Ewfflyer

I know a few ppl that got burned on leasebacks. It looks great on paper, but the extra use/abuse and gotcha's like tires, will eat into potential profits. Most of these places convince ppl to buy new planes and do this to defer the costs.

The only way I would ever think about it is an old dirt cheap 150 or Cherokee 140. You really don't have much to lose, and IMO old simple planes make better pilots compared to the new avionics with wings attached planes they are using today.

gold

This is exactly what I was talking about. It looks good on paper but reality is never what you plan for. Unscheduled maintenance is the biggest kicker. The most efficient Flight schools are the ones that own their own planes and have their own maintenance facility.

I've seen leasebacks on older 172s where the owner of the aircraft was also an A&P and did all the maintenance himself. That situation seemed to work out for the owner and the flight school.

I've also seen flight schools that had a policy where the renter would inspect the condition of the tires before and after the flight and record it in the book. This assured that if the renter put a bald spot on the tire, he/she would be charged for it. It is kind of a cheesy thing to do, but makes a lot of sense from a business perspective.

Tires are always a big expense for trainer aircraft and those damn things are expensive depending on the quality and model.

M20EPilot

I've done all right with my Mooney, but I had about 400TT before I bought it. I ran the numbers on flying it (110 tach hours last year) and my total costs came out to just over what the C152 rents for.

I have lucked out with a great relationship with an A&P/IA who has taught me to do most of the grunt work WRT maintenance (and most of it is grunt work), helping keep maintenance costs reasonable.

Std Deviation

What gets you on leasebacks is the cost of the 100 hour. That inspection would not be required if you were not leasing it back. If the aircraft is flying 80 plus hours a month, that's a few inspections in a given year. On average my 100 hour inspections for 2 Cessna 172 were running $1200 each. The wording of the contract regarding mx is the key. Most schools will charge the owner 100% of the mx costs - a sure loser for things like cracked exhaust manifolds from hard landings...