I want to touch on your point about renting and being grounded.

I started flying early 2003. But before I did, I took a lot of time doing
tons of research on what would be best for me as far as owning or renting.
After I made the decision to rent, I then took an equally intesive search
for where. I visited all of the FBOs withing a two hour drive of me, I live
in Northern Cal, Bay Area, so that is a lot of flight schools to visit. The
whole purpose of this was to find the school that had the best aircraft, the
best maintenance program, the best instructors, etc. My thought was I
didn't wanna fly anything substandard and put my welfare in jeopardy. Well,
I finally made a decision on the flight school and have stuck with them ever
since I started close to 2 years ago (2 year anniversary Feb '05).

I guess my point is your woes about renting can be overcome if you do your
diligence and get yourself a great FBO. I have never been grounded for
surprise squaks, they have enough airplanes to handle their full load of
students and regular renters. They have an immaculate maintenance program.
And yes, most of their planes live outside.


"Slip'er" wrote in message
news:8f0Bd.20478$8e5.16655@fed1read07...
In my opinion, parking a plane outside is false economy. You save a
little each month, but pay for it in other ways:

See my previous reply to false economy. Many of your examples are valid
points but SoCal is a very expensive place to hanger an aircraft and the
case may not hold up for this local area.

-Plane will continuously need a wash (washing a plane = major time
sink)

ROFL!!! This is California. Many airports won't let you wash your plane.
Water = Runoff = Ecological disaster!

-Worrying every time a storm pulls thru

Up until a few days ago, I would have said this isn't a big issue in San
Diego.

Finally, I believe the Citabria's have fabric wings, which is not a
good choice for a permanent outdoor enviroment.

I have seen Citabrias parked outside around here for years. Fabric holds
up
"pretty" well and these are rental planes that are never cleaned or have
UV
protectant on them. I would probably clean my plane much more and
definitely apply UV protectant a few times a year.

If there is a possibility that finances could be tight in the future,
pilots are much better off renting or joining a flying club...

There is ALWAYS a chance that finances could be tight in the future. That
is one of the reasons for my 5 year vacation from flying. The new plane
will be a cash purchase with a healthy reserve account for *most*
unexpected
events. Very few clubs rent Citabrias. Try to schedule one for a weekend
and they laugh, that is when the rent them for aerobatics instruction.
Scheduling issues just drove me nuts so I decided to quit flying until I
could buy my own. Plus, a few times the aircraft came back with squaks
that
weren't logged that I found during preflight. A couple of them made me
cancel the flight for safety...another reason I decided to quit renting
until I could buy.

Slip'er