Desperately looking for an aircraft in the UK for a solo IFR trip 18th to 23th

SueAir is a rare example of touring being encouraged with high spec, really well maintained rental machines.

Rental and training are really very different markets – just as driving schools and car rental are – so it always amazes me that people are surprised when trying ambitious rentals from training set ups doesn’t work out.

I suspect there are few catering directly for the rental market because there is little profit and lots of risk in it. I believe car rental is only profitable because it is a big rinsing scheme for the used car market (and arguably for staff to illegally sell on crash victim details…ask me how I know…!)

@MattL not sure where you get that idea from.

Car rental is an extremely well-established and fundamentally profitable business, dating from the time of Model T Fords. The prevalence of large, long-standing companies and franchises offering any option you might want at competitive rates tells you that the business bears no resemblance at all to the flaky, here-today-gone-tomorrow world of light aircraft rental, at least as it is in the UK.

Car rental outfits buy new cars with deep volume discounts and dispose of them at some pre-determined age/mileage with each vehicle having taken well in excess of its cost in rental charges. Selling accident information to scammers and ambulance-chasers is obviously a relatively new phenomenon.

I don’t think anyone’s surprised at the situation – most of us know the UK market by now. Just disappointed, and perhaps a little irritated that what is advertised as rental is often no more than “have a quick go in our aeroplane under some very closely controlled conditions”, rather than the opportunity to hire it for anything practical.

If SueAir is not possible, Blackbushes have 5h/day train & hour build and +150kts touring & IFR fleet and they definitely rent for “flying abroad”

Some training aircrafts need to see maintenance regularly, obviously these can’t be flown international or away from home based where more likely to go U/S, so stay at “home base policy” is for everybody’s benefit: it’s not necessarily pilot fault or owner fault, just the poor tired aircraft is full of glitches & snags and she is very keen to sleep at home base every day

It’s such an apples and oranges comparison to be honest.

Rental and training are different elements yes, as is car hire and driving lessons, but the difference is that there is a lot (and I do appreciate not all!) of flying training schools/moreso clubs in the UK which want you to remain a member for self hire afterwards. This is obviously not the case with car driving schools.

The problem is that as Peter often quotes, so many PPLs in the UK fly so rarely/unambitiously and often drop out of flying all together that these schools/clubs can rely more on the lesson/training portion of the business for income, so it gets priority and this then combines with any slightly more ‘ambitious’ self hire being outside the norm.

It’s a great shame but I don’t see an easy way of fixing it.

Try email, maybe things are working from home

“Working from home” is a poor excuse for not answering the phone with the technology we have today IMHO.

Exactly, and a lot of businesses will not be around a year from now, due to having taken various “measures” and having taken advantage of various govt support schemes which enabled them to shut down.

PM me. I may be able to help with a C182 based at Oxford.