On May 28, 12:38 pm, Andrew Gideon wrote:
The members/owners control issues like MX, upgrades, paint schemes, etc.
Scheduling is, in theory, more complex than with a single-owner aircraft.

This is definitely the rub. Club flying is great, except for that
availability issue. owners can usually take their planes somewhere on
Memorial day weekend. Most club pilots can't, unless they planned way
ahead.

But as the number of aircraft in the fleet goes up, this becomes less of
an issue.

It's a question of how many members there are per plane. This may not
be even even across the club, for example my club has two Mooneys and
only about 20 pilots fly them, but over 50 vie for 2 172's. The
Mooney pilots think availability is great. The 172 pilots have a
different perspective.

And with multiple aircraft, the impact of any given aircraft being down
for MX drops.

This is a big plus. Another big plus is fleet variety. My club has
four aircraft types ranging from 152s to Mooneys. If you just want a
local sunset flight, you can fly a 152 for about $60/hr, if you are
going seriously cross country you can fly a Mooney for over twice as
much per hour. You seldom have to compromise the airplane for the
mission.


It's not the perfect replacement for single-ownership. You have to adjust
the seats, and there are limits on scheduling (ie. you cannot keep an
aircraft at your vacation home for "the season"). But it's also cost
effective at under 300 hours/year (or whatever number is considered the
proper break-even point nowadays {8^).

Yes. My fixed aviation costs are under $100 a month --club dues and
XM fees for my GPS396. In a month when I don't fly much, I don't pay
much. Also I don't own an airplane I'd have to unload in a down
market if something happened like losing my medical, or job, etc.

The final benefit is that you're never making choices in a vacuum; there
are always older and more seasoned members of whom to seek advice.

This is a HUGE benefit to club flying.