Airplane Leaseback Calculator – Spreadsheet

Can you make money on a flight school leaseback? The airplane leaseback calculator/spreadsheet projects what it takes for you to make money, break even or defray the cost of airplane ownership by putting your airplane to work. If you are not familiar with GA airplane leasebacks I recommend watching the video at the bottom of the page.

To use the spreadsheet

Enter your costs of aircraft ownership in the top section, white cells and rental parameters in green below.

This spreadsheet requires a tablet or larger. Definitions are under the spreadsheet.

Base hours: this is a starting point used for calculations. If you change the Rental Rate (in green) to equal the breakeven rental rate then owner net/mo will be $0, no gain or loss from renting; it’s paying its way exactly. In essence all the other figures are measured against the base hours. If you know your plane requires more or fewer hours to break even then you can change the Base hours to that number. I used 50 as it seems to be the general consensus of the number of rental hours required for a 4-seat, 4-cylinder airplane to break even.

Flight Days/mo: The number of flyable rental days as a factor of weather, maintenance, and any other reasons it’s not available.

Owner Net/mo: Your dollar distance from breakeven, not your bottom line. For example, if it’s -$1,000 then you are not losing that amount per month; you are $1,000 from breaking even. I couldn’t think of a succinct title that communicated that, thus what it is.