Advice On Flying Clubs

In a previous article, "Michael" said:
What are the rules? And I mean all of them. Read them carefully.
Remember, eventually they will probably be applied against a member in
the worst possible way. That member may be you. Be sure you're OK
with that.

Only if you're a total dick. We've got rules like "minimum hours on
weekends" that have only been applied once in the 10 years I've been with
the club, and only because there was a dick who was abusing the club -
booking the most popular plane for several weeks in the middle of the
summer, and then only flying it for one day or not flying it at all. So
we enforced the rule we had about minimum hours, and then instituted some
new rules about maximum scheduling.

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
I'd sooner volunteer to admin every Windows box at $ORKPLACE (and it's a
biiiig place) than think for one second that I could understand the thought
process of a teenage female. -- David P. Murphy

Michael wrote:

The primary problem with clubs is that they tend to have more rules
than FBO's, and WAY more rules than the insurance company will impose
on you in a partnership. On the other hand, it's harder to walk away
from a club than an FBO because you're invested.

My experience comparing rules in clubs and FBOs doesn't match yours. But
perhaps I'm misinterpreting what you mean.

FBOs are far more strict about utilization rules (which can be expressed as
additional fees like daily minimums) than any club I've seen, for example.

However, I would agree that clubs can have rules that are more *complex*
than an FBO. We've a point system for scheduling, for example, while
Paul's club has some explicit time periods when a booking may or may not be
made. An FBO just wants to get planes flying (or at least charging), but a
club may have additional motivations and the rules are designed to achieve
those.

Paul's club's scheduling rules were expressed very clearly, and with the
motivation behind them explained. My club's rules are simpler (in my
opinion {8^), but the linkage between the rule and the goal harder to
express. I plan to try to explain our rules in a style similar to that
used by Paul's club's website (thanks, Paul {8^).

There are rules w/in a club for matters that would never arise at an FBO.
We've a policy covering the movement of aircraft to where maintenance is to
be performed. An FBO wouldn't have renters involved in this, so no rules
would be required.

So...depending upon what you mean, I might agree with you. I don't think
clubs tend to be more strict, but I do think that the rules need to cover
more ground than found at an FBO.

The one possible exception is that we've currency rules on our complex
aircraft that are more strict than those on any of the other aircraft. But
this was something we accepted to bring down our insurance rate. I suppose
an FBO might [be forced to] make a similar choice.

I do agree with your advice about knowing the rules. I'd add that one
should learn how the club handles upgrades, what insurance it has, what it
requires of a member, how easily one can depart, what the club does in the
face of an accident or incident, how aircraft problems are addressed, how
well maintained the aircraft are (even "little" things like landing lights,
which was my pet peeve at one local FBO), etc.

- Andrew

Paul Tomblin wrote:

[...]
Well, we're financed by debt - our planes are valued at $500,000 and we've
got a $500,000 line of credit. If we need two engines at the same time,
we just go further into debt and need more time to pay it off. But the
goal is not to get totally out of debt, just to keep the debt at a
managable level - I think right now we're $100,000 right now, because of
the aircraft upgrades and engines we've put in in recent years.

therefore to be taken from the monthly). But, if I've understood
correctly (and as I wrote above) your club is paying for upgrades out of
hourly.

No, out of monthly.

I'm still not following how this works. To my mind, the debt merely acts
like a buffer which permits tomorrow's dollars to pay for today's upgrades.
So it shouldn't change the overall structure.

Perhaps I should be asking how you repay that debt. Is it all paid out of
monthly fees? If so, and if you use debt to fund engine overhauls and
such, then the monthly fees are being used to pay for engine overhauls.

I know that my club wouldn't go for that, and I tend to agree with that.
Paying for overhauls and such - items that occur based upon flight time -
should be charged to the members that fly. A member flying twice as much
as another should pay twice as much into the overhaul reserve.

