Insuring a Columbia 400 & weekend only insurance

You may want to reconsider the type airplane you'd like -- there's a
huge difference in ease of flying between something like a 172 and a
Columbia, and that really matters for pilots who don't have a lot of
experience and are not likely to fly 100 plus hours a year.

What may work best for you is to form a partnership with one or two
others and jointly own the airplane. The fixed costs, like insurance,
get spread, and if the airplane gets used 200 or 300 hours a year its
availability will not be an important issue, either. 200 hours a year
is about 4 hours a week -- one or two days a week at most.

You already pointed out there are several clubs in the area spreading
the use of one airplane over many members. If some of those are
frustrated with not having the bird when they want it there may be an
opportunity to get the pilots you need without a lot of effort.

Oh, a minor point to add. If you are senior partner you may want to
recruit another pilot who only wants to use the airplane for business
during the week. If effect then, you'd be paying for 3.5 days of
insurance, sort of what your goal was.

Of course there might be times you want the airplane on a weekday, and
your partner, on the weekend. Those are easy conflicts to work out.

"Tina" wrote in message
ps.com...
You may want to reconsider the type airplane you'd like -- there's a
huge difference in ease of flying between something like a 172 and a
Columbia, and that really matters for pilots who don't have a lot of
experience and are not likely to fly 100 plus hours a year.

What may work best for you is to form a partnership with one or two
others and jointly own the airplane. The fixed costs, like insurance,
get spread, and if the airplane gets used 200 or 300 hours a year its
availability will not be an important issue, either. 200 hours a year
is about 4 hours a week -- one or two days a week at most.

The insurance will be based on the least-experienced/fewest-annual-hours
member of the partnership, so he may have a hard time finding a group unless
he's willing to pick up the bulk of the insurance tab. That seems to be his
main issue.

You already pointed out there are several clubs in the area spreading
the use of one airplane over many members. If some of those are
frustrated with not having the bird when they want it there may be an
opportunity to get the pilots you need without a lot of effort.

If the demand was there...

On 2007-07-13, Matt Barrow wrote:

"Tina" wrote in message
ps.com...

What may work best for you is to form a partnership with one or two
others and jointly own the airplane. The fixed costs, like
insurance, get spread, and if the airplane gets used 200 or 300
hours a year its availability will not be an important issue,
either. 200 hours a year is about 4 hours a week -- one or two days
a week at most.

The insurance will be based on the
least-experienced/fewest-annual-hours member of the partnership, so
he may have a hard time finding a group unless he's willing to pick
up the bulk of the insurance tab. That seems to be his main issue.

I like the suggestion. I'm figuring that since Columbia's are rarely
offered for rent, I could charge top dollar. As for the insurance,
would each pilot have to be named on the policy? If I require them to
have renters insurance, how would that effect my policy?

--
PM instructions: caesar cipher the alpha chars in my addy (key = +3).

On 2007-07-14, Justin Gombos wrote:

I like the suggestion. I'm figuring that since Columbia's are rarely
offered for rent, I could charge top dollar. As for the insurance,
would each pilot have to be named on the policy? If I require them to
have renters insurance, how would that effect my policy?

If you rent it, your insurance will skyrocket. If you add a few named
insured, the cost will only change by going up to whatever the least
experienced pilot's rate would be. However, there will probably be a
limit to how many you can add.

--
Ben Jackson AD7GD

http://www.ben.com/

On 2007-07-14, Ben Jackson wrote:

If you rent it, your insurance will skyrocket. If you add a few
named insured, the cost will only change by going up to whatever the
least experienced pilot's rate would be. However, there will
probably be a limit to how many you can add.

That's reasonable. What about the case of renting the plane only to
those who are listed on the policy (since they are not partial
owners)? I wouldn't need the insurance to cover walk-in pilots who
aren't listed, because it would probably only be a few people
involved.

--
PM instructions: caesar cipher the alpha chars in my addy (key = +3).

On 2007-07-13, Tina wrote:

You may want to reconsider the type airplane you'd like -- there's a
huge difference in ease of flying between something like a 172 and a
Columbia, and that really matters for pilots who don't have a lot of
experience and are not likely to fly 100 plus hours a year.

I'm not committed to anything yet, and I am also considering other
(entry level) planes. The Columbia is really enticing because of the
side stick and the speed. It's too bad I won't really know how
difficult it is to fly until I show up to buy one and take a test
flight.

Ideally I would have access to a school with a Columbia as a trainer -
which seems to be non-existent. Anyone know of any such schools in
North America? Or perhaps a club with a Columbia and a CFI that flies
it?

What may work best for you is to form a partnership with one or two
others and jointly own the airplane. The fixed costs, like
insurance, get spread, and if the airplane gets used 200 or 300
hours a year its availability will not be an important issue,
either. 200 hours a year is about 4 hours a week -- one or two days
a week at most.

I believe you're right.. but I'm a road warrior so I would have to
have full ownership. Though renting it out would probably be
practical, particularly in my current local area where 35 club members
share a single plane.

--
PM instructions: caesar cipher the alpha chars in my addy (key = +3).