On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 09:45:18 -0400, "Mark Astley"
wrote:

It seems like it'd be
better to just let the flight school buy the plane (and assume the
liability, maintenance, etc), and negotiate a lower rental rate for those
times when you want to fly it yourself (the instructors at the school I
trained at had a "in the family" deal where they didn't have to pay for
hourly minimums, etc).
With regards to the maintenance, I like doing a lot of the stuff my
self as much as the Regs allow me to so that cuts down on a lot of the
cost of paying someone else to do it. Even when it comes to 100 hour
inspections and Annuals, I cut down on a lot of the costs by removing
panels and inspection plates etc. so that whoever does the inspections
can get right to work doing what they are paid to do, inspect.

I will be able to take the plane when I want for no cost except the
fuel/oil but if I do, it would be probably less than 3 times a year if
I do. Again, I am looking at trying to use this more as a business
more than a personal venture. I dont want to fly this plane using up
the hours that someone else can be paying for. I see the market as
being on the low end at the moment and the price I feel is right, so I
want to build equity into the plane as much as possible.

If you've read the various lease-back threads then you probably know what
you're responsible for:

- aircraft purchase and financing
- possibly the insurance, or some part thereof
- 100-hour inspections, annual, and random maintenance (and these can be
painful for retracts)

Most of the maintenance will be done by me, atleast what the regs will
allow me to do, I also assist my mechanic with the inspections and
annual buy taking off the inspection plates, and panels, cowling
myself so that he does not have to worry about that, he can get to
what he needs to do which cuts the costs tremendously.

I just can't see any win for you unless you plan to use the plane yourself a
fair amount. The win for the owner is fairly obvious: he/she doesn't have
to assume any debt, and skims some profit off the hourly rental. It's true
that some lease-backs work out great, but this tends to be for "common"
planes like 172s and warriors, which have the lowest rental rates, are the
cheapest to maintain, and just about anyone can fly (because many people
trained in them). With a retract, I think the scales are tipped pretty far
in the opposite direction.

This is exactly what I am looking for... Thanks. Because the win for
me, in my mind, is that 1) I am expanding the possible student pool so
that I have more students to chose from. 2) they will be using my
plane and more than likely myself sitting in the plane as well.
Again, with there being only one complex a/c available within about
150 miles for training I see the plane being used a lot. I talked
with the other school and they keep their plane constantly flying.

I am working on the leaseback agreement with the owner as we speak.
After going thru the cost calculator on AOPA's web site and seeing
what the other school charges, we have determined that 99.00 an hour
for this plane would be a good price. I understand that the owner does
take a cut, at which point we have not set down and reached a final
agreement, but that was a concern for me aswell. My thoughts were
maybe kind of like a step up approach that say in 8-12 months it
would reach maturaty at which time he would receive the full amount
that is common for his cut.

Again, thanks for the input. It is much appreciated.


Scott