But really the biggest thing is to choose the members very carefully, and it’s going to be a tough task.
If you want to find people who will fit YOUR plans perfectly – your heading for trouble if they’re equal shareholders.
With equal shareholders, everyone has sometimes to give way. As long as they want to have reduced cost flying, it’ll work – though it’s not a social group.
I personally would never be a shareholder in a syndicate where one member had a controlling share.
I’ve been involved with three groups, all of them disasters. The last one was a group of 6 where one thought he was God, two agreed with him, two kept their heads firmly in the sand and one only turned up once a year for a check ride.
The aircraft had MAJOR technical issues which I regret not reporting to the CAA. I believe they were eventually forced to deal with them by circumstance some years later but certainly not voluntarily and luckily without any accident occurring.
I now own a 50% share in a permit aircraft with someone who is not a mate but we get on well and have mutual respect. It works well, the only downside is that if we disagree on something there can never be a majority vote, but luckily we are both sensible adults and tend to go with whoever has the strongest view. If the matters are of legality we never disagree.
If you want to find people who will fit YOUR plans perfectly – your heading for trouble if they’re equal shareholders.
I think it is a given that anybody going into a syndicate is doing it to get as much out while putting in as little as possible.
That may sound cynical but anybody who can afford sole ownership is simply going to do just that.
Reading UK forums over the years, one sees a constant thread along precisely this line. What can I get out of it, while minimising my obligations?
That’s why the people are the most important thing.
And since money is normally the biggest factor behind syndicate problems, being in a syndicate doesn’t get you away from that. You still need all members to be liquid, and liquid without any problems at the relevant level. The syndicate merely lowers the amount required to play, by a factor x where x is the number of members, but all that does is it attracts people who have less money. It won’t attract “nicer” people. So a syndicate of 10 will attract people who have 1/2 the money to play with than a syndicate of 5, etc. Yet the people in the 10-up one will probably expect the same “level of service” to the people in the 5-up one, even though logically they must know they can’t have it. I know this is all obvious but people setting up syndicates ignore this at their peril.
I think someone setting up a syndicate where he/she retains a majority share (to enable troublesome members to be easily removed) may as well run it as a pure rental operation, because they can just kick off unwanted customers without having to buy back their shares. I used to do pure rental and I had to kick off one chap quite decisively – the CFI of a local school no less. He was doing all kinds of dodgy stuff. You would think that a new TB20GT for £80/hr+VAT DRY would have been a bargain and nobody would abuse the access, but you would be so wrong. Had I been renting it out at £20/hr WET I would still have had this “CFI” (fake ATPL, etc) taking the piss and lying about his flying time, not realising I could download the EDM700 engine log…
The downside of a rental operation is the higher maintenance requirements (certainly if G-reg), HMRC BIK issues (which I dare say can be avoided by the proprietor not having a PPL, never using the plane, and most importantly for HMRC having no interest in aviation because they hate any business which the proprietor might be enjoying) and some other stuff. Plus you tend to attract the worst types of pilots – precisely because it is a zero commitment route.
So, as I keep saying 
you have to choose the members very carefully.
Great advice above about contracts, but what happens in reality is that you get one very dominant male (there is a very thin line between human and chimpanzee social behaviour) and nobody dares to challenge him. He might be pocketing one duty drawback after another, so getting loads of free fuel from the other members, but still nobody will dare to challenge him.
BTW Maoraigh what device are you posting with? I have sent you a few emails because you seem to have difficulty with quoted text but you don’t appear to have received any of them. It would be useful to know in case there is an issue with the site. Firstly, you need to have a space after the bq. (i.e. a space after the dot). Secondly the word “Quote” should come up selected when you click the quote button so when you type in (or paste in) some text, it should disappear.
Great advice above about contracts, but what happens in reality is that you get one very dominant male (there is a very thin line between human and chimpanzee social behaviour) and nobody dares to challenge him.
What you need is the chimpanzee troop set of dominant males – who act together against Betas, and are all willing to challenge – but back down if in a small minority within their Alpha group. That’s why I suggest a group of more than 3. 2 to 1 can just increase the 1’s stubborness. 2 v 2 forces compromise.
Hoping I’ve got the quote right this time.
[I fixed it up – Peter ]
