Single-Engine Partnership vs. Used vs. Flying Clubs

"Peter R." wrote in message
...
wrote:

In general, how do aircraft partnerships work? Do partnerships exist
for singles? Are they a good idea vs. purchasing a used aircraft
outright? What about flying clubs - do they typically offer good
multi-day rental rates or have aircraft available for scheduled use?

Simplistically, you can get a feel for it by understanding this:

1 = low 10= high

Operating costs (hourly and monthly)
==================
Owning: 10
Partnership: 7
Flying Club: 3


Aircraft Availability:
======================
Owning: 10
Partnership: 6
Flying Club: 3




How many people operate their business via club aircraft?

Try covering an area 700 miles by 900 miles in your typical club aircraft!
:~) (I did it for our first two years and wore my wife and I ragged.)

Matt Barrow wrote:

And people treat club aircraft "slightly" better than the average person
treats a rental car.

Obviously not pilots such as Jay (seriously, no sarcasim intended), but my
observation and experience supports yours.


--
Peter

Matt Barrow wrote:

And people treat club aircraft "slightly" better than the average person
treats a rental car.

Details may matter. The club to which I belong (http://flyingclub.org/)
is more like a partnership than club. We've all equity in (that gets
returned when a new member replaces us), making us all part owners. MX is
paid by...us.

I know that some clubs are run more as rental shops, which I suppose could
encourage rough treatment. Still, that's disappointing in a way. I
wouldn't mistreat the rentals I used to fly because, if nothing else, I
flew them regularly. I didn't have an ownership stake, but I certainly had
a stake.

[Plus, for lease-backs I typically knew the owner...and he knew me grin.]

- Andrew

Peter R. wrote:
Andrew Gideon wrote:

If I were an owner or partner of a lone plane, I'd have had to cancel the
flight.

But then again, if you were a single owner or partner you wound probably
not cause some of the incidents that have landed a few of the local flying
club's aircraft in the shop.
[stupid club pilots tricks deleted]

I belong to a flying club with 3 virtually identical C172s for IFR
training and cross country flying, 3 virtually identical 152's for
primary training, and 2 Mooneys for advanced training and serious
cross-country flying. When our planes go into the shop it's seldom
because of stupid pilot tricks (though of course it has happened).
Usually it's avionics squawks, annuals, routine maint, or things just
breaking. Over the years I have experienced a vaccuum failure (luckily
in CAVU conditions) and an autopilot failure in club planes, neither of
which could be attributed to stupid pilot tricks. In both cases I
squawked it upon landing and flew other club planes until they were
fixed. My wallet didn't hurt at the cost, and I didn't stress over how
to schedule and pay for the repairs.

I would put stupid pilot tricks at less than 10% of the downtime of our
planes. In the remaining 90% of the cases, the problems would not have
been preventable by a single owner who never makes a mistake (heh), but
that single owner would still be out of luck, both finiancially and
schedule-wise, if it happened to his plane. In the club, you can
schedule another one ... if it's available. But if a plane is down,
the others will be scheduled so tightly that backup availability may be
more theoretical than actual. Our club's planes are pretty tightly
scheduled but they do work with people, for example, some local
training flights may get bumped if someone needs to take a checkride
and his scheduled plane is down, next priority is overnight trips which
may bump local flights if that happens, etc. Our manager is good at
working proactively to resolve these situations.

It's all a matter of a club's philosophy of availability vs. cost.
Tight availability means higher utilization and lower cost per hour for
members, and of course the reverse is also true.

Ideally one would own a plane and belong to a club for backup. Best of
both worlds, but not exactly economical Until I hit the lottery or
something like that, club is the way to go as far as I am concerned.

I teach at a flying club and own my Mooney with a partner. The
difference with ownership is that you can often time maintenance items
so they do not interfere with planned trips. Although flying clubs say
they try to do this, it rarely works out that way. I can't think of a
single time I've had to cancel a trip in my Mooney due to mechanical
issues. However, I've had to cancel checkrides and cross countries with
students at the flying club for the same.
Also, no mater how much a flying club claims to have perfect
maintenance, a flying club plane just isn't maintained as well as an
owned plane. Its a mater of economics. It costs a damn **** load of
money to make the difference between ok and great maintenance. Members
of a flying club join because they think its cheaper than renting at an
FBO and expect it to be cheaper. Aircraft owners know that owning is
more expensive.
-Robert

Bingo! Yes, I know that if there is a problem after a flight, I can
have it fixed before the next time I fly and that only my partner and I
will be flying it before a trip. I'm planning on flying down to Mexico
next month. I know leading up to my trip the condition of my plane and
that any maintenance items need to be done sooner in order to avoid
conflicting with my trip. I also know that the plane isn't going to be
used much between now and my trip. You just can't get that type of
reliability when you have dozens of people flying the plane. You just
can't be as sure that the plane will be ready to go when you show up
with your family to fly to Cabo.

-Robert

On 12-Jan-2006, wrote:

In general, how do aircraft partnerships work? Do partnerships exist
for singles? Are they a good idea vs. purchasing a used aircraft
outright? What about flying clubs - do they typically offer good
multi-day rental rates or have aircraft available for scheduled use?


From the tone of your question I suspect by "partnership" you may be
referring to the "fractional ownership" programs offered for sale of new
aircraft. These are popular for turbine airplanes, and are available for a
few popular singles as well. Probably works out pretty well if you really
want a new plane but can't make enough use by yourself to justify the very
high purchase and operating costs.

Clubs vary widely in terms of costs, available aircraft, aircraft-to-member
ratio, and minimum daily usage policies. The best bet is to try to get
contacts for the various clubs that operate in your area and check them out.

Co-ownership (the official term for partnership) of a used airplane is also
an option, and one that works well for vast numbers of pilots who like the
idea of ownership (or who feel overly constrained by the limitations of
clubs or just renting) but who don't fly enough hours to make sole ownership
economically practical. In my experience (co-ownership of three different
airplanes over 30 years) a good 2 - or 3 -way partnership with a total of
150-200 hours of use per year can reduce total per hour costs to the point
where they are below rental rates and competitive with club rates. At that
utilization, scheduling conflicts are very rare, particularly if you use a
good scheduling system.

--
-Elliott Drucker