Rory McIlroy has made more than $140 million since he turned professional and if he keeps winning majors, his fortune will rocket over the next few years. It appears to be only a matter time before he buys himself a private jet, but it's an expensive piece of kit, even for a multi-millionaire.

While Tiger Woods owns a $64 million G5, McIlroy could buy himself a Bombardier Challenger 605 for around $27m, or pick up a seven year old model for about $15m. If he decides to wait until he's Tiger-wealthy, he can just stick with a fractional jet card.

With a NetJets, or example,  you can purchase an undivided interest in a specific aircraft and gain access to a fleet of more than 650 jets worldwide. The smallest share you can purchase is a 1/16 interest, which gives you 50 hours of flight time a year. Your biggest upfront cost is a one-time acquisition fee: for the Phenom 300 Platinum Edition jet, a 1/16 interest, or 50 flight hours, costs $550,000. The largest share possible is a one-half interest, or 400 hours of flight time, which costs $4.4 million.

In addition to the acquisition cost, fractional jet owners are also responsible for a monthly management fee and an occupied hourly fee, which covers fuel, maintenance, catering and landing fees. For that same jet, the monthly management fee for a 50-hour share is $9,600, while a 400-hour share costs $60,000.

It's big money but the costs of owning your own jet are also huge as Pádraig Harrington discovered when he put is jet on the market.

In a recent piece for Sherpareport.com — (The Guide for Discerning Travelers) —  Nick Copely reports that cost of ownership per year of the Bombardier Challenger 605 is $3,481,595 (including market depreciation of $1,240,920) or $5,342,974 including book depreciation of $3,102,300.

That includes fixed fixed running costs per year of $724,861 made up of crew member salaries and benefits ($400,400), hangar costs ($59,900), insurance (hull $31,023, single limit liability $12,500), recurrent training ($66,800), and aircraft modernisation ($33,333). Other costs in the fixed cost figure of $724,861 include refurbishing, computer maintenance program, navigation chart service and weather service. Fuel can cost more than $2,300 per hour

Yearly cost of owning a jet

Variable Costs per Year

According to Sherpareport.com, the variable costs of operating the Challenger 605 are dependent upon hours operated and nautical miles travelled:

Assuming 175,000 nautical miles and 423 hours per year, owners should anticipate variable expenses of $1,515,813 annually. The largest of these expenses (about 65% of the total variable cost) is fuel costs, which are estimated at $2,346 per hour out of a total variable cost of $3,583 per hour. The 605 is estimated to use 329 gallons of fuel per hour.

What a jet costs per hour