To Glass or Not To Glass...

the first partner saves you 50% of the costs. The third partner saves you
only an additional 17% of the total costs but blocks (theoretically) 33% of
availability.


You're assuming each partner flies about the same amount. This is
almost never the case. I'm aware of two partnerships with three guys I
work with. Two are in on an Archer. There's 5 total in that
partnership. The two guys I work with are the only two that fly. Hell,
one lives in Hawaii 9 months of the year and the other two really aren't
interested in flying. But they all pay their bills. The two guys I
know fly the crap out of that Archer for $45 an hour wet. The other
partnership is a 182 with six partners, only three of them ever fly. No
idea what the others are thinking.

Hell, one lives in Hawaii 9 months of the year and the other two really aren't interested in flying. But they all pay their bills.

How do I find partners like that?

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
news
On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:16:35 -0700, Peter Duniho wrote:

The break-even is actually somewhere else, at a lower utilization, but
the
above is trivially true and suffices as a counter-proof to your claim.

You're missing a factor. Rentals typically have a daily minimum. This
can add up for a vacation that lasts a week, two, or longer.

I'd just landed when another club member was getting ready to depart.
He's taking the family for a three (?) day trip to an island about an hour
away. Even if you ignore that our hourly rates are lower than rental rates
for the same aircraft, and ignore that we use tach time rather than hobbs
time, the daily minimum of a rental would have added at least a few
hundred to his vacation's cost.

And that's just for a three day trip.

Partnerships, clubs, ownerships, and fractionals can offer significant
savings over rentals when one uses airplanes for travel that involves
extended stays.

- Andrew
http://flyingclub.org/


If you are paying a day rate, does that cover you for unlimited wet use of
the aircraft during that period?Surely if you had to pay a day rate, you'd
use more time out of your 3 day vacation for sight seeing from the air?
Crash Lander

"Crash Lander" wrote in message
...
If you are paying a day rate, does that cover you for unlimited wet use of
the aircraft during that period?Surely if you had to pay a day rate, you'd
use more time out of your 3 day vacation for sight seeing from the air?

No. It's not a "day rate", in which the pilot pays a flat per-day rate to
fly the plane for an unlimited number of hours during that day.

It's just what Andrew describes it as: a "daily minimum". That is, you are
still charged hourly, but if you take the airplane overnight, there is a
minimum number of hours that you will be charged per day for each day that
you have the airplane. The minimum is applied over the entire time you have
the airplane, so you don't actually have to fly the minimum each day to
avoid paying extra. You just have to average the minimum rate, otherwise
you wind up paying for time you didn't actually fly.

Typically, a "day" is a given 24 hour period. So if you take the airplane
overnight, that's only one "day". Different FBOs define it differently
though...there might be one out there that considers any overnight to be two
days.

So, for example, let's say you want to take the airplane out for a long
weekend, leaving Friday afternoon and coming back Monday afternoon. You'll
have the airplane out for three days, so with a two-hour daily minimum you
will pay a minimum of six hours of rental time. If your trip only involves
a two-hour flight out, and then a two-hour flight back, there's an extra two
hours of flight time you'll have to pay for even though you didn't actually
fly the plane more than four hours. Most pilots design their trips to make
sure they use the minimum time, either by flying far enough out, or by
including additional flying while around their destination.

I disagree that I was "missing" that factor per se...I already said that I
wasn't providing a complete enumeration, and IMHO the question of daily
minimums isn't usually a MAJOR part of the decision to own or not (but that
does vary individually, depending on what kind of flying one typically does
or wants to do). The exact analysis for ownership varies considerably from
person to person, and my goal was simply to state the most common, universal
factors. Yes, this is one of many things I didn't mention in my post, but
it doesn't mean I didn't intend for people to consider it. It was just
outside the scope of my post.

Pete

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"Crash Lander" wrote in message
...
If you are paying a day rate, does that cover you for unlimited wet use
of the aircraft during that period?Surely if you had to pay a day rate,
you'd use more time out of your 3 day vacation for sight seeing from the
air?

