Aircraft Operating Costs

The real kicker for me was the cost per hour for flying these. 600 bucks. Roughly 2 orders of magnitude less than a 'modern' plane.

I would assume all the other costs to fly one (ground equipment, certified pilots and engineers, etc.) will dwarf that.

You can buy a single engine piston plane used for $20K. At the top end of new models about $700K.Flying in general costs $10K a year or so if you fly a fair amount, imagine that's affordable to most people with tech jobs who know React or hack Linux :) I'm sure lots of people spend that on drinking in a year.

It seems as expected to me. These planes cost tens of thousands per flight hour plus a huge support staff is needed. I don’t think they even fly that much.

Why assume computer costs is substantial to overall costs of maintaining and flying airplanes?

Think about it - a single plane costs anywhere from 1/8 to 1/10 of a billion dollars. Anyone flying one should try pretty darned hard to save it.

You are paying a lot higher price to store them, fuel them, pilots and support crew. Wearing out parts(landing gear etc).

Their planes cost half a million dollars, I’m not too concerned about everyone flying just yet. These are expensive toys for the wealthy.

People often lament the cost of the aircraft in situations like this.The pilot is also super expensive. Maybe moreso than the plane.

they're cheaper than replacing a plane and especially its pilot I can assure you that