CHEAP Los Angeles C-172 Flying Club CHEAP

Keep flying in spite of the economy !

This is a notice to determine if there is interests in a no-frills,
super-frugal club, based on 1/10 ownership of a classic 1950's VFR
Cessna 172 in the northern Los Angeles metro area. We are considering
forming a club around this aircraft, and we want to see what the level
of interest is.

The big idea is to make it LESS expensive than other clubs or
expensive airplane fractional ownership schemes. We are shooting for a
$3995 buy-in which includes club membership entry fee AND a 1/10
ownership in the aircraft. There would be a low monthly fee, maybe
$50, that would cover normal annuals, tiedown, and insurance. There
would hopefully be a zero or very very low ($5) hourly charge. Non-
routine maintenance, overhaul, upgrades, etc. would be voted on and
assessed only if/when needed. The older 172's with manual flaps and
simple basic electronics are pretty low maintenance.

The club would be limited to ten members. Students would be WELCOME,
the insurance will be set up to allow student pilots to use the
airplane for lessons! You can save a FORTUNE on training costs this
way!

Compared to renting a more modern 172 at the local FBO, our basic
calculations indicate that for a three year period, flying 100 hours a
year (300 total), you could cut your flying costs in HALF, even if you
keep your membership. If you sell your membership after three years,
your cost of putting those 300 hours in your logbooks is ONE THIRD of
what you would h ave paid as a renter. That includes an engine
overhaul or replacement somewhere n that three years.

The only "downside" is that this is a basic VFR fun / $100 hamburger /
keep current airplane. No G-1000 big-screen TV, no autopilot, no
instrument work. This will be for people to fly inexpensively, not
watch $100K worth of gadgets and blinking lights. Your $300 used
handheld GPS will get you to the hamburger just as precisely as the
big gadgets will. You want gadgets... go spend half a million on a
Cirrus!

Local pilots please contact me at victorbravo at sbcglobal {dot}}
net and let me know if this would interest you or if/why it would
not.

wrote in message
...
Keep flying in spite of the economy !

This is a notice to determine if there is interests in a no-frills,
super-frugal club, based on 1/10 ownership of a classic 1950's VFR
Cessna 172 in the northern Los Angeles metro area. We are considering
forming a club around this aircraft, and we want to see what the level
of interest is.

The big idea is to make it LESS expensive than other clubs or
expensive airplane fractional ownership schemes. We are shooting for a
$3995 buy-in which includes club membership entry fee AND a 1/10
ownership in the aircraft. There would be a low monthly fee, maybe
$50, that would cover normal annuals, tiedown, and insurance. There
would hopefully be a zero or very very low ($5) hourly charge. Non-
routine maintenance, overhaul, upgrades, etc. would be voted on and
assessed only if/when needed. The older 172's with manual flaps and
simple basic electronics are pretty low maintenance.

The club would be limited to ten members. Students would be WELCOME,
the insurance will be set up to allow student pilots to use the
airplane for lessons! You can save a FORTUNE on training costs this
way!

Compared to renting a more modern 172 at the local FBO, our basic
calculations indicate that for a three year period, flying 100 hours a
year (300 total), you could cut your flying costs in HALF, even if you
keep your membership. If you sell your membership after three years,
your cost of putting those 300 hours in your logbooks is ONE THIRD of
what you would h ave paid as a renter. That includes an engine
overhaul or replacement somewhere n that three years.

The only "downside" is that this is a basic VFR fun / $100 hamburger /
keep current airplane. No G-1000 big-screen TV, no autopilot, no
instrument work. This will be for people to fly inexpensively, not
watch $100K worth of gadgets and blinking lights. Your $300 used
handheld GPS will get you to the hamburger just as precisely as the
big gadgets will. You want gadgets... go spend half a million on a
Cirrus!

Local pilots please contact me at victorbravo at sbcglobal {dot}}
net and let me know if this would interest you or if/why it would
not.

I'll give you a bit of advice based on my experience with a similar equity
ownership situation and you can take it or leave it.

