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#1
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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? |
#2
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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 |
#3
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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? |
#4
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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. |
#5
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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. |
#6
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Jose wrote:
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 My minimum: o Aircraft equiped to travel. That means: o dual vacuum, all redundant electric, or something of that sort o IFR certified GPS o Some WX avoidance mechanism o Speed o Rules which permit travel o No daily minimum o At least somewhat lengthy maximum booking length (ie. a week or two) o Pricing which permits frequent flying o Similarity of aircraft for ease of maintaining currency in the entire fleet o Differences in aircraft for fun o Availability (ie. the member/aircraft ratio, the booking rules, etc.) which permits frequent flying. For example, my club tweaked the rules about a year ago, after a study, to make little "poke holes in the sky" flights easier to book. o Enough emphasis on safety that I don't fret for other members breaking my airplanes. o Well maintained aircraft. Extra: o Opportunities for "ownership experiences", such as assisting in MX issues (ie. owner-assisted annuals etc.). A lot of us consider club membership training for ownership. o Safety-related programs (which might be more important if such weren't easily available around here through other organizations) o Social programs which include family (which might be more important if such weren't easily available around here through other organizations) |
#7
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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. |
#8
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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 |
#9
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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. |
#10
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Jose wrote:
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. It seems to me that this equity mechanism - which my club uses too, BTW - has a disadvantage. What happens when the club wants to "invest" somehow (better avionics, new plane, whatever)? How does that get funded? In my club, with a few specific exceptions, it would be an equity increase. But how far can that go before the equity becomes a significant barrier to entry (ie. it costs too much for new members to join)? Invest a little here, invest a little there, and eventually increasing equity becomes essentially impossible. So does the club cease investing at that point? Sure, everything is well maintained, but no more aircraft upgrades (ie. replacing a 1979 182 with a new glass 182)? A club around here is replacing an older 172 or 182 (I forget which) with a new glass version. But they're doing it w/o increasing the equity. Those members that can are loaning the club some money, and the plane gets paid off out of operating income (ie. some combination tach and montly rates). So in that case the current members are paying - through their rates - for an asset that the club will own and from which future members will benefit. That appears contrary to the idea of equity, and also seems a little unfair to current members in favor of new members. However, it also seems to leave more room for investment w/o pricing a club out of the market. This is something I've been thinking about for a while, but I've not really reached any conclusion. Perhaps I'm missing some factor which would eliminate the "no more investment" issue. I'd appreciate the thoughts of others on this matter. - Andrew |
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