Buy an aircraft

A requirement, written down, in one paragraph. How many people, how far, how often, out of which airports and in what weather. Those five answers remove most of the catalogue before anyone opens a listing.

The runway usually decides more than the range does. Fourteen hundred metres at altitude on a hot day takes half the candidates out before cabin size is even discussed.

A broker who starts by showing you aircraft is selling what they have, not finding what you need.

The fee is agreed with you before the search starts, and it moves neither with the aircraft you choose nor with the price you pay.

That last clause is the whole argument. A fee that rises with the purchase price rewards an adviser for talking you upward. A fee paid by the seller makes the adviser the seller's, whatever the letterhead says.

Put the same question to every broker you meet, before you engage them. The answer tells you who they work for.

The purchase price is roughly three quarters of what leaves your account in the first year. The rest is the pre-purchase inspection and the corrections it finds, duty and VAT where they apply, registration, entry into service, crew recruitment and type rating, and the first maintenance event.

Budget one to three per cent of the price for the inspection alone, and more on an aircraft that has been parked.

We put those figures in writing before you sign a letter of intent, not after.