Put Your Plane to Work for You

Leading Edge Flight Training is expanding and always interested in adding great new aircraft to our rental fleet. Every month we’re welcoming new pilots, creating increased demand for our aircraft. If you own an airplane and would like to start making money with it, we’d love to discuss leasebacks with you. We offer flexible arrangements – both dry leasebacks and wet lease (management) agreements – to fit different aircraft and owner needs.

What is a Leaseback? (Dry Lease)

A leaseback with Leading Edge Flight Training is a dry lease agreement where we manage the aircraft on your behalf. Under this arrangement, the aircraft remains owned by you, the individual owner, while Leading Edge Flight Training takes care of all aspects of its operation. We are responsible for marketing the aircraft, introducing qualified, well-trained pilots, managing all financial transactions, coordinating maintenance, and ensuring the aircraft meets all regulatory requirements. In other words, we handle the day-to-day operational control of the aircraft, and you retain ownership.

Why Leaseback with Leading Edge Flight Training?

Leading Edge Flight Training is a seasoned flight school with an established customer base and a wide reach across a diverse demographic. Our philosophy revolves around a commitment to excellence, which extends beyond flight instruction to all aspects of our business – including our aircraft fleet and how we care for our owners. We strive to make aircraft ownership rewarding and hassle-free by leveraging our experience and infrastructure to keep your plane flying safely and efficiently.

How Does a Dry Leaseback Work?

In this dry leaseback agreement, Leading Edge Flight Training pays for all expenses, including fuel, maintenance, tie-down or hangar, and insurance. We perform and pay for all necessary upkeep to ensure the aircraft remains in top condition for training and rental use. In return, we provide a guaranteed lease payment to you (the owner) for each hour the aircraft is operated. Typically, we offer a minimum guarantee of 40 hours per month, ensuring you receive a consistent income regardless of the actual usage. Under this agreement, you will never be sent a bill for operational costs; instead, you are guaranteed payment based on the 40-hour monthly minimum. We assume the financial risk of variable costs, so you get stable, predictable income from your aircraft.

When Does a Leaseback Make Sense?

While everyone’s situation is unique, here are some common reasons to consider putting an airplane on a leaseback (dry lease) with us:

Offset Ownership Costs: You want to own an airplane but can’t afford to carry all the costs yourself. Leasing it back allows the aircraft to generate revenue to offset loan payments, insurance, and other fixed costs.
Tax Benefits: You can take advantage of the tax benefits of owning an airplane used for business (such as depreciation deductions).
Keep the Aircraft Flying: Your airplane isn’t flying enough on your own – regular use keeps aircraft healthy. A leaseback ensures the plane flies regularly instead of sitting idle.
Turn a Liability into an Asset: You want to transform your aircraft from a money-draining liability into an income-generating asset.
Reduce Personal Flying Costs: Revenue from the leaseback can reduce your own flying costs. In some cases, owners find the plane “pays for itself” over time.
Train on Your Own Plane: You have specific training objectives (for yourself or family members) and prefer to effectively pay yourself for that training by owning the aircraft. Multiple family members learning to fly can do so in your aircraft while the leaseback income helps cover costs.
Aviation Business Interest: You want to be involved in the aviation business and see your aircraft working for you, without having to run a flight school yourself.

Pros and Cons of a Dry Leaseback

Pros:

Fixed Costs Covered: Your fixed ownership costs (tie-down/hangar, insurance, basic maintenance) are covered by the flight school’s operation of the aircraft.
Build Equity: You gain equity in an aircraft as it generates income. In many cases, the leaseback revenue can essentially pay off the aircraft in 4–5 years.
Positive Cash Flow Potential: With our guaranteed hourly minimum, there is potential for excellent positive cash flow if the aircraft flies a lot. Any hours above the guarantee translate to additional income for you.
Tax Advantages: You may be eligible for significant accelerated depreciation and other tax benefits by placing the aircraft into business use (often up to $500,000 in the first year, depending on current tax laws).
Guaranteed Income: Our 40-hour monthly minimum guarantee means you have a predictable income stream from the aircraft, reducing uncertainty.

Cons:

Accelerated Wear: Flight training use does accelerate wear and tear on the aircraft (higher engine and airframe hours, more frequent inspections, student pilot handling, etc.). Components will reach overhaul or replacement intervals faster due to the increased usage.
Scheduling Your Flights: You’ll need to schedule your personal flights just like any other renter. You give up some flexibility for spontaneous flying, since the aircraft will be on the training/rental schedule and availability can be limited during peak times.
Not for Everyone: Leasebacks are variable investments. While many owners find them beneficial, they do require careful consideration of the aircraft’s utilization and the owner’s financial situation and tolerance for the trade-offs.

Leading Edge tracks the financial performance of all our leaseback aircraft and has detailed historical data to help you make informed decisions. We work with prospective owners to predict the revenue, expenses, and overall performance of a given aircraft in our fleet.

