Aircraft ownership cost calculator.

The tool splits ownership into the two families every experienced owner budgets separately. Variable costs are the ones each flying hour creates: fuel, oil, an engine overhaul reserve, a propeller or rotor reserve, and a reserve for unscheduled maintenance. Fixed costs arrive whether the aircraft flies or not: hangarage, insurance, the annual inspection, financing, subscriptions, fees, and optionally crew and depreciation.

Total annual cost is fixed plus variable, and cost per flight hour is that total divided by your annual hours. This is why flying more makes each hour cheaper: the fixed block spreads over more hours. It is also why a rarely flown aircraft is the most expensive kind per hour.

Every preset value is an indicative mid-2020s figure chosen to be defensible, not authoritative. The point of the tool is the structure; the accuracy comes when you replace the defaults with your own quotes.

Turbine and piston engines run to a time between overhauls (TBO). When it arrives, the overhaul bill can be a large fraction of the aircraft's value. Smart owners divide that future bill by the TBO hours and set that amount aside every flying hour, so the overhaul is already paid for when it comes due.

The calculator builds this reserve for you from the overhaul cost and TBO fields, and does the same for the propeller or rotor system. If you buy an aircraft with a mid-time engine, the market already prices that in, but your reserve account should start from the hours actually consumed.

A high fixed share means the aircraft punishes low utilisation: at 50 hours a year, hangarage and insurance dominate and the hourly cost can be shocking. A high variable share means the cost scales with flying, which is more forgiving if your hours vary from year to year.

If the fixed share of your result is much above two thirds at your realistic hours, it is worth pricing the alternatives: renting, a syndicate share, or block charter. The comparison mode exists exactly for that conversation.