Why this exists
I'm Jp—a private pilot who got tired of guessing. Every rental invoice felt like money set on fire, but buying a plane looked terrifying and the spreadsheets never agreed with each other. I wanted one honest answer to a simple question: at how many hours a year does owning actually beat renting? I couldn't find a calculator that did the math the way a pilot thinks about it, so I built this one.
What it does
Pick an aircraft and tell it how much you fly. It splits ownership into the costs that hit whether you fly or not—hangar, insurance, the annual, your loan—and the costs that scale with every hour: fuel, oil, and the reserves you should be setting aside for the engine overhaul and maintenance. Then it stacks that against what renting the same plane would run you, and shows the break-even point where the lines cross.
What it doesn't do
It won't do your taxes, predict resale value, or factor in the grin you get walking out to a plane that's yours. The defaults are reasonable starting points, not gospel—real insurance quotes, maintenance surprises, and partnership arrangements vary wildly. Treat the result as a well-informed gut check, not financial advice, and always sanity-check the numbers against your own quotes.
Who's behind it
This is a side project I build under Raccoon Ventures Inc., somewhere between a hangar-flying conversation and a calculator. If a number looks off or you'd like to see a feature, I genuinely want to hear it—reach out through the contact page. Blue skies and tailwinds.
Thanks to these folks from the /r/flying subreddit for kicking the tires and pushing back on the numbers
BillySpacs, fenuxjde, theanswriz42, Capt-Soliman, Sufficient_Rate1032, FridayMcNight, Rhyick, Ictalbot, sarge46, Badjo, KITTYONFYRE, lavionverte, Zestyclose-Glove2559, iguanayou