Wet Lease Option (Owner-Managed Arrangement)

In addition to traditional dry leasebacks, Leading Edge Flight Training also offers a wet lease or aircraft management option for certain aircraft. In our context, a wet lease means the owner leases (or licenses) the aircraft to us for use in our training/rental fleet, but the owner remains responsible for the operating expenses. Unlike the dry leaseback, we do not assume the costs of maintenance, insurance, etc. – those expenses stay with the owner. Instead, the flight school handles marketing, scheduling, and providing qualified pilots/instructors, and in exchange we collect a percentage of the aircraft’s revenue as a management fee. Typically, Leading Edge would take about 10–20% of the rental revenue as our fee, and the remaining 80–90% of the income goes to the owner. If the aircraft isn’t flown, the owner isn’t obligated to pay us anything out of pocket – our fee comes only from actual usage revenue.

This arrangement shifts the financial risk and reward balance. With a wet lease, the owner shoulders more risk: you cover fuel, maintenance, insurance, and other costs, and there is no guaranteed minimum income each month. However, you also stand to gain a larger share of the reward if the aircraft is popular and flies a lot, since you keep all revenue minus the small management fee. In other words, a dry leaseback places the financial risk (and a larger portion of the reward) on the flight school, whereas a wet lease places more of the risk (and potential reward) on the owner. Under some lease agreements of this type, if revenue doesn’t cover the expenses in a given period, the owner effectively pays the difference (since they are covering costs) – so it’s important for an owner to go in with eyes open on utilization and costs. The benefit is that if the plane does fly well, the owner’s profit can be higher than it would be under a fixed hourly leaseback arrangement.

When Does a Wet Lease Make Sense?

We typically offer the wet lease (owner-managed) option in cases where it becomes more of an aircraft management situation. This is often when someone wants to purchase or own an aircraft that isn’t a perfect fit for heavy flight training use, but can still be useful for some training and for rental. For example, a high-performance piston twin like a Beechcraft Baron, or a complex high-performance single like a Cirrus SR22T, might see limited use in a primary training program but could be in demand for advanced training (such as multi-engine or instrument training) and for rental by qualified pilots. In these scenarios, a full dry leaseback with guaranteed hours may not make financial sense for the school (because the aircraft won’t fly 40+ hours every month consistently). Instead, a wet lease/management agreement allows the aircraft to be included in our fleet without the school taking on financial risk for under-utilization. The owner gets the benefit of our management, marketing, and access to our client base, and earns revenue whenever the aircraft is rented minus our management fee. Essentially, it’s a way for an owner to have a more specialized or higher-end aircraft “put to work” and offset its costs while still retaining more control and upside potential.

Pros of a Wet Lease: For the owner, this arrangement offers the possibility of higher net income if the aircraft sees good usage, and more direct involvement in the aircraft’s upkeep (since you approve and pay for maintenance, you have more say in how and when it’s done). You still avoid the hassle of finding renters or handling scheduling – we do that for you – while not having to give up as large a portion of the revenue. For the flight school, it expands our fleet offerings (we can offer more advanced aircraft to customers) without requiring us to commit to fixed costs, creating a win-win if the plane fills a niche demand.

Cons of a Wet Lease: The owner must be financially prepared for the aircraft to have slow periods – no guaranteed income means some months might not cover expenses. You carry the full cost burden of maintenance, insurance, and storage, so if an expensive repair is needed or the plane isn’t flying much, those costs come out of your pocket. Additionally, as with any lease to a flight operation, your aircraft will still experience wear and tear from multiple users, and you’ll need to coordinate your personal flying schedule with the flight school’s scheduling system to avoid conflicts. Wet lease arrangements are best suited for owners who understand the risks and have an aircraft that adds value to the fleet without being a core trainer.

Choosing the Right Leaseback Option

Leaseback arrangements – whether a full-service dry leaseback or an owner-managed wet lease – are not one-size-fits-all. The decision to put an aircraft into either type of lease should be considered carefully based on your financial goals, the type of aircraft, and how much you expect it to be used. We’re here to help you evaluate which option is right for you. Leading Edge Flight Training maintains detailed data on the utilization and financial performance of our fleet, and we use that information to project potential revenue and expenses for any aircraft you’re considering. Our success depends on the success of our aircraft owners, so we will give you an honest assessment of the expected performance under a leaseback.

If you think a leaseback might be right for you – or if you want to explore a wet lease/management arrangement for your aircraft – please contact us for more details. We can even assist in purchasing the right aircraft to meet your goals. Leasebacks can be a fantastic way to make your airplane work for you, turning the dream of aircraft ownership into a more affordable reality, all while contributing to the training of the next generation of pilots. We’re happy to answer any questions and guide you through the process. Simply submit the form below, and we will reach out with more information to help you get started on putting your plane to work for you!

Aircraft Financing Considerations

Please note: Financing older aircraft—particularly those built before the mid-1980s—can be extremely difficult or even impossible for commercial use programs like ours. For example, lenders such as AirFleet Capital typically require a minimum aircraft value of $100,000 and impose down payments of 25–30%, even under their most flexible programs. Moreover, their lending policies generally restrict commercial-use financing to models built in specific age brackets: single-engine piston aircraft must be from 1985 or newer, and twin-engine models from 1990 or newer, if financed for commercial operations. Attempting to finance a 1976 Cessna 172M at a purchase price of $150,000, for instance, would likely fall outside these guidelines and be declined by most lenders. We strongly recommend checking financing viability before committing to a leaseback arrangement—you can find AirFleet Capital’s general terms on their Piston Single & Twin Loans program for a clearer understanding of industry norms.