OwnershipCross-country
The first year of ownership, month by month
What actually landed in the checkbook between the closing and the first annual — including the two bills nobody warned us about.
Research before you sign
Buy the airplane you’ll actually fly.
Most first-time buyers shop for the mission they imagine. We start with the flying you already do — then show you the fleet data, the real operating costs, and what the airplane will hold on a July afternoon.
218,717
Aircraft on the active U.S. registry
19,576
Airports, heliports and seaplane bases
588,618
Certificated airmen on file
$0
To search every one of them
Source — FAA aircraft registry, airman registry and NASR airport data, loaded into Avilytics
Start where you are
Two very different questions
Almost everyone who lands here is asking one of these. Pick yours — the site reorders itself around it.
Never owned one
I have no idea what this involves
Start with what it costs to keep an airplane before you look at a single one for sale. Then the license question, then renting versus owning, then the nine steps.
- What airplanes actually cost to own
- Do I need a pilot certificate first?
- Rent, club, partner or buy?
Already flying
I want something bigger or faster
Compare what you have against what you are considering — speed per dollar, payload you will actually carry, and the training and insurance the step-up will require.
- Side-by-side performance and cost
- What the endorsement and insurance will cost
- Selling or trading what you have
Find your airplane
Every category, honestly described
What each class of airplane is genuinely good at, what it costs to keep, and where it quietly disappoints. No brochure copy.
Single-Engine Piston
4 seats · 110–180 kt · $55k–$650k
Twin-Engine Piston
6 seats · 160–210 kt · $90k–$900k
Single-Engine Turboprop
6 seats · 250–330 kt · $700k–$5.5M
Seaplanes & Amphibians
2–4 seats · 85–130 kt · $60k–$1.2M
Light Sport (LSA)
2 seats · 90–120 kt · $35k–$250k
Backcountry & Taildraggers
2–4 seats · 90–140 kt · $45k–$400k
Experimental / Amateur-Built
2–4 seats · 130–220 kt · $40k–$350k
Mission planner
The trips you take, not the trips you picture
Enter your home base and the places you really go. We compute each leg against real airport data, your certificate and ratings, and the payload you’d actually carry — then tell you which airplanes close the gap and which ones don’t.
40–60%
How much most buyers overestimate how often they’ll fly. The planner checks your numbers against what pilots at your certificate level log in a year.
Mission — Family & BusinessKBMG · Base
KBMG → KMKG · Lake Michigan268 nmReachable
KBMG → KTEB · New Jersey563 nm1 stop
KBMG → KHXD · Hilton Head512 nm1 stop
KBMG → KDEN · Colorado876 nmOut of range
How to buy an airplane
Nine steps, in the order they happen
Written by someone who has signed the papers. Each one tells you what it costs, what it takes, and where first-time buyers get hurt.
01Define the mission honestly
02Pick a category, then a model
03Build the real annual budget
04Arrange financing and insurance
05Search the market — and the hidden market
06Read the logbooks before you travel
07Commission the pre-buy inspection
08Negotiate on the squawk list
09Close, register, and fly it home
Free download
The pre-buy inspection checklist
Eleven pages an A&P can work straight through: airframe, engine, avionics, corrosion points, AD compliance, logbook gaps, and the twelve findings that should end a deal.
Get the checklistWhat it really costs
The purchase price is the cheap part
A well-kept 182 that you fly 100 hours a year costs more to keep than most buyers plan for — and the number swings hard on where you hangar it and what the engine has left. Every airplane profile carries this table, built from owner-reported figures rather than a broker’s estimate.
See the full 182 profile| Line item | Per year | Per hour |
|---|---|---|
| HangarVaries more than anything else on this list | $4,200 | $42 |
| InsuranceHull & liability, instrument-rated owner | $2,100 | $21 |
| Annual inspectionBefore any squawks are fixed | $3,400 | $34 |
| Engine reserveToward a 2,000-hour overhaul | $4,000 | $40 |
| Fuel13.5 gph at $6.10/gal | $8,235 | $82 |
| Oil, tires, databases, misc. | $1,650 | $17 |
| Total cost of operation | $23,585 | $236 |
Excludes purchase, financing and unscheduled maintenance. Replace with owner-reported data at launch.
Reading
Articles & inspiration
Pre-buyMaintenance
Twelve findings that should end a deal
Corrosion in the wrong place, a logbook that skips three years, and an AD that quietly makes the airplane worth half the asking price.
Financing · 6 min
What a lender actually looks at
Age of the airframe matters more than your credit score. Here is the order of operations.
Partnerships · 9 min
Two owners, one airplane, zero arguments
The scheduling and reserve rules that keep a co-ownership from souring by year three.
Registry · 4 min
Reading an N-number before you call
Registration status, ownership history and where it is based — all public, all free.
Every other Thursday
What moved in the market
Price trends by category, aircraft that sold under asking, and one honest ownership story. No sponsored listings.