An older 172 makes an excellent plane for what you're doing with it. With
10 guys in your club, you will want to keep costs as low as possible, which
will be the prime factor with people who wish to join such an organization.

1) You may want to weigh the option of getting a hangar if it's not
prohibitively expensive. Planes left out have lots of maintenance issues
and are more prone to weather damage and getting broken into. You also get
a place to store things like spare parts, tools, personal items (lockers are
nice), and you'll have a place to do things like oil changes. If it's only
$150 more per month, you're only talking about $15 per person. Most would
gladly pay it and it just makes your club that much more attractive.
Sometimes if you get the hangar through an FBO, they will give you fuel
discounts also, which may defer the cost.

2) Be very careful on insurance. Club insurance is much more expensive,
especially if you're going to allow primary training. Read your policy
extremely thoroughly. Cheap insurance usually has a lot of exclusions which
could leave you holding the bag.

3) I would strongly caution against not maintaining funds for unscheduled
repairs, engine and prop overhaul. The problem you'll run into is when you
need money for something major like an overhaul, you will inevitably have
some guys that just aren't going to pony up on a timely basis. So the plane
sits while you can't fly it and still have to pay the monthly costs.
Another advantage by charging an engine/prop fee out of every hour flown is
the guys that are doing most of the flying are paying their fair share of
the costs. If you just wait until the overhaul and divy up the costs
evenly, some members who don't fly much are going to be ****ed off and may
refuse to vote for the repairs.

4) You can sign up with an online scheduling site for about $5 per month.
They are well worth it.

5) You may wish to opt for a wet rate instead of a dry rate. There's
nothing worse than going out to the plane and finding it low on fuel, then
having to track down who flew it last. It WILL happen. Some members will
also routinely leave the plane a gallon or three off full and hope others
won't notice. You can charge a wet rate based on the price of fuel at the
field, so if someone goes someplace and buys more expensive fuel they have
to make up the difference. There's advantages and disadvantages both ways,
so you just have to figure out what works best for your situation.

On Apr 4, 8:51*pm, "Mike" nospam @ aol.com wrote:

5) You may wish to opt for a wet rate instead of a dry rate. *There's
nothing worse than going out to the plane and finding it low on fuel, then
having to track down who flew it last. *It WILL happen. *Some members will
also routinely leave the plane a gallon or three off full and hope others
won't notice. *You can charge a wet rate based on the price of fuel at the
field, so if someone goes someplace and buys more expensive fuel they have
to make up the difference. *There's advantages and disadvantages both ways,
so you just have to figure out what works best for your situation.

Just one comment on this point. I belong to a flying club that
charges a wet rate that we adjust weekly to reflect actual 100LL
prices at our home field, which is about right in the middle for
cost. We use historical fuel burn rates on the planes, multiply it
by the current cost at the field, and add a dry rate to come up with
this rate.

We reimburse in full for fuel no matter where and at what price
purchased. The philosophy behind that is safety, we want our pilots
to always have sufficient fuel and not try to stretch to get to a
cheaper field to save a few bucks out of pocket. Now if a member is
consistently abusing it by purchasing $7 fuel at Signature at a big
city airport when there is a cheaper FBO available on the field we
might counsel him, but we've really not had a significant problem with
this.

On Mar 27, 9:18*am, wrote:
Keep flying in spite of the economy !

This is a notice to determine if there is interests in a no-frills,
super-frugal club, based on 1/10 ownership of a classic 1950's VFR
Cessna 172 in the northern Los Angeles metro area. We are considering
forming a club around this aircraft, and we want to see what the level
of interest is.

The big idea is to make it LESS expensive than other clubs or
expensive airplane fractional ownership schemes. We are shooting for a
$3995 buy-in which includes club membership entry fee AND a 1/10
ownership in the aircraft. There would be a low monthly fee, maybe
$50, that would cover normal annuals, tiedown, and insurance. There
would hopefully be a zero or very very low ($5) hourly charge. Non-
routine maintenance, overhaul, upgrades, etc. would be voted on and
assessed only if/when needed. The older 172's with manual flaps and
simple basic electronics are pretty low maintenance.

