So help us understand the economics of your operation. In round figures, you're sitting on about $1M (USD) worth of aircraft when I include our two towplanes. Maybe a little more or a little less depending on how you acquired the Duos and K-21s (used vs new) as well as the Maule, but close enough..

Insurance alone on this would run about $25K. Engine rebuild fund and refinish fund another $10K/year or something like that. Maintenance at least $5K assuming the ships are already in good condition. So,let's assume that operating costs for the fleet alone are in the neighborhood of $50K/year when we throw in a bunch of other stuff like supplies, licensing, hangar rent, etc.. That would be something like $1000/member based on 50 members with no money going into a capital fund (i.e. to acquire aircraft). Given the clubs total hours at around 1200 per the Website (including a fair amount of rides), that means that the average pilot logs a bit over 20 hours per year (though given a usual mix in a club, I'm sure there are a small few who account for a significant percentage).

Even assuming you accumulated $1M worth of ships over 25 years, that would mean averaging another $40k or so going to the capital fund each year on average.

Show me where I went wrong with the math.

Erik Mann

On Monday, March 12, 2018 at 3:04:47 PM UTC-4, Tango Whisky wrote:
Maybe 5%.
We are about 50 members, and the inflow of new members is not bad.
Now, if we had trash bins from Schweizer on display, we'd been long gone.
I've soloed and lateron instructed in Ka7's (which could be considered as the "European 2-33", just being 30 years ahead), but that was 30+ years ago. Who wants to dwelve on the middle ages?!

Certainly a Ka7 or your local variety teaches you how to fly, but so does any modern glider.

You can't have 2-33 in a club AND complain about dwindling membership. And yes - even in Europe we had these things, but must club managements managed to build up the switch over time. And tell those folks who claim that dinosaur gliders are the best way to learn the real thing... to go to hell.