Paying for overhauls - or indirectly, by repaying the debt of an overhaul -
out of monthly causes all members to pay equally regardless of how much
they fly.

One interesting aspect of my club is that, steady state, we run completely
debt free. Any debts are transient. For example, I mentioned earlier that
we slowly increased our equity to buy a new plane. Rather than await the
completion of the equity increase process, we bought the plane with owed
dollars (some owed to our various reserves, some owed to members that
loaned some money, and - perhaps - some owed to a bank).

The equity growth has long since finished, though, so we're debt free again.

This appears to be a big deal. At least, some of the club members view this
as a significant benefit. As I see debt as a buffer, I'm not sure why this
is a big deal (although it's nice to not be paying finance charges, I agree
{8^).

Well...one nice aspect of avoiding debt for costs like overhauls is that the
users today pay for the wear and tear they put upon the equipment today.
Funding that with debt means that next year's user is paying for this
year's wear and tear.

But if costs are continually rising, paying for last year's use may be the
better deal. Hmm. Then why are owners supposed to accrue reserves rather
than fund the overhaul with debt and then pay that back?

- Andrew

My experience comparing rules in clubs and FBOs doesn't match yours. But
perhaps I'm misinterpreting what you mean.

You are.

FBOs are far more strict about utilization rules (which can be expressed as
additional fees like daily minimums) than any club I've seen, for example.

That's exactly what I don't mean. Those are fees, not rules. They
don't tell you what you can and can't do - they merely impose a
strictly financial cost. They don't tell you that you can't make a
particular flight - they merely tell you how many dollars you will pay.
Nothing else.

The one possible exception is that we've currency rules on our complex
aircraft that are more strict than those on any of the other aircraft.

Now we're getting somewhere. Yes, that's the sort of thing I'm talking
about. Some other club examples (all real):
Maximum crosswind limit 10 kts - google for this one, it was discussed
here.
No formation flying in club airplanes.
No aerobatics in club planes. Even the aerobatic ones. Not unless the
designated aerobatic instructor approves. And there is no designated
aerobatic instructor, and hasn't been in years.
No night flying without an instrument rating. No flights more than 200
miles from home without an instrument rating.
You get the idea. It's not that FBO's don't ever have such rules -
some do - but it's a lot cheaper (and often politically easier) to be
checked out at several FBO's and just choose the ones with rules that
work for your flight than it is to be a member of several clubs.

But these are just the explicit rules. Clubs can also have safety
committees - ones that can decide to ground you, make you fly with an
instructor, whatever - because they decided you weren't safe. Of
course an FBO can also tell you that you're not welcome to rent there
anymore - but you have little or nothing invested in the FBO. Also,
the FBO has to make that decision carefully - it affects his
pocketbook. Not so the club safety committee.

Paul made a statement - that the rules will only be enforced against
you in the worst possible way if you're a complete dick. Just remember
- YOU don't get to decide if you're a complete dick. Someone else
does. Someone who may not like you.

Michael

Michael wrote:

[...]
Now we're getting somewhere. Yes, that's the sort of thing I'm talking
about. Some other club examples (all real):
Maximum crosswind limit 10 kts - google for this one, it was discussed
here.
No formation flying in club airplanes.
No aerobatics in club planes. Even the aerobatic ones. Not unless the
designated aerobatic instructor approves. And there is no designated
aerobatic instructor, and hasn't been in years.
No night flying without an instrument rating. No flights more than 200
miles from home without an instrument rating.
You get the idea. It's not that FBO's don't ever have such rules -
some do - but it's a lot cheaper (and often politically easier) to be
checked out at several FBO's and just choose the ones with rules that
work for your flight than it is to be a member of several clubs.

But these are just the explicit rules.

Okay. I'll defer to your experience that these exist, but I have to say
that they don't in the (small set of) clubs of which I'm aware.

The only rule of that sort in our club is a limit on XCs to 300 miles for
members in their first months (one month? three? I don't recall).