The club would be limited to ten members. Students would be WELCOME,
the insurance will be set up to allow student pilots to use the
airplane for lessons! You can save a FORTUNE on training costs this
way!

Compared to renting a more modern 172 at the local FBO, our basic
calculations indicate that for a three year period, flying 100 hours a
year (300 total), you could cut your flying costs in HALF, even if you
keep your membership. If you sell your membership after three years,
your cost of putting those 300 hours in your logbooks is ONE THIRD of
what you would h ave paid as a renter. That includes an engine
overhaul or replacement somewhere n that three years.

The only "downside" is that this is a basic VFR fun / $100 hamburger /
keep current airplane. No G-1000 big-screen TV, no autopilot, no
instrument work. This will be for people to fly inexpensively, not
watch $100K worth of gadgets and blinking lights. Your $300 used
handheld GPS will get you to the hamburger just as precisely as the
big gadgets will. You want gadgets... go spend half a million on aCirrus!

Local pilots please contact me at *victorbravo at sbcglobal {dot}}
net and let me know if this would interest you or if/why it would
not.

Just curious, how many new-build buyers opt not to have gadgets in the
cockpit?

On May 5, 6:20*pm, Sunho wrote:
On Mar 27, 9:18*am, wrote:



Keep flying in spite of the economy !

This is a notice to determine if there is interests in a no-frills,
super-frugal club, based on 1/10 ownership of a classic 1950's VFR
Cessna 172 in the northern Los Angeles metro area. We are considering
forming a club around this aircraft, and we want to see what the level
of interest is.

The big idea is to make it LESS expensive than other clubs or
expensive airplane fractional ownership schemes. We are shooting for a
$3995 buy-in which includes club membership entry fee AND a 1/10
ownership in the aircraft. There would be a low monthly fee, maybe
$50, that would cover normal annuals, tiedown, and insurance. There
would hopefully be a zero or very very low ($5) hourly charge. Non-
routine maintenance, overhaul, upgrades, etc. would be voted on and
assessed only if/when needed. The older 172's with manual flaps and
simple basic electronics are pretty low maintenance.

The club would be limited to ten members. Students would be WELCOME,
the insurance will be set up to allow student pilots to use the
airplane for lessons! You can save a FORTUNE on training costs this
way!

Compared to renting a more modern 172 at the local FBO, our basic
calculations indicate that for a three year period, flying 100 hours a
year (300 total), you could cut your flying costs in HALF, even if you
keep your membership. If you sell your membership after three years,
your cost of putting those 300 hours in your logbooks is ONE THIRD of
what you would h ave paid as a renter. That includes an engine
overhaul or replacement somewhere n that three years.

The only "downside" is that this is a basic VFR fun / $100 hamburger /
keep current airplane. No G-1000 big-screen TV, no autopilot, no
instrument work. This will be for people to fly inexpensively, not
watch $100K worth of gadgets and blinking lights. Your $300 used
handheld GPS will get you to the hamburger just as precisely as the
big gadgets will. You want gadgets... go spend half a million on aCirrus!

Local pilots please contact me at *victorbravo at sbcglobal {dot}}
net and let me know if this would interest you or if/why it would
not.

Just curious, how many new-build buyers opt not to have gadgets in the
cockpit?

I'm guessing not many. But I'll also guess that the main reason is
that if you can $200k for the basics, you might as well pay $240k to
have all the bells and whistles -- you can always ignore them and just
look out the window. I personally would love to have a pretty G1000, I
just can't pay for it.

"Sunho" wrote in message
...
On Mar 27, 9:18 am, wrote:
Keep flying in spite of the economy !

This is a notice to determine if there is interests in a no-frills,
super-frugal club, based on 1/10 ownership of a classic 1950's VFR
Cessna 172 in the northern Los Angeles metro area. We are considering
forming a club around this aircraft, and we want to see what the level
of interest is.

