I find that rental pilots tend to drop out of flying rather readily, due to the minimal commitment involved.
The reason for this could also be that there are more rental pilots than owners.
If you look at so many airfields, you see masses of hangar queens. Planes that are hardly flown at all.
I know a few that weren’t flown for years (besides from the maintenance organisation)
Dropping out of GA is easy, even as an owner. I nearly did it.
MedEwok wrote:
Ignorance is bliss, I guess.
You know, there is something in that, even though I would not subscribe to the word Ignorance. But reading this thread, heavens, I’ve not seen so much negativism towards plane ownership in a very long time.
I am into my 2nd plane now. My first was a Cessna 150 which I did regret to sell but it was time to pass it on. When it was sold, the gentlemen who bought it used it as a training plane for his girlfriend, he himself owned a larger Cessna. Was it a happy day? Not really, but I thought I sold it into good hands and I at the time stopped flying, so it was just natural. Letting go was fairly easy at this point.
My current plane, I have no regrets whatsoever. Had I not bought this Mooney for a very low price I would probably fly a Cherokee 140 now and become bored of it. Today, it’s probably one of the best “C” models around and it is a plane I can afford. That is why I have no intention of selling it, even though my personal useage is small due to current comitments (I have become a father in July 16 and have considerably less time until my daughter can come along with us). Today a good friend has his IFR check on it.
I would not say that ignorance is bliss therefore, but maybe the ignorance of the sum of all collected bad memories and fears which are so overly present in the fora and elsewhere. Peter has said it many times and I agree. You mostly hear what has gone wrong, people who have been had over a barrel over easy to be solved maintenance stuff (like the case of the bent Traveller we had here a while back) and who have gone into ownership uneducated and over their heads.
If you can operate a plane which fits well into your budget, there is no reason that ownership should become such a negative experience. That involves having a good budget to buy, upgrade and first and foremost operate and fly without financial trouble.
If someone has a budget of say 100k, I advise him to buy for half that and use the rest to upgrade and fly for a few years. The same goes upward and downward too.
What does a lot more to get people to stop flying are the constant negative news on European GA even though most of them don’t even affect us. But they depress the mood in general and the possibility thinking. If whole countries like Greece fall off the GA map, if rogue Notams all of a sudden take all of Portual, if there are threats from all over the place, people notice. Handling problems, other stuff, EASA unknowns e.t.c.
But we have to ask ourselfs: How much of this will actually concern us?
I will in all likelyhood never fly to Greece, so why am I personally bothered about the abuse GA faces there? Well, as an “aviation activist” of sorts I am, but personally it won’t change my outlook in ownership. But it takes away one “freedom” GA pilots like, the idea that they have a plane and can go there whenever they want.
For me, ownership is still the largest motivator to keep flying and to do things. As a renter, I doubt I would still be there after the last 7 years but walking up to my Mooney every time I do it, sit at the controls of a plane whose panel I designed myself and finally have the airplane I wanted to have has kept my PPL valid more effectively than anything else.
Maintenance, if you are in the situation as I am that I can trust the people at the maintenance organisation with my life because they are friends and they are really good at what they do, then this takes away most of the problems many complain about here. Of course or 50 year old airframes have problems, but if you have a good partner by your side with your maintenance organisation who will support and help you, then they are all manageable.
And as some of you know, I am helping people who want to buy their first planes as an extention to my hobby and without any financial interest. Well, if you wanna know what I am up against, read this thread. Most of it is in there.
But reading this thread, heavens, I’ve not seen so much negativism towards plane ownership in a very long time.
I think most decent people don’t want others to go through what they went through. It is bad enough that there are considerations such as this whereby a lot of stuff does not see the light of day because it might affect the person’s relationship with his dealer, etc, even if not talking about it causes 10 or 100 others to go up the same dead end…
As the saying goes, you want to learn from other peoples’ mistakes, not yours 
And, in most of life, the “live and let live” or “cheer leader personality” approach works as long as somebody else is picking up the pieces of the resulting mess. If you want to make real progress in life, you do have to start with the potential negatives and eliminate them as far as possible.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
But reading this thread, heavens, I’ve not seen so much negativism towards plane ownership in a very long time.
