For aircraft owners
What your airplane would actually earn
Move the numbers to yours. The arithmetic is the same one we run in the fit check, and it is deliberately unflattering: reserves come out before anything is called profit, and the insurance difference comes out after that.
The short version. On a dry lease the pilot buys their own fuel, so your revenue is simply your hourly rate times the hours flown. What you keep is that number minus the maintenance you should be setting aside per hour and the amount your insurance goes up. A light single on a busy field flying ten to fifteen hours a month typically covers a meaningful share of what it costs to own — not all of it, and anyone promising otherwise is selling something.
What a pilot pays you per Hobbs hour, dry. They buy their own fuel. Ours is $100 on a 1961 172C.
Be honest here. Ours averaged about 12 a month over its first four months, and that is with one airplane on a busy field.
What you set aside every hour for the engine, prop and the annual. This is an assumption, not a quote — ask your mechanic what your airframe and engine time justify.
The difference between what you pay now and what the policy costs once it is written for this use. Your broker gives you this number; there is no way for us to know it.
Hangar or tie-down, the insurance you already pay, any loan payment, subscriptions. Everything that leaves your account whether it flies or not.
- Billed to pilots each month
- $1,200
- Less maintenance reserve (12 hrs × $25)
- −$300
- Less the insurance difference
- −$150
That covers 83% of the $900 a month you are paying anyway, and works out to $9,000 a year. You would need 14 hours a month to cover the airplane entirely.
This is arithmetic on the numbers you entered, not a projection or a promise. It excludes income tax, depreciation, state sales and use tax, and the cost of your own time. Your CPA handles the first three. The fit check handles the last one honestly.
Why the reserve line is the one that matters
Every hour flown consumes engine, prop and airframe you will eventually pay to replace. An owner who counts the full hourly rate as income is borrowing from an overhaul they have not scheduled yet. Set the reserve first, call what is left the return, and the airplane stops surprising you. This is also the single biggest difference between our arithmetic and a leaseback brochure’s: they show you the hours, we show you what the hours cost.
What ours actually did
N8366X is a 1961 Cessna 172C at Long Beach. Since July it has flown 48.8 paid lessee hours across 13 flights at $100 a Hobbs hour. That is roughly twelve hours a month, which is where the default on this page comes from. It is one airplane on one field over a few months, so treat it as a real data point rather than a benchmark. The case study has the rest, including what we would do differently.
The number this page cannot give you
Demand. Whether there are pilots on your field who want your airplane at your rate is the whole question, and no slider answers it. It depends on what else is based there, what the local schools already have, what your airplane is and what condition it is in. That is what the hour is for.
Get the real version of this
The fit check runs this arithmetic on your actual airplane and your actual field, then tells you in writing whether to do it. Non-refundable, credited in full if you go ahead.