Question: Sharing Ownership and Flying Costs

I have a Mooney that I would like to start a partnership with. I plan
on finding a location on the West Coast to base the airplane.
My question is, with a partnership do you need to set an hourly rate
for maintenance or Engine reserves. Would a low hourly rate help to
keep the cost of maintenance fair so the cost is related to the actual
flying.

Thanks
Steve

We charge ourselves $35/hr (three-way partnership in an Arrow). It
breaks down into $20/hr for engine overhaul reserve and $15/hr. for
maintenance. At the moment, the $35/hr seems to be doing just fine for
us. Two of us fly the wings off the plane, one of us flies very little.
As a result, the two that fly a ton pay more of the maintenance
dollars. IMHO, that's the fair thing to do.

Our fixed costs run us each $250/month which covers hangar, insurance,
and a chunk of change for the annual inspection.

--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane

"To become a Jedi knight, you must master a single force. To become
a private pilot you must strive to master four of them"
- Rod Machado

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

Steve B wrote:
I have a Mooney that I would like to start a partnership with. I plan
on finding a location on the West Coast to base the airplane.
My question is, with a partnership do you need to set an hourly rate
for maintenance or Engine reserves. Would a low hourly rate help to
keep the cost of maintenance fair so the cost is related to the actual
flying.

In the two partnerships I've been in, we charged ourselves a monthly
amount to cover fixed costs like tie-down, insurance, database
subscription, and annual inspection (just the inspection, not the repair
of deferred maintenance items) and an hourly amount to cover
maintenance. We had the rule that you always return the plane with full
tanks, but you could also have the hourly rate cover fuel if you didn't
want to be filling the tanks all the time.

Steve, yea...set up an hrly rate that leaves some
excess $ to put into a money market account for
future repairs and maint items...Set up the group
as a LLC, and do a excel sheet to send out to each
member monthly or qtrly showing all usage, rates, costs
account balances, etc...Thats what we do w/a 172rg/10
way partnership in Denver, Co



On Nov 29, 6:02 pm, "Steve B" wrote:
I have a Mooney that I would like to start a partnership with. I plan
on finding a location on the West Coast to base the airplane.
My question is, with a partnership do you need to set an hourly rate
for maintenance or Engine reserves. Would a low hourly rate help to
keep the cost of maintenance fair so the cost is related to the actual
flying.

Thanks
Steve

We do things in a simpler fashion for our Arrow. Fixed costs and
maintenance costs are split evenly among the three co-owners. We do not
charge ourselves any hourly fees for reserves, and thus each of us assume
the effective depreciation of value associated with increasing hours on the
engine and prop. When we put in a factory rebuilt engine and overhauled the
prop a couple of years ago we split the bills 3 ways. On a day-to-day
basis, one of the partners is responsible for paying the monthly hangar
rent, another for the annual insurance premium, and the third for
maintenance bills. We then settle up periodically. Each pilot replaces the
fuel he uses. (We keep the plane fueled "to the tabs" so as to retain cabin
load for four people.)

This system works well for us, but only because the three partners use the
plane roughly the same amount each year. If this were not the case, a
system with an hourly charge for maintenance and engine reserve would be
fairer.


-Elliott Drucker