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Insurance! College student looking to buy

Asked by: 2876 views General Aviation

Okay some I'm going to college and I am looking for an older affordable airplane,  within 300 miles I have found  a piper colt and aeronca cheif for 11-15K, what is an expectable insurance on these plane for a 100 hr pilot?  I don't need exacts I know it varies but I only want minimum, if I total the hull I scrap it out and count my losses. With a 5 year loan on these with annuals, hanger, 100hrs fly time a year, and at 1,300 insurance cost with some spare dollars per hour.I figured I can fly for under 8 K, I'll need roughly  4-5k to live,  and after basic GPA and ACT scholarships I'll 30K.(including renting the universities plane for their entire program.  To fill extra hours renting their craft 100 hrs a year will be 45k by the time I'm done. Owning would only be 30 which 4 years of work plus what I have already can handle, I'm looking for an ATP quickly and colts having the ability to run on high grade auto fuel and aeroncas whooping 4 GPH are easy to build in. Plus if I still am not to 1000 by the time I graduate and the loan is payed the $30 per hour and 4-4,500 annual upkeep can fill hours much more cost effective than renting- after 33 hours per year it saves money.

back to my question- what's a ball park insurance idea to re do my numbers with?

 

1 Answers



  1. Mitchell L Williams on Feb 05, 2015

    You should be able insure for $550 to $800 per year and get full coverage on a Cessna 150 or Colt. The liability part is probably $350, but the insurance may add a couple hundred to get you to buy full coverage. A tail-wheel like a Chief will be more expensive like the 1300 per year.

    I would stay away from fabric airplanes for trainers, nothing wrong with them, you just have to take care of the fabric and recovering can get real expensive. Likely if you buy one for cheap, it will have been sitting for a while and when you start flying a bunch things will wear out fast from just being old. Like engine oil leaks, brakes pads, loose fabric, radio, transponder, etc. These could be expensive to fix at a shop, but not too bad if you have an A&P friend to help you.

    If you hang out at your local smaller airports you may find someone who will lease their older C150, C172 or PA28 cheaper than you can own yourself. Offer to sweep floors or wash airplanes or whatever to trade for flight time.

    One of my customers bought a Colt for about 12K or so. Flew it for about a year. Had loose fabric at the wing roots and behind pilot window, Patched/reglued a couple times, then gave up and recovered the whole thing himself (under our supervision). The fuselage bottom had three layers of fabric; the airplane lost nearly 100 lbs when we recovered it. Once we had it stripped we had to replace some hardware, and the process took nearly a year working about half time.

    If you buy a cheap airplane, then you do your instrument rating and want to practice instruments, chances are good that a Colt or Chief will not have gyros or a glide slope and you will want to upgrade. Fact is a Chief likely has no starter or electric system or radios.

    I have had a few clients buy a C150 for cheap, get their private pilot in it and then build hours and sell to the next client. I have taught two separate owners to fly in the same C150 as it passed from one owner to the next. Same for PA28-140.

    Another problem new owners have is “upgrade disease”, New headset, new gps, new ipad and ADS-B, better radio, powerflow exhaust, speed mods. “That airplane flew for the last 50 years without those upgrades”

    Let me know how it goes.

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