The big idea is to make it LESS expensive than other clubs or
expensive airplane fractional ownership schemes. We are shooting for a
$3995 buy-in which includes club membership entry fee AND a 1/10
ownership in the aircraft. There would be a low monthly fee, maybe
$50, that would cover normal annuals, tiedown, and insurance. There
would hopefully be a zero or very very low ($5) hourly charge. Non-
routine maintenance, overhaul, upgrades, etc. would be voted on and
assessed only if/when needed. The older 172's with manual flaps and
simple basic electronics are pretty low maintenance.

The club would be limited to ten members. Students would be WELCOME,
the insurance will be set up to allow student pilots to use the
airplane for lessons! You can save a FORTUNE on training costs this
way!

Compared to renting a more modern 172 at the local FBO, our basic
calculations indicate that for a three year period, flying 100 hours a
year (300 total), you could cut your flying costs in HALF, even if you
keep your membership. If you sell your membership after three years,
your cost of putting those 300 hours in your logbooks is ONE THIRD of
what you would h ave paid as a renter. That includes an engine
overhaul or replacement somewhere n that three years.

The only "downside" is that this is a basic VFR fun / $100 hamburger /
keep current airplane. No G-1000 big-screen TV, no autopilot, no
instrument work. This will be for people to fly inexpensively, not
watch $100K worth of gadgets and blinking lights. Your $300 used
handheld GPS will get you to the hamburger just as precisely as the
big gadgets will. You want gadgets... go spend half a million on aCirrus!

Local pilots please contact me at victorbravo at sbcglobal {dot}}
net and let me know if this would interest you or if/why it would
not.

Let me crush your dreams:

First of all good luck finding 10 consistent reliable trustworthy easy-going
people to buy in to a plane.

How many hours are left on the engine before major OH and how much will it
cost to do that? That's what will determine your hourly engine OH
amortization/reserve. If the engine is at half time (1000 hours) and a
major OH cost about 20,000.00 for engine removal, OH, reinstallation and
shipping, you're looking at 20 bucks an hour for the engine OH.

Fuel is averaging about 3.90 per gallon and I would figure on a fuel burn of
9 GPH. That will cost 35.10 per hour in fuel.

Five dollars will NOT cut it for unforeseen maintenance. You will need to
be closer to 15.

Add 3 dollars per hour for oil change and a dollar per hour for oil
consumption.

Let's see...hmmm...that's 20 + 35.10 + 15 + 3 + 1 = $74.00 per hour wet
variable costs.

Now let's look at the fixed costs:

Now an annual will cost you about 900.00 JUST FOR THE INSPECTION. This will
not include any maintenance required.
There's storage (hangar: 400.00 per month, Tiedown 75.00 per month)
Insurance: 1,200.00 per year (100.00 per month)
Loan payment: 40,000 plane at 7% interest over 10 years = $464.43 per month

Let's see...hmmm...75.00 annual + 75.00 tiedown + 100.00 insurance + 464.43
loan payment = 714.43 per month even if you don't fly a single hour.

Now we didn't even talk about it's eventual and inevitable exterior paint
job. That's 8 to 10 grand and if it is kept outside that will have to be
done in the next 5 or 6 years. That's 112.00 per month paint reserve if
you're so inclined.

The following costs do NOT include the principle part of the loan...only
interest for the first year:

If you own the plane by yourself and fly 100 hours per year it will cost you
1,067.58 per month wet.
With two people flying 100 hours per year it will cost you about 829.69 per
month wet. (nice savings!)
With three people flying 100 hours per year it will cost you about 750.40
per month wet. (not bad savings)
With four people flying 100 hours per year it will cost you about 710.75 per
month wet. (very little savings)
With five people flying 100 hours per year it will cost you about 686.96 per
month wet. (almost not worth it savings)
With six people flying 100 hours per year it will cost you about 671.10 per
month wet. (not worth it at all)

See what's going on here? After the third partner, the cost savings verses
the use of the plane and inconvenience of having him just aint worth the
savings to take him on.

