Hi, have a friend that is looking for a private jet, from what i know he is looking for a jet that is less than 15 years old, that is able to carry around 8 .. and would be able to travel for 5 hours without refuelling. Anyone, knows of any deals, or someone who wants to sell of their planes, or even auctions, would be great help. Thanks for your time for reading this.
If he is thinking of a private jet and doesn't know where to look already, he probably needs to get an education first and then start thinking about buying something. After he figures out what airplane he wants, who is going to fly it for him and how expensive it is, maybe he will rethink the whole thing. After all of the above, pick up a copy of "trade a plane"... They are all in there...
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There are a whole host of issues your friend needs to sort out in order to get where ne needs to be. Does he want to own the plane himself, or does he want a fractional share? How many hours a year does he intend to fly? Does he want to charter the plane out to help offset operating costs? Does he want to employ his own crew, or does he want a management company to operate the aircraft for him? All that needs to be decided before he goes shopping for an aircraft. That said, a great plane that fits those criteria would be a Challenger 601 or 604. They have a great cabin space and a ~3500 mile range (coast to coast from anywhere in the US). Gulfstream IVs are good planes, too, but are a bit more expensive than the Challengers and offer only marginal improvements in range. And they have smaller tubes, although the cabins are longer. Feel free to PM me if you have more questions. I managed the financial end of a 3 aircraft flight department for 7 years, so I'm familiar with the industry.
Looking for a plane without doing research is foolish. The best thing for him to do is to retain a broker. He has to define the mission first, because there are all kinds of choices that can be made, depending on the actual mission, usage, etc. It may make sense for him to charter, use a fractional ownership, or own the plane, and use it for charter when it's not in use. Unless your friend is going to fly at least 300 hours per year (an awful lot of travel in a jet for personal use), it doesn't make a lot of sense for a plane like that. Some jets are personal, the single pilot types, like the citation, but when you've got to hire the pilot, find handlers, etc., owenrship gets real expensive. Not the place to be looking for deals. They usually turn out not to be deals. Art
Well said. Private aviation is not somewhere you want to do anything on the cheap. Unless the friend has $1-2mm per year allocated to operate the aircraft (completely separate from the purchase price), he should not be looking at ownership. There are other ways to go. Owning your own jet is an expensive proposition.
Art: Russ told me someone may be doing a flyby one of these days. LMK/PM. Miss our old Lear 24D-Stanley Cup, Watkins Glen, LBGP, NBA, all so easy. Lee
Coming from personal Experience working with a Citation II, We'd do a minimum of 5 hours worth or maintenence on the aircraft for every trip it did. Parts were easily in the 5 digits for price. And if you're gonna run your own flight department you'd better hire a GREAT mechanic/avionics guys, these are complex aircraft. For 6 weeks we had 6 guys trying to chase a snag in a compass system, and they're still having trouble with it. I don't know your friend but if he can't swallow up to 2.5mil a years operating costs, then he might want to look at those fractional points charter programs..... -David
Some answers to your questions, He wants to charter the plane out when he is not using it. . to off set the cost of running it. Its more for him.. to show off his new toy, and he has a murci,430,phantom etc.. now.. he wants a plane.. This dude is in the forum too, but he is more of a lurker. I would think he would outsource the maintainence and crew to Indonesia, as He is Singaporean, and Indonesia is fairly near.
He is looking for a learjet.. as he says other jets are a bit ex.. like the gulfstream. He has been looking around for the past 6 months, and I think pricing might be the only reason he has not bought one. So he is looking for some deals. I understand.. that. when its too good to be true.. its usually turns out.. to be a lemon
yeah , i totally agree.. thats what I told him too.. he says.. he would offset it by chartering it out.. when not in use.
He is not going to make much money by chartering. The only winner in the charter game is the charter operator, not the aircraft owner. He'll probably make a few hundred dollars (max) an hour over and above his costs when he charters. So he shouldn't count on charter to be a big moneymaker. It puts time on the plane and can be a big inconvenience to him if he wants to go somewhere and his plane is out on charter. That is quite offputting to a lot of aircraft owners. They want their plane available when they want to go somewhere. Unless he's flying a lot (as someone above said, 300 hours per year is the general guideline for owning your own jet vs. fractional or charter), he sounds like he might be better served with a fractional program like NetJets. Has he checked into one of those? They're not cheap on an hourly basis, but you don't have to deal with the headaches that arise when you own your own plane.
I'm not familiar with the aviation regulations in Singapore to answer questions on them but if the aircraft is being chartered then you may have to operate it as a commercial aircraft which will force the owner into a bunch of red tape type paperwork, research is key here.... basically you buy blocks of time and then book the aircraft a few hours in advance and go.... typically they're called "jet card" programs