That is simply because this thread is all about the topic: Negative aspects of aircraft ownership. Start your own one about “The pleasure of owning one’s aeroplane” and you will see the most positivism in a very long time 
(But not from me – been there, done it).
This thread borders on the bizarre from my POV but that said and on topic, I think the extreme pressure that some people in Europe seem to feel in relation to owning a plane must come from buying too complex a plane, combined with limited disposable income and (especially) bureaucratic obstructions to maintaining their property. So find a way to avoid those issues, first and foremost.
Nobody I know thinks of their plane ownership as a mistake, it’s just good fun. The financial considerations of plane ownership are for me outweighed by many other things in life, and certainly in middle age, that deserve more attention. I have two planes and probably should sell one because I hardly fly it. I don’t really want to, it’s beautiful and a pleasure to own, and there is essentially nothing in it for me except $20-25K higher bank balance which won’t make much difference to my life.
The reason I fly can be captured in the feeling of taxiing out and becoming airborne in a machine that is mine, that I know intimately inside and out, and doing it whenever I like without discussion with others. There’s really not much more to it, it’s just satisfying fun that’s intimately associated with ownership.
Silvaire wrote:
…must come from buying too complex a plane, combined with limited disposable income…
But isn’t that true with anything we buy that continues to cost money after it’s purchase? (And please don’t tell me that this is any different anywhere in the world, United States included!). What I usually see is that people fulfill their dream of getting a pilot’s license and buy an aeroplane when they become settled in their job. Late twenties, early thirties maybe. The enjoy it’s pleasures with their partner for a couple of years, touring Europe, inviting friends and relatives for pleasure flights, etc. The expense doesn’t matter much because both partners have their individual income (the term DINKS applies to many airplane owners I know). But once the first child is there, one of the two pauses with his/her job, they need a bigger house and a familiy car the plane is forgotten instantly. After a year or two they find out that it costs them quite a lot of money just to own it but they can’t sell it for a reasonable price, so they just keep burning money and hate the useless thing more and more every day. I know people whose license has lapsed but who still pay hangarage, insurance and annual inspections for a plane they haven’t flown in years.
What I usually see is that people fulfill their dream of getting a pilot’s license and buy an aeroplane when they become settled in their job. Late twenties, early thirties maybe. The enjoy it’s pleasures with their partner for a couple of years, touring Europe, inviting friends and relatives for pleasure flights, etc.
In the UK, the % of PPL holders who get that far is well below 1%… but why that is, is another discussion…
Peter wrote:
In the UK, the % of PPL holders who get that far is well below 1%… but why that is, is another discussion…
I should rather have written “those who fulfill their dream to get a PPL with the intention to buy an aeroplane”. They are indeed a minority as can be seen from the statistics: Germany has roundabout 80.000 PPL holders and 6500 piston singles (C of A). So about one plane for 12 pilots. Considering that many of these planes are owned by flying clubs and schools, the percentage of PPL holders who own a plane must be below 5 percent. Being a flying club member and flying club aircraft is obviously sufficient for most. Microlights, LSAs, homebuilts and gliders have different statistics with a higher percentage of owners I guess – most probably due to the fact that that cost of ownership is smaller by almost one power of ten.
the percentage of PPL holders who own a plane must be below 5 percent.
Sure, but the ratio of those who got a PPL to those who bought a plane is way bigger than 20:1. It is hundreds:1 at least – simply because most of those who get a PPL drop out almost right away. Most of the output of schools/clubs is wasted to GA.
One would hope that those who progress to ownership are those who have given their long term situation some considerable thought… but not everything is anticipated and e.g. most people who don’t have a family don’t plan on the changes that will bring
This is a bit of a side topic but I am astonished at how many men choose a woman who dislikes their principal pre-existing hobby and eventually drives them out of it
I don’t think that I know in person, a single aircraft owner in their 20’s or 30’s.
