That $3-4K doesn't include airfare (or the cost to fly your MU2 there), hotel, rental car, food etc. That could be another $2,000 (a lot more if you fly your plane there from the west coast). Then there is the cost of an IPC, at $1,000 an hour, can be another $2,000 to $3,000 a year. It's not hard to spend $10K a year just on training.

Initial with Reese is $7,000, and yearly recurrent at $3,000.

Insurance an extra $2,500 or so over the Baron, $1,000+ over the Duke.

And I have yet to see "average" Jet A at $3.50 a gallon. Anywhere. Even at $1.00 a gallon discount, hell even $1.50. There are certainly a few places here and there for planning fuel stops, but the major cities and their satellite airports you want to go to aren't going to be that cheap. Not by a long shot.

Oh and average 100LL for me is $5.50 over the last two years. Low outlier is $4.70 at a few small airports, $6.50 the high.

So, programming in a spreadsheet for the Baron, the Aerostar, the Duke, a turbine Duke, and an MU-2, with $4.50 a gal average Jet A, $5.50 a gal average 100LL, I came up with the following cost per hour in gas

Baron: $0.87 @ 200 Kts @ 75%
Aerostar $0.69 @ 200 Kts @ 45% ($0.91 @ 230 Kts @ 75%)
Duke: $1.10 @ 220 Kts @ 65%
Turbine Duke: $0.96 @ 250 kts
MU-2: $1.02 @ 265 Kts

The cost per mile in gas just isn't all that different due to the higher fuel burn and maybe $1.00 to $1.50 cheaper per gallon. I just don't buy the average $3.50 a gallon Jet-A on a routine basis around the country.

Then you add in the higher insurance, the training costs, the hangar costs, the inspections, travel to/from training, etc.

I don't believe 25%. Just don't. No offense. I'll gladly change my mind when I see a spreadsheet with ALL of the above costs included that proves me wrong. And a real yearly fuel bill total from the contract fuel company.

Oh, and I found insurance for the Duke that will do just a yearly IPC in my aircraft. Same for any of the piston cabin class aircraft. That's a big delta over required MU-2 training.

CAA. $500/yr, works great for low volumes. I did a big trip last month, NJ, Raleigh, Houston, Seattle, Raleigh, NJ. Averaged out to $3.10/g. List would have been over $5/g. Mostly big name FBOs.

Not available for avgas

You have contract fuel available. Shell is the current low bidder at $3.83.

So $1.50 off a gallon at my FBO. Sweet. That's pretty cool, wish they did that for 100LL.



So with an MU-2 averaging what, 60GPH, operated 50 hours a year, is 3,000 gallons. Even if $1.50 a gallon off was the average, you'd save $4,500 a year in gas over retail, minus the $500 buy in for contract pricing.

Covers recurrent training and the insurance difference.

Wonder what the difference in cost in annual inspections versus a Duke or other cabin class twin is for the MU-2? Including the prop AD, HSI, etc versus the once every 4-5 years turbocharger rebuild or top overhaul or unexpected 5-10 AMU expenditure is.

Thanks for the info.

C.A.A. is the only one that charges an annual fee, but it’s a really great card to have. Others are typically no fee.

Long term engine maintenance costs are comparable between a big block piston and the TPE331 (but not for a PT-6).

Some info here...

viewtopic.php?f=49&t=145010&p=2029079&hilit=MU2+overhaul+cost#p2029079

My maintenance costs on the Marquise averaged about the same as what they did on my 340, annual inspection included. But I had to fix and tweak my 340 a lot more often, adding expense and downtime.

Rich-

You mentioned your average fuel costs over the past couple of years. Here is a snapshot of Jet A prices across the state of Texas in 2017...

Prices I can get in Texas, for example:

KGOP: $2.19
KACT: $2.23
KDTO: $2.53
E52: $2.59
0F2: $2.62
KCPT: $2.64
T35: $2.68
T90: $2.70
66R: $2.80
KELA: $2.80
2F5: $2.80
KGGG: $2.80
F41: $2.85
KHOU: $2.88
KCOM: $2.94

Thanks, Jay,

Those are some low prices for sure. How are DAL, AUS, SAT, CRP, and such?

We tend to fly a lot to larger cities, Florida, Bahamas, etc. I think Nashville prices are some of the highest in the nation, although the price in RIC when I was looking the other day. OUCH! ($7.00+ 100LL)

Yikes! $7 would be PAINFUL.

Those were prices the Mike C. compiled in 2017. Houston Hobby is there and there are a couple DFW satellite airports like DTO and CPT. When I had my Marquise it was the exception and not the rule when I was unable to find cheap fuel. It happened occasionally (like your $7 example), but not very often.

Funny aside, DFW used to have the lowest Jet A prices in the country and was the cheapest for a couple years. IIRC, it was down around $2/gallon.

DAL $3.34
AUS $4.28
SAT $3.39
CRP $3.85
DFW $2.34

At least Dallas is still really cheap.



A 50% higher fuel burn is offset nicely by 50% cheaper gas when the plane goes 25% faster.



Fewer hours flown = offset insurance and training costs for sure.

Really thinking hard about trying to put Garretts on this project Duke. Had the folks at Royal Air in Louisiana offer to go in with me on the project - guess they looked into it years ago before the folks up in WA state got the P&W STC done.

Maybe I have my usual rose colored airplane accounting shades on (I don't think so) but I don't see any possible way I'm ever going to average $100K a year to operate a short body MU-2.

Hangar: let's say it's $500 a month: $6,000
Insurance: $5,000
Recurrency: $2K fee plus fuel and travel: $4,000
Inspections: Rounding up to $10,000
Fuel at 100 hours per year: $25,000

$50,000 total for 100 hours in a MU-2

That's about what my P Baron (overweight machine with the worst Continental ever made) cost to operate. Go higher, faster, farther, carry more, land/TO shorter and have basically zero worries about engines exploding. No oil changes, replacing cylinders, turbos, waste gates, vacuum pumps, magnetos, etc. etc.

It seems you offset those small component replacements with periodic HSI's and prop inspections, no? Seems to wash on paper anyway.

Hangar around here is $600 a month minimum, probably closer to $650-700 just because almost no one has hangar space.

Insurance was close to $6k with a new premium with the increases.

Where are you getting $2,000 recurrent training? Reese is $3k (but at least he's on the field for me).

But yes, having a 20% faster plane equates to nearly a 20% decrease in time you are using the aircraft, and when that's all included in direct operating cost savings plus engine reserves, I can see how it starts to get closer to a 25% margin. The piece I was missing was contract fuel. That's huge.

Good thread, thank you for posting!

Although on the other side I flew about 120 hours in my piston single last year. This year 130 so far in the TBM.....