On Tue, 29 May 2007 11:05:56 -0700, xyzzy wrote:

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.

For whatever reason, our availability has been quite good. There was at
least one airplane available for me on short notice on Monday, for
example.

But, as I wrote, it's not the same as exclusive ownership. I had to
check, for example, rather than simply heading out to the airport.

[...]


[...]

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.

I agree, but this is something that my club doesn't do as well as I'd
like. It's just 172s and 182s (with one R182). The club used to be more
diverse, but decided at some point on an all-Cessna fleet for safety
reasons.

My hope is that we'll grow the club enough to add aircraft in a diverse
way (ie. perhaps a 152 and a 206) w/o violating that "all Cessna" rule.

- Andrew