No. It's not a "day rate", in which the pilot pays a flat per-day rate to
fly the plane for an unlimited number of hours during that day.

It's just what Andrew describes it as: a "daily minimum". That is, you
are still charged hourly, but if you take the airplane overnight, there is
a minimum number of hours that you will be charged per day for each day
that you have the airplane. The minimum is applied over the entire time
you have the airplane, so you don't actually have to fly the minimum each
day to avoid paying extra. You just have to average the minimum rate,
otherwise you wind up paying for time you didn't actually fly.

Typically, a "day" is a given 24 hour period. So if you take the airplane
overnight, that's only one "day". Different FBOs define it differently
though...there might be one out there that considers any overnight to be
two days.

So, for example, let's say you want to take the airplane out for a long
weekend, leaving Friday afternoon and coming back Monday afternoon.
You'll have the airplane out for three days, so with a two-hour daily
minimum you will pay a minimum of six hours of rental time. If your trip
only involves a two-hour flight out, and then a two-hour flight back,
there's an extra two hours of flight time you'll have to pay for even
though you didn't actually fly the plane more than four hours. Most
pilots design their trips to make sure they use the minimum time, either
by flying far enough out, or by including additional flying while around
their destination.

I disagree that I was "missing" that factor per se...I already said that I
wasn't providing a complete enumeration, and IMHO the question of daily
minimums isn't usually a MAJOR part of the decision to own or not (but
that does vary individually, depending on what kind of flying one
typically does or wants to do). The exact analysis for ownership varies
considerably from person to person, and my goal was simply to state the
most common, universal factors. Yes, this is one of many things I didn't
mention in my post, but it doesn't mean I didn't intend for people to
consider it. It was just outside the scope of my post.

Pete

Thanks Peter. I often wondered about daily minimums. I thought it would be
like 5 hours a day, but I guess realistically a rented a/c would only do
about 2 on average per day. True?
Crash Lander

"Crash Lander" wrote in message
...
Thanks Peter. I often wondered about daily minimums. I thought it would be
like 5 hours a day, but I guess realistically a rented a/c would only do
about 2 on average per day. True?

The minimum that an FBO charges, and how they charge it, depends on the FBO.
This particular "feature" varies a lot. For sure, the minimum is just
that...it's not set on what the airplane might normally see in use, but
rather based on what the FBO sees as the minimum charge it needs from the
airplane to ensure it's not losing money, as well as on what the FBO
believes pilots will be willing to put up with.

In addition, many FBOs set different minimums during the summer and winter,
as the airplane is likely to get less use during the winter anyway.

An FBO running a flight school with a number of active pilots may well see
more than two hours of usage per day for their airplanes, especially in the
summer. But if they set their daily minimum to something closer to the
actual utilization, pilots would find another FBO where they could more
reasonably take the plane on multi-day trips (and would probably not bother
to rent from the first FBO for smaller blocks of time).

Pete

In article ,
"Crash Lander" wrote:

Thanks Peter. I often wondered about daily minimums. I thought it would be
like 5 hours a day, but I guess realistically a rented a/c would only do
about 2 on average per day. True?

I know one FBO where the daily min was 3 hours/day during the week and
4 hours/day on the weekend. However, they seemed willing to negotiate
wrt not making me pay for fuel I didn't use.

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate

Therefore, a top post with an untrimmed set of
quotes (usually, when top posters reply to top posters, you get an
enormously long history of quoted material at the bottom)

The FBOs I'm familiar with want four hours per day, which is impractical
for travelling. There was one that only wanted two per day, that was
doable for the most part.

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Crash Lander" wrote in message
...
Thanks Peter. I often wondered about daily minimums. I thought it would be
like 5 hours a day, but I guess realistically a rented a/c would only do
about 2 on average per day. True?

Another data point: the FBO I use (in Massachusetts) has a three-hour daily
minimum. And they're pretty lax about enforcing it, especially if you come
reasonably close or if demand was low and other similar planes there were
sitting idle.

--Gary