Reliability and Clubs...

I've been renting from the local flying club.
In the last five flights I've had 4 issues /maintance problems.

Find out who the "maintenance officer" for the club is, and let him
know the facts of life.

If there is no "maintenance officer", leave the club. If the club is
pinching pennies on maintenance, leave the club. If you don't find out
what went wrong with the plane that lost power, leave the club. There
are plenty of rental birds in the fleet -- there's no need to put up
with bad maintenance.

As for buying, I can heartily recommend it. Knowing who flew the plane
last, and having everything in the plane PRECISELY the way you left it
(and always leave it) is worth all the headaches, IMHO.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On 23 Aug 2006 07:09:07 -0700, "Jay Honeck" wrote
in .com:

As for buying, I can heartily recommend it. Knowing who flew the plane
last, and having everything in the plane PRECISELY the way you left it
(and always leave it) is worth all the headaches, IMHO.

As long as you overlook the price differential between the per hour of
operation cost of owning vs renting, your recommendation is valid. One
generally gets more by paying more.

As for buying, I can heartily recommend it. Knowing who flew the plane
last, and having everything in the plane PRECISELY the way you left it
(and always leave it) is worth all the headaches, IMHO.

As long as you overlook the price differential between the per hour of
operation cost of owning vs renting, your recommendation is valid. One
generally gets more by paying more.

IF you find an honest, good A&P to work with, and IF you are inclined
to do a lot of work yourself, and IF the plane is in relatively good
shape to start with, you can own a plane and fly the pants off of it at
an affordable rate. (It helps to own a robust, common design, like a
Cherokee or a Skyhawk/Skylane.)

However, IF you take your plane to a big corporate shop, or IF some
major mechanical problem(s) arise, owning can literally rip the hide
off of you, financially.

It's no different than buying a house, a boat, or a business. YOU can
make a big difference, and some luck is involved.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 07:50:34 -0700, Jay Honeck wrote:

fly the pants off of it at an
affordable rate.

My understanding is that ownership works better, financially, if you "fly
the pants off" the plane. If you don't fly enough, then
renting/partnering/clubing will be *financially* better.

- Andrew

fly the pants off of it at an
affordable rate.

My understanding is that ownership works better, financially, if you "fly
the pants off" the plane. If you don't fly enough, then
renting/partnering/clubing will be *financially* better.

True. But for me, the fact that Atlas is sitting in my hangar, fully
fueled and ready to go at a moment's notice, is absolutely
irresistable. I find it amazing to see how few privately owned
aircraft fly regularly -- those owners apparently have more will power
than I do!

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:
fly the pants off of it at an
affordable rate.

My understanding is that ownership works better, financially, if you "fly
the pants off" the plane. If you don't fly enough, then
renting/partnering/clubing will be *financially* better.


True. But for me, the fact that Atlas is sitting in my hangar, fully
fueled and ready to go at a moment's notice, is absolutely
irresistable. I find it amazing to see how few privately owned
aircraft fly regularly -- those owners apparently have more will power
than I do!

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

You have a few advantages some folks don't have.
1. You work very near the airport where you keep your plane (some of us
have to drive over an hour to get to ours)
2. You are self-employed and I assume you can "flex" your hours at times
to match good weather.
3. You are in a two pilot family so there isn't any "You're going flying
again!?!?! You really need to clean the basement".

Margy

Larry Dighera wrote:

As long as you overlook the price differential between the per hour of
operation cost of owning vs renting, your recommendation is valid. One
generally gets more by paying more.

The price differential depends on a lot of factors Larry. I'm assuming
that you're implying owning is more expensive than renting. In many
(perhaps most) cases, I would agree, it's cheaper to rent. However, I
think it depending on what you fly, how much you fly, whether you own
outright or through a partnership, and whether you're willing to do some
of the maintenance.

I fly a '71 Arrow and co-own with two other guys. We do as much of our
own maintenance as we can. The local cost of renting a newer Arrow
(Arrow III, they don't say what year) is $151/hr. wet. I flew 170 hours
in my first year of ownership. Renting would have cost $25,670. I
spent way less than that in my first year of ownership (even after
dividing up an $8K bill three ways as a result of the required repairs
discovered at our first annual).

Will I always fly 170 hours per year? Probably not but I'm shooting for
more than 100/year. Will we continue to have really expensive repairs?
Hopefully not but time will tell. Will I always have two other
airplane partners? I sure hope so.

--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane

"To become a Jedi knight, you must master a single force. To become
a private pilot you must strive to master four of them"
- Rod Machado

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

On Sat, 26 Aug 2006 23:09:34 -0700, Jack Allison
wrote:
The price differential depends on a lot of factors Larry. I'm assuming
that you're implying owning is more expensive than renting. In many
(perhaps most) cases, I would agree, it's cheaper to rent.

Goes back to the old saying, "If it flies, floats, or ****s, it's
cheaper to rent than to buy"... Regardless though, if you want to own,
then you just put a higher value on the 'convenience factor' until the
numbers come out the way that you want them to come out... It doesn't
make them right, but you managed to 'justify' owning one of the above
three types of money pits...

On Sat, 26 Aug 2006 23:09:34 -0700, Jack Allison
wrote in
:

Will I always have two other airplane partners? I sure hope so.

Right. But Jay is the sole owner of his PA28. He pays more per hour
of operation, and enjoys increased utility for increased cost.

The financial advantages of coownership are undisputed (unless one of
your coowners crashes into a school bus full of children, and the
liability exceeds the value of your insurance policy). The fixed
costs (except engine overhaul) of aircraft ownership (hangar rent,
insurance, annual inspections, etc) become a smaller factor of hourly
operational cost in proportion to the total number of hours flown
monthly (more owners/operators means more hours flown) and depending
on how the ownership agreement is structured, those fixed costs may be
further reduced by their division among the coowners.

In article ,
Larry Dighera wrote:

Right. But Jay is the sole owner of his PA28. He pays more per hour
of operation, and enjoys increased utility for increased cost.

He also deducts a percentage of his ownership/operating costs as
business deductions on his income taxes.