First I'll start off by saying hourly cost doesn't mean anything, it's a myth. Total cost is the important factor and that is a moving target. Lets look at why I say that.
The last time I checked on the hourly cost fuel was about $1.80 per gallon. Based on that cost and a 200 hour year flight time, my cost ran between $125 and $140 per hour. Sounds pretty dood dosen't it? I based my fuel cost on an average of 27 gallon per hour. You can make the adjustment to agree with current fuel cost in you area. Also, some other factors are:
fuel @ $1.80 $9,720 per year
Hangar fee........$1,980 per year
Insurance..........$4,500 per year
Engine reserve..$3,000 per year
Ann and Maint...$6,800 per year
In spite of the fuel prices that went up to an average of $2.55 a gallon in my area and the fact I flew 366 hours last year, my hourly cost went down to about $115.00. Does this mean that because it looks inexpensive compared to other aircraft that it is good. Well---Yes, if you don't mind spending $41,479.00 per year.
Now, if I only flew say 100 hours in the year, even with fuel cost at $2.55 per gallon, my hourly cost will be over $231.00 per hour,
but the yearly cost will be $23,100.00. So with the examples shown, would you rather pay the $115.00 per hour or the $231.00 per hour. What I can tell you about my Skymaster, it seems the more I fly it the less problems I have with it. so my maint. cost did not really increase a whole lot because I flew almost twice the planned hours.
