$75,000 2-33

Le lundi 12 mars 2018 16:43:16 UTC+1, Jonathan St. Cloud a écritÂ*:
What club where and how to join? We need more clubs like this.

On Monday, March 12, 2018 at 7:55:51 AM UTC-7, krasw wrote:


ASK21, Duo, Junior, LS1-f, 2*LS8, D2b, V2c. Appr. 1500 USD per year and you can fly everything as much as you can, or hourly rate of up to 30 USD/hr plus 300 USD fixed per year.

Bex (LSGB), Western Switzerland. Command of French language would help.
http://www.lesmartinets.org

At 16:04 12 March 2018, Tango Whisky wrote:
Le lundi 12 mars 2018 16:43:16 UTC+1, Jonathan St. Cloud a
=C3=A9crit=C2=A0=
:
What club where and how to join? We need more clubs like
this.=20
=20
On Monday, March 12, 2018 at 7:55:51 AM UTC-7, krasw wrote:
=20
=20
ASK21, Duo, Junior, LS1-f, 2*LS8, D2b, V2c. Appr. 1500 USD per
year
and=
you can fly everything as much as you can, or hourly rate of up to 30
USD/=
hr plus 300 USD fixed per year.

Bex (LSGB), Western Switzerland. Command of French language
would help.
http://www.lesmartinets.org


and how much of your fleet,equipment, clubhouse, was funded by the
Swiss Lottery or other sources other than club members?

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.

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.

On Mon, 12 Mar 2018 13:06:14 -0700 (PDT), Papa3
wrote:

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.


Your numbers are wrong.
TW is flying in Switzerland, so his numbers are different from mine



But let me tell you some numbers of my club:
www.djk-landau.de

ASK-21
Ka-8b
Valentin Mistral C
DG-300
ASW-24
ASW-27
Duo Dicus XL

Dimona motorglider
Robin DR-300 Remorqeur tow plane.


These are our prices:
https://www.djk-landau.de/fliegen/kosten/


EUR 350 per year, including ALL flying time and ALL winch launches.
Flat rate. Needs to be payed by everone, even by private owners who
never fly a club glider.

Annual fee:
EUR 160 adult
EUR 80 if younger than 21
EUR 120 if older than 21 but without income (students)
EUR 40 for non-active members

That's all.

85 active members, 120 non active members.
Total income of the glider operation about 46.000 (from now on all
prices in Euro EUR).

Numbers from 2017 (only club gliders):
1.600 launches per year, 1.400 of them winch launches


Major expenditures for the glider fleet:
Insurance: 14.000 (Kasko insurance for 21, Duo, Dimona, ASW-27)

Maintenance: 1.500 (only spare parts, we do all the maintenance by
ourselves)

Winch: 12.000 (fuel, replacement cables,...)


Motorglider and tow plane are priced that they pay themselves.

In Germany nearly all clubs, including mine, are doing 90% of their
launches with the winch.

Our DR-300 tow plane has got a Lycoming engine with a TBO of 2.000 hrs
and an overhaul cost of 30.000.
But it only does 80 hrs per year (600 launches) - so we are talking
about an engine rebuilt fund of only 2.000 per year.



All in all we make a profit of about 18.000 per year, which we
currently use to repay the loans for the Duo and the new EUR 250.000
hangar whe built five years ago.

We own our airfield and paid 130.000 DM for it in 1999.




One thing you need to know:
The clubs in Europe never simply buy a new glider from scratch, but
they are usually able to sell their current glider for good money
before it gets old, so the step from a Ka-7 to ASK-13 50 years ago was
about 15.000 (D-mark in these days), from ASK-13 to ASK-21 30 years
ago 55.000, and so on.

Therefore there might be a huge value of the glider fleet on paper,
but a big part of it was paid by selling older gliders.

Nearly all clubs in Germany, Austria (both countries where gliding is
cheap compared to other parts of the world) don't pay any hangar rent
- all the hangars were built (and are owned) by the clubs.

Nearly any club owns a club house which makes a stay on the airfield
cheap and hels a lot to create comradeship.#

No paid line runners, no paid aircraft maintenace guys, no paid tow
pilots, no paid tower crews.


Did this posting answer your questions?



Cheers
Andreas

Le lundi 12 mars 2018 21:06:16 UTC+1, Papa3 a écritÂ*:
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.

Operation of a glider (all included) comes to about $5000 in fixed cost per year.
We spend something like $30k in various rents. In total, the soaring operation is about $70k in fixed costs p.a.
Members pay an annual fee of $650, regardless wether they fly their own glider (about 15 owners) or club gliders.
Those flying club glider either buy a slot of 30 h for $700, or 70 h for $1400. These slots can't be brought into the following year. Very few actually pay by the hour.
We do quite a number of introductory flights, which generate some revenue.
Tugs are self-financing, and rates are $5-7 per minute. Tug pilots are not paid.