On the other hand, FBOs with which I've experience, make certain airports
off limits (ie. LDJ), prevent grass field operations, etc.

Not so the club safety committee.

True, but I've never heard of this abused. And there are rules which govern
the operation of at least our safety committee...no such limits exist on
what an FBO may do to your ability to fly their planes.

Paul made a statement - that the rules will only be enforced against
you in the worst possible way if you're a complete dick. Just remember
- YOU don't get to decide if you're a complete dick. Someone else
does. Someone who may not like you.

There are rules which govern how rules may be used against one too. We'd a
case where one particular person - with the best of intentions, as it
happens - exceeded his authority. The person against whom the authority
was used complained properly, and the situation was fixed.

There's no question that a club - or even a partnership - will have more
structure than owning one's own. But there are some advantages to the club
beyond the financial.

My favorite is diversity of aircraft. My ideal club will have something
like Super Decathalons and Cessna 206s or Cherokee 6s or such. One for
fun; one to pack up the family and go.

There also risk management; you can still fly if some planes are down for
maintenance. That's tough to do if there's only one plane.

And of course there's the load-sharing involved combined with the
educational experience of maintaining and managing planes with people that
have been doing it longer.

Still, I agree with your statement about knowing the rules.

- Andrew

Smaller clubs may be better on rules.

Ours say you have to comply with the FARs and use our approved
instructors.

And you can't fly if you're behind in your dues.

You can be voted out if you act like a jerk. To anybody's knowledge,
that's happened exactly once. In 59 years. We're pretty sure of that
because a member who moved away and sold out about a year ago is the
son of a founder. Several members have belonged for more than 20
years.

The club is a non-profit corporation.

There are 11 members and 2 planes. To join, you have to buy out a
current member and be approved by the rest of the members. You
negotiate the price of the membership with the person you're buying it
from.

Monthly dues are based on the club's fixed costs: hangar, taxes,
insurance, annuals, etc.

Hourly fees (tach time) are based on variable costs: fuel, engine
reserve, historical maintenance data, etc.

Booking is via Yahoo. Each plane has a Yahoo ID and password. You
log in as the airplane and make an entry on the airplane's calendar.

We have a '67 235. We just sold our '61 172B so we could buy either a
Tiger or a Challenger. To make up the difference, we assessed
ourselves an extra $100/month for 18 months.

The current thinking is that we won't buy a complex or a twin. Too
big a hit on maintenance and insurance, too hard to find a buyer when
somebody wants to sell a membership. One plane should be for
travelling, one should be a compromise between travelling and boring
holes in the sky.

Don

On 2005-08-02, Michael wrote:
Now we're getting somewhere. Yes, that's the sort of thing I'm talking
about. Some other club examples (all real):
Maximum crosswind limit 10 kts - google for this one, it was discussed
here.
snip

On the flip side, the club I used to be in made it quite hard to make
new rules (which was a good thing) and the existing rules weren't at all
onerous - no restrictions on flying to grass runways (which most FBOs
have), nor length restrictions nor restrictions on whether the airfield
is public or private use - it merely had to be charted *somewhere*
(because that's what the insurance said). Plus 24/7 access to the
aircraft.

When joining a club, apart from the normal things you'd check out at an
FBO, check the rules/bylaws, and check how easily they can be added to
or be changed. If the rules are agreeable and difficult to change,
you're likely to be happy with the club.

But these are just the explicit rules. Clubs can also have safety
committees - ones that can decide to ground you, make you fly with an

On the other hand, our club had never (and to my knowledge, since I left
the area and therefore the club) still hasn't in 25 years of operation.
The FBOs that fly a similar amount of hours have all destroyed more than
one plane in that time. This is reflected by the club still being able
to get a decent insurance policy, and members not having to spend extra
on renter's insurance.
--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

On the flip side, the club I used to be in made it quite hard to make
new rules

I seem to recall you were in TWO clubs when you were in Houston. Why
don't you tell us about the other one?

Michael