Re: Any body want a plane?
Actually, the expression is, "If it flies, floats or fucks, it's cheaper to rent." I can personally testify to the truth of that statement but what it leaves out is that only one of the three could potentially continue to cost you the big bucks <span style="text-decoration: underline">after</span> you've got rid of it.
And, no, it ain't the airplane.
I used to own a Piper PA-28 Archer. The monthly cost of ownership -- insurance, hangar rental and calendar maintenance -- was about the same as four hours of rental time in a similar a/c. So for the same amount of $$$$, I could fly somebody else's Cessna 172 four hours each month, or spend endless relaxing hours washing, waxing and generally caressing my own.
The "conventional" way to finance the upkeep a personal aircraft is to pay into a maintenance account every time you fly it, just like you were renting it from yourself, to cover future costs for tires and brakes and hourly maintenance, plus future refurbishment and engine rebuilds. Take this hourly "bank," throw in the cost of whatever AvGas you burn through and <span style="font-style: italic">IF</span> nothing breaks, if dirt daubers don't nest in your pitot tube and if you don't collide with a deer on takeoff roll, you can fly your own plane for about 2/3rds what you could rent an equivalent plane for.
Except you don't just pay to fly, you also pay to own. Add that cost of operation to the cost of ownership and you discover you'd have to fly more than 12 hours a month before it was cheaper to fly your own than to rent. Today you'd be hard-pressed to find an a/c in that class renting for less than $100 an hour so you're looking at spending <span style="text-decoration: underline">at least</span> $1200 a month on flying before ownership gets you to the break-even point. Plus, if you own, you still have all the headaches an airplane can cause while it's on the ground. If you only rent, you park the airplane, toss the owner the keys, wave bye-bye, walk off and forget about it.
Which is why so many pilots choose either to just rent or to be a part-owner through a syndicate or fractional ownership.
Me, I prefer the simplicity of renting, all the way around.