HOURLY cost to run a CTSW today (2021)

[marakii]

Hello,   I am trying to find out a calculator which I can determine what it would cost to operate a CTsw for a flight school.  Just trying to put together some numbers for my calculations and if anyone has an updated figure that they would love to share I would appreciate it, especially from some of the schools that operate them.   I would take CTLS numbers as well.

 

Thank you

[Jacques]

CTSW and flight school   don't fit together

[FlyingMonkey]

Your biggest expense will be insurance, $6k+ per year.

[Warmi]

There is a flight school in Chicago which has been running on Remos planes  for more than a decade so I guess it is possible to make it work even with  carbon fiber toys

[marakii]

1 hour ago, Jacques said:

CTSW and flight school   don't fit together

What do you recommend 

[Jacques]

something with a strong landing gear

the SW or the LS are great cross country planes, but for training ,speed and range are not that important.

a CH701 or Savannah are good for training and easier ( and less $$ )  to fix than a composite plane .

= = = =  for the ' curious' out there  , we're talking here of ULTRALIGHT training in Canada with a max gross weight of 1232 lbs (560kgs)

[kinoons]

All of my initial flight training was done in a CTSW. Avoided any truly hard landings. 
 

land anything hard enough and you can break it. 

[GrassStripFlyBoy]

My 2 cents.  There are flight schools that offer training & rental, and do so successfully from the outside perspective of mine, know nothing about financials.  I think the foremost important aspect to a Flight Design being viable as a rental would be having a mechanic in tune with FD maintenance and the Rotax engine.  If you think these can be treated as any other GA airplane, and don't have a mechanic who embraces this airframe and engine, you will struggle.

I don't have insight around Canada reg's, but even the simple differences such as metric v/s AN hardware, the learning curve on FD MM activities, and what associated training may be required to perform these tasks, is the wildcard.  Light sport is often not embraced by legacy GA mechanics here in US, and that is a frequent struggle seen here around forum.  If you can have this matter covered, then I'd suggest the LS model with newer gear design, and tundra tires over the small type.

And know when it comes to renting to rated pilots, it's not a simple 1 hour check ride and cut them loose.  I'd make dual 3 hours in the pattern over varying wind conditions mandatory, these are not easy airplanes to transition into.  I bought mine with nearly 20 years of Cessna ownership, it took 10 hours before I was comfortable.

 

[coppercity]

We have been operating two CTLS's in our flight school for over 10 years and thousands of hours of primary training.  We did start with a CTSW but transitioned to the LS's when they arrived.  The CT's are great economical trainers in the right hands.  We run ours exclusively on auto fuel which saves on fuel costs.  During training flights we average about 3 gph.  Maintenance costs are relatively low as the Rotax rarely needs much more than preventative maintenance, doesn't burn or leak oil and the CT airframes are simple to maintain.  The new CT super sport is an upgraded CTSW that should do as well as the LS in the training environment and the F2 is a rock solid aircraft that we are anxious to put thru the trainer paces!  If you don't have instructors willing to adapt to LSA though and try to treat them like any other GA trainer it won't be successful.