Kobra

On Mar 26, 6:18*pm, wrote:
The older 172's with manual flaps and
simple basic electronics are pretty low maintenance.

Nope. Unless someone has already replaced a lot of stuff like control
cables, pulleys, control surface hinges and many other things, these
will all be pretty old. Pulley bearings seize with age and corrosion.
Cable corrode and the wires in them break, causing fraying where they
run over pulleys, even if the angle change is very small. Any moisture
that's gotten into the airframe, even condensation, causes corrosion
and many good-looking airplanes have been junked because they were
eaten out from the inside. Any animals that nested in it will have
done terrible damage. 172 stabilizer spars crack, usually because
people push the tail down to turn the airplane. A 1950s 172 has had 50
years to get to this state, and if it's been outside with the wind
working the controls a bit, there'll be a lot of wear. The Continental
engines need lots of care where the valves are concerned.
The old wheels on '50s airplanes are almost impossible to find
parts for, as is the rest of an airplane that old. Cessna doesn't
stock or make parts fo.r their old models. Univair has a few of the
more popular bits.
If it was so cheap to run old airplanes, they'd be much in
demand. But, like old cars, they often end up costing more than it
would have cost to buy something much newer in the first place.

Dan (aircraft maintenance engineer)

On May 6, 8:09*pm, wrote:
On Mar 26, 6:18*pm, wrote:
*The older 172's with manual flaps and

simple basic electronics are pretty low maintenance.

Nope. Unless someone has already replaced a lot of stuff like control
cables, pulleys, control surface hinges and many other things, these
will all be pretty old. Pulley bearings seize with age and corrosion.
Cable corrode and the wires in them break, causing fraying where they
run over pulleys, even if the angle change is very small. Any moisture
that's gotten into the airframe, even condensation, causes corrosion
and many good-looking airplanes have been junked because they were
eaten out from the inside. Any animals that nested in it will have
done terrible damage. 172 stabilizer spars crack, usually because
people push the tail down to turn the airplane. A 1950s 172 has had 50
years to get to this state, and if it's been outside with the wind
working the controls a bit, there'll be a lot of wear. The Continental
engines need lots of care where the valves are concerned.
* * * The old wheels on '50s airplanes are almost impossible to find
parts for, as is the rest of an airplane that old. Cessna doesn't
stock or make parts fo.r their old models. Univair has a few of the
more popular bits.
* * * If it was so cheap to run old airplanes, they'd be much in
demand. But, like old cars, they often end up costing more than it
would have cost to buy something much newer in the first place.

Dan (aircraft maintenance engineer)

I should add: Old electrical systems also cause considerable
trouble. Age means corrosion, especially if there's moisture, and dust
contributes further to problems. So we see failing switches and
breakers and fuseholders and solenoids because their internal contacts
develop oxides on them, causing resistance and heating and eventual
burnout. Those old master switches on 172s are in a stupid spot, high
in the panel and hard to get at, and they start to fail, too. Voltage
regulators quit, and the generators have a rather short brush life and
don't produce much juice. If the airplane has less-than-modern
avionics, the tuning switches in them suffer the same oxidation and
are forever costing money to get fixed. Battery cables and many other
wires have crimped-on connectors that develop corrosion between the
wire and terminal, and cause symptoms that can take a long time to
diagnose. Old airframes develop corrosion-related resistance at
riveted joints and we get ground-loop noise in radios and headsets.
Lots of expensive fun, and many mechanics aren't really up to
speed at finding the problems. Electrical stuff is a field all its own
and a guy can spend a lot of time studying it. Most mechanics don't
get nearly enough training in it.

I restored a 1951 International Harvester half-ton pickup. Daily
driver, not a show truck. As simple as a vehicle can get. No
electronics, no complicated stuff. I drive it less than half the miles
we put on our 2001 car, yet I spend much more time fixing stuff on the
truck than I do on the car. We can gripe that "they don't build things
like they used to," but it's a good thing they don't.

Dan

Dan