Thinking about buying a plane for training

There are two parts to your question. Is leaseback right for me? And should I buy a plane to train? Leaseback. If a leaseback made great sense, the school would not let you do it they would buy their own plane. If leaseback made great sense, millionaires would be doing it to make money. Leaseback works for one entity and one pretty much only, the school. They get a "free" plane they don't have to pay for the MX or the depreciation on the engine. Some people have done OK with a leaseback, but many more have gotten screwed. Your plane is a rental... People abuse rentals [https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/aerobatics-in-a-warrior.130463/](https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/aerobatics-in-a-warrior.130463/) To save you so much drama... That video is about a girl who put her Warrior in a leaseback and some jackass posted to social media pics of him doing rolls in it. It is WAY easy for a flight school to screw you. A school at an airport I used to be based at would not pay the MX bills for planes and then the shop would have to put a lean on the plane. The owner of the plane had no idea the MX was being done and the flight school didn't pay him for the use. So the owner got stuck paying MX bills with no income for the rentals. When the owner pulled the plane from the school, the school found a new leaseback and did it over and over. You become a renter. So if the school needs the plane, you need to schedule the plane for your own use. I do not recommend leasebacks. I have seen several go to shit and never seen one work out. Next question... Buy a plane for training. This can work out, it can also crash and burn like crazy. There was a post on here about a guy that bought a 150 and within 2-3 months it started to make metal and he needed a new engine. So, can you afford to pay 20-30K for a new engine? I had a plane blow an engine. It cost 26K to have it rebuilt and from the time I had the issue till I had the plane back up was 8-9 months IIRC. So if you pay 40K for the plane, can you afford to whip a check for 30K and wait for 8 months to use it while paying for hangars/tiedowns etc? I JUST bought a new part for my plane - 10K dollars. I had an old part that was not supported anymore and it needed OH so I made the smart choice to just buy a new one. It broke in 4 months. It did damage to other parts of the plane (I am not going to go into specifics because the shop and the company have been fantastic and are paying for all the damage). But it happened on 4/8 and I had to make an emergency landing. As of 5/21 the plane is still not repaired.... One quote to fix the plane was 7K dollars. The plane is not always the expensive part... Keeping the plane in airworthy condition can easily exceed the cost of the plane. Example - I have spent almost the same on keeping my Pitts airworthy as I paid for it. But, if you buy a good plane and are lucky and have no issues, it can cost less than renting. But you have to be able to afford to get the plane back in the air and you will be sitting while it is on the ground.