Buying
Gyrocopter Financing
What lenders want, what the paperwork costs you in time, and a calculator that runs on your numbers instead of ours.
Most buyers borrow
Cash purchases happen. Above the entry level they are not the norm. You have three routes: a specialist aviation lender who reads a logbook as an asset record rather than an obstacle, a bank you already deal with secured on the aircraft or on something else you own, or a lease where you fly it without owning it outright at the end.
Which routes are open comes down to where the aircraft is registered, how old it is, and what a stranger would pay for it in a hurry. That last one is what the lender is really asking.
Expect more friction than a car loan. An aircraft crosses borders, depreciates against hours rather than years, and carries a maintenance history nobody can verify from behind a desk. Lenders price that uncertainty, and they take their time doing it.
Have this ready before you call anyone
A complete file is the single biggest thing that moves a decision along. An incomplete one sits in somebody's queue while they email you for the fourth document.
- Registration, serial number, year of manufacture.
- Airframe and engine logbooks. Total hours, and time since overhaul.
- Evidence that applicable airworthiness directives have been complied with.
- A current airworthiness certificate for the register it sits on.
- An independent inspection or appraisal, usually from someone the lender names.
- Insurance, often with the lender named as loss payee.
- Your own numbers: income, existing borrowing, and company accounts if it is a business purchase.
- The bill of sale, and confirmation that no lien is registered against the airframe.
Work out what the payments look like
Put your own figures in. The rate is yours to supply, from a quote you have actually been given, because we publish no rates and a made-up one would be worse than none. Everything below runs in your browser and nothing is sent anywhere.
Payment calculator
The price less whatever you are putting down.
From a quote you have been given. We do not publish rates, so this one has to come from you.
Longer term, smaller payment, more interest overall.
Lump sum due at the end, if your deal has one.
The calculator needs JavaScript. Without it, the arithmetic is the standard amortisation formula and any spreadsheet will do it: in most of them the function is PMT.
Arithmetic on the numbers you typed, nothing more. It is not a quote, not an offer, and not advice. Real agreements carry arrangement fees, insurance requirements and early repayment terms that this does not model, and a lender's figure will differ. Nothing you type here is sent to us or stored.
The questions that change what you pay
The headline rate decides less than people expect. These decide more.
| Ask | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Fixed or variable | A variable rate over a long term moves your payment after you have already committed. |
| Total cost of credit | Arrangement fees and mandatory insurance can beat a lower headline rate comfortably. |
| Early repayment charge | Aircraft get sold sooner than planned. Penalties for settling early are normal. |
| Deposit required | Sets how much cash you need on the day, on top of everything else that day costs. |
| Balloon payment | Keeps the monthly figure low and leaves a lump sum you will have to refinance or find. |
| Grounding | An airworthiness directive can take the aircraft out of service while payments carry on. |
| Register restrictions | Some agreements stop you moving the aircraft to another country's register. |
The costs that catch owners out
Financing buys the aircraft. Keeping it is a separate budget: hangarage or a tie-down, insurance, the annual, overhaul reserves set aside per hour flown, and training or a type conversion if you are not already rated on it.
Owners get caught out by running costs far more often than by repayments. The repayment is a number you agreed to once. The rest arrives every month, and none of it was on the invoice.
Finding a lender
Start with lenders already writing aircraft paper. Your national aircraft owners association usually keeps the most current list. A bank you already have a relationship with is worth a call, though a general lender will often want security other than the aircraft.
We take no fee or commission from any lender, and we do not pass your details to one. The form below reaches us and nobody else. If we ever do introduce buyers to lenders for payment, it will say so on this page in plain words, above the form rather than below it.
We publish no rates for the same reason. Any figure would be wrong for most people reading it, and quoting credit terms or steering you toward a lender is regulated activity across most of the markets this site covers. Speak to a lender, and to an adviser who is not selling you the loan.
Gyrocopter lending
Tell us what you are financing
What you are after, and roughly how you plan to pay for it. We will help you work out the shape of it. No credit check, nothing shared with a lender, no obligation.