No-one gets paid any money. Every member is required to put in 4-5 days per year for ground operation or maintainance. Instructors are excempted as they put in an average of 10 days riding the back seat.

The fleets was built up over a span of 50 years, so incrementals were small (and covered by net cashflow). "What's wrong with a 2-33" - guys don't exist in our club, or don't exist anymore. The last financially significant switch (changing 2 Pilatus B4 for 2 Discus) was done 15 years ago, and 5 years ago the Discus were switched for LS8-18.

Many contributors argue that everything should be cheap, and even cheaper is better, because low costs means more new pilots. Yet no evidence of this causality is available. We got to stop pretend that this is cheap hobby, it is not. But at the same time it is not expensive compared to many other activities. Gliding is in the reach most educated/working adults, they can afford it IF THEY WANT. I know clubs that offered introductory flights at ridiculously low price to attract new pilots. Nobody came, they thought that "it probably is not much fun because it is so cheap". Then they implemented hefty price increase and voila, flights were booked full. Price is the product?

I don't get it. How do clubs leverage selling older two seaters for a good price to fund new ones if everyone is doing it? If everyone is on the upgrade path who would pay a high price for ASK-13 to allow the purchase of ASK-21? And where are they now, are there low budget Euro clubs using old stuff?

On Tuesday, March 13, 2018 at 3:55:41 AM UTC-4, krasw wrote:
Many contributors argue that everything should be cheap, and even cheaper is better, because low costs means more new pilots. Yet no evidence of this causality is available. We got to stop pretend that this is cheap hobby, it is not. But at the same time it is not expensive compared to many other activities. Gliding is in the reach most educated/working adults, they can afford it IF THEY WANT. I know clubs that offered introductory flights at ridiculously low price to attract new pilots. Nobody came, they thought that "it probably is not much fun because it is so cheap". Then they implemented hefty price increase and voila, flights were booked full. Price is the product?

you want the answer why we still use them?

•because they are inexpensive to purchase, fly, and own
•there's a ****load of them here
•it's fun to hang out the rear window while a student flies
•we americans are a proud race, and they are american gliders (ok no but really, people here just like them) im intensely displeased at the lack of options when it comes to american made options.
•students beat on aircraft, and 2-33's are robust. (how many times has your club had to repair the nosewheel of a k-21?)

At 19:04 12 March 2018, 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
t=
he "European 2-33", just being 30 years ahead), but that was 30+
years
ago.=
Who wants to dwell 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.


OK, how many of you USA RAS posters have belonged to a European
club? There is a big difference between Europe and the USA. In
European clubs ALL members are expected to WORK (no
exceptions) On a flying day, one had to be at the airport by 9 AM
(in my club in Germany) to help unpack the hangar and assemble
whatever was kept in trailers. Once the gliders were ready, there
was a meeting to assign who got to fly what and when. Private
owners were not exempt. If you weren't flying, you were expected
to help wherever you could. After your flight as well. Nobody was
allowed to leave until the gliders had all been put away, and the
hangar doors were closed.

In the winter there was maintenance work to be done every week in
the evening. The club also took on subcontract work making
electrical cables for a local electronics firm. At the end of the winter
work season, all of the man hours were added up and divided by the
number of members in the club. If the number of hours one put in
was at the average or above, one got a "thank you". If one's hours
were below average, one received a bill to pay cash for the shortfall
in hours not worked.

This system worked to counter the problem that most USA clubs
have where only a few dedicated folks do all of the work, while the
rest can't seem to be bothered to help. It seems that most US
glider pilots want a country club atmosphere where they can reserve
a take-off time, show up at the last minute with everything already
set up for them, go fly, and then leave right after landing so that
someone else can put everything away. This may be fine for a
commercial operation, but USA pilots don't want to pay the
commercial operation's higher fees (due to providing all of these
services). The USA pilots want the lower club rates without having
to put the work in themselves.

Most European clubs also started many years ago, so what you see
now are the fruits of many years of dedicated teamwork. The
founders of my old club in Germany went door to door asking for
donations so they could build their first primary glider back in the
early 1950's. It's sort of like the old ant vs grasshopper fable. The
USA grasshoppers are jealous of what the European ants have built
up over many years of working together. The problem I have seen
over many years, is that the typical average USA club members just
don't have the dedication or discipline to follow the proven European
model. Until that mentality changes, the differences between
equipment will continue to be dramatic, and the few hard working
members will continue to realize they are being taken advantage of,
burn themselves out, and leave to do other things. The slackers are
then left asking themselves "What happened?"

RO