consumption for that Eclipse 400 and included the following:

Fuel Costs
Depreciation (based on a £1m purchase price and £500k resale after 5 years)
Landing Fees based on average of £80 per landing and 5 hours per flight
Maintenance costs of £1,000 per hour - no idea if this is even close - based on some google research
Insurance of £5k/year
Hanger fees of £5k/year

Have I missed anything major?

And then run different scenarios of hours/year to see what the break point is.

Now I suppose that the rate from netjets includes for crew but I'm talking about an aircraft that you would fly yourself.

So over 5 years the results are:

Hours/year Cost/Hour
25 £5,247.54
50 £3,147.54
100 £2,097.54
150 £1,747.54
250 £1,467.54
300 £1,397.54
350 £1,347.54
400 £1,310.04
450 £1,280.88
500 £1,257.54


So it's not a cheap hobby!

Edited by Lefty Guns on Thursday 7th May 15:01

[Merritt]

Lefty Guns said:

$130k/25 hours is, what, £3,500 per hour?



I suppose it would depend on how much you used your aircraft, at some point there is bound to be a break-even point where it's cheaper to buy than rent...

True but remember that thats per A/C... if you are flying around with your family, lets say 4 people (could be up to 6 in that A/C) - thats £875 to travel better than first class and land at an airport very close to your destination rather than all the faffing around with the big internationals.

bargain

[Lefty Guns]

Ah fk, Eclipse went bankrupt last year according to wikipedia.

[Lefty Guns]

http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/very-light-jets

Interesting... All in trouble due to the world economy!

[eccles]

Invisible man said:

Gulf Stream II every time, 936kph or mach 0.85



may be a tad pricey though

You'd be much better off with a GV Gulfstream, proper big engines, not those tiddly old speys!