Flying Club Features

What do you look for in a flying club? I am currently an officer in a
flying club and we are having trouble recruiting new members. What
would make you want to join a club?

I feel that our prices are the main deterrent. Students (this is a
school club) pay $60/hr for a C172 (dry), alumi pay $70, and all others
pay $80. This is for a 1998 in good condition. The instructors
usually give club members a reduced price (around $20/hr). The current
club members will also loan out all training materials to further
reduce the cost.

Our only current activites are tower tours and fly-with-me weekends.
We are in the planning stages for $100 hamburger runs with potential
members.

We are starting to look into purchasing a smaller plane (152/Warrior?)
to further reduce the costs. Has this approach worked well for other
clubs?

What other suggestions can you come up with?

In a previous article, "Andy" said:
What do you look for in a flying club? I am currently an officer in a
flying club and we are having trouble recruiting new members. What
would make you want to join a club?

I'm the secretary of a flying club. http://www.rochesterflyingclub.com/
Our planes are better maintained than the local FBOs, and slightly (but
not much) cheaper. We don't do much of the social stuff, except an annual
dinner. Our main advantage over renting is that the monthly dues work out
about the same as renters insurance, and our members are insured better
than they would with renters insurance.

We are starting to look into purchasing a smaller plane (152/Warrior?)
to further reduce the costs. Has this approach worked well for other
clubs?

Our club has a Warrior, two Archers, a Dakota and a Lance. It's a good
mix, and the similarity of the planes makes moving up easier. Students
can only use the Warrior, except when the Warrior is grounded they can
receive dual in one of the Archers. But having high end aircraft like the
Dakota and Lance mean that the sort of people who fly a lot have the sort
of planes that they can use for trips. Since you've already got a 172,
I'd recommend getting a 152 and a 182 and/or a 206.

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Information moves, or we move to it. Moving to it has rarely been
popular and is growing unfashionable; nowadays we demand that the
information come to us. -- Neal Stephenson

if your club can not induce members with those cheap flying rates.. then I'm
not sure what would get them.. What is your "join up fee", because the
hourly rate is not the problem, try to rent a nearly new 172 anywhere else
for that rate.

What is the availability of the aircraft? hard to schedule with too many
members and not enough airplanes?

BT

"Andy" wrote in message
oups.com...
What do you look for in a flying club? I am currently an officer in a
flying club and we are having trouble recruiting new members. What
would make you want to join a club?

I feel that our prices are the main deterrent. Students (this is a
school club) pay $60/hr for a C172 (dry), alumi pay $70, and all others
pay $80. This is for a 1998 in good condition. The instructors
usually give club members a reduced price (around $20/hr). The current
club members will also loan out all training materials to further
reduce the cost.

Our only current activites are tower tours and fly-with-me weekends.
We are in the planning stages for $100 hamburger runs with potential
members.

We are starting to look into purchasing a smaller plane (152/Warrior?)
to further reduce the costs. Has this approach worked well for other
clubs?

What other suggestions can you come up with?

What is your "join up fee", because the
hourly rate is not the problem, try to rent a nearly new 172 anywhere
else
for that rate.

What is the availability of the aircraft? hard to schedule with too
many
members and not enough airplanes?

Membership initiation is $50 and monthly dues are $20.

Availability is usually good. I haven't had a conflict in my year in
it. I am not even sure how many members we have, maybe 20 on the high
side, with most being alumni and not flying much. I believe we only
put about 50 hours on it since Oct. It should also be available nearly
full time in the summer when schools out.

We were also considering getting a complex since there is virtually
nothing available in the area and this would grant us a larger renter
base.

I look for stuff I can't get at an FBO, and can't afford (time or money
wise) from buying my own plane. Those things are (in no particular order):

1: well maintained aircraft
2: no minimum rental fees - I can take the plane for a week and don't
have to put umpty-ump hours on it.
3: time billed by the tach, not the hobbs (no "taxi penalty")
4: high performance aircraft - not the warrior/172 set I can get anywhere.
5: member participation in the affairs of the club and the aircraft.
6: social inclusiveness, which can easily lead to wives and such
getting involved (as pinch hitters, and also with each other socially,
leading to more SOs flying)
7: hangar flying at meetings, safety seminars at meetings, stuff like that.

That's a start.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Oh - a few other things.

8: aircraft easily available. This means a good ratio of planes to pilots.
9: equity participation - sort of like buying into a share. I think a
fee structure of three separate "channels" - cost of ownership (loans,
opportunity cost), other fixed costs, and hourly costs, make it easier
to justify the rates.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Andy" wrote in message
oups.com...
What do you look for in a flying club? I am currently an officer in a
flying club and we are having trouble recruiting new members. What
would make you want to join a club?

I feel that our prices are the main deterrent. Students (this is a
school club) pay $60/hr for a C172 (dry), alumi pay $70,

I think having a cheaper rate for students would turn me off, if I were not
a student. Seems unfair, for the ones with a ticket, to be helping to pay
for the students.
--
Jim in NC

In a previous article, Jose said:
9: equity participation - sort of like buying into a share. I think a
fee structure of three separate "channels" - cost of ownership (loans,
opportunity cost), other fixed costs, and hourly costs, make it easier
to justify the rates.

Our club doesn't do equity participation, and that's the reason why I'm in
this club. There is another club on the field, and when I was ready to
join Rochester Flying Club was $500 to join with no equity, and Aerodrome
Flying Club was $5,000 to join with equity. I didn't have $5,000, so I
joined RFC. Now the Aerodrome join is $18,000, so it might have been a
decent investment if I'd had the money, but I didn't.

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
It's the _target_ that supposed to go "F00F", not the processor.
-- Mike Andrews, on Pentiums in missiles

In a previous article, "Morgans" said:
I think having a cheaper rate for students would turn me off, if I were not
a student. Seems unfair, for the ones with a ticket, to be helping to pay
for the students.

Our club used to have a cheaper rate for students, but they were
restricted to one aircraft (the Warrior) so it balanced out. Now we still
accept students and still restrict them to one aircraft, but we'd really
rather that they got their flight training somewhere else.


--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a
mistake when you make it again. -- F. P. Jones

Our club doesn't do equity participation, and that's the reason why I'm in
this club.

It could be optional, in exchange for lower dues. In essence, the extra
dues would cover what it would cost monthly to borrow the equity share.
No matter how it's sliced, the money has to be paid somehow; what I
like about splitting it that way is that the equity share gets returned
on exit. The member actually "owns" a piece of it, should they want to.
It also makes the economics of deciding on another plane simpler.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.