I think boscomantico is correct here – too many variables. To add to his list, you can significantly decrease your cost by buying blocks of airtime. Trouble of course is, if the school/club goes bust, there goes your cash…. That said I have been doing this for years in Spain, but then the owner of the FTO I rent from is an old friend. Gets me a very good deal!
As always, the best is the US, where I pay $ 190/hour (Hobbs) for an IFR 182RG.
You will not get a decent SR22 for 350, I think. But it is clearly exaggerated for a PA-28, but of course it depends if itÄs a 1960 Cherokee with 150 hp or a Turbo Arrow …
If I would rent my PA-28 Warrior (GNS430, two axis autopilot, fuel computer) I would rent it for around € 180-200 wet, I think. The Cirrus I could not afford to rent for less than 450-500 (wet) I think.
Cheapest: Poland and Czech, and also France and Spain in some places
Maybe cheapest but certainly not cheap 
I rent C150 for EUR 100, PA28 or C172, 172RG for about EUR 200 and C210 for EUR 360.
Most rental companies have the rule that you should fly at least half of the time you are renting the aircraft.
For the kind of flying I do; i.e. flying to Kopenhagen, stay there for the weekend, and fly back again, renting is not an option. That’s why I also have a share in a Diamond DA40.
My experience of renting at EHLE was the exact opposite – commercial operators (other than Martinair) wanted a 3 hour per day agreement but even this could be easily renegotiated. When three of us looked at the DA40 shares they were so inflexible we walked away
Yes, 3 hours per day is typical where I am, but I am sure that this is negotiable, especially in the WINTER
I don’t rent through schools, I know quite few private owners who are very kind in the fact that they let me use their planes. Here are a couple of examples:
Turbo Arrow III based at Biggin hill: £190 per hour wet (tacho) Well equipped with Garmin 530 etc.
Slingsby Firefly T67M160 based at Headcorn: £140 per hour wet, again well equipped and very well maintained.
To me these are reasonable as i know both the owners don’t spare any expense on maintenance and i know who has been flying them so I’m happy to take them flying at night or for long distances over water.
C
Yes, that’s really fair. I wonder how they can maintain these planes though when the rates are that low, A Turbo Arrow is not the cheapest plane in maintenance
Well its more done as a favour. I clean them once in a while, schedule in their maintenance and ferry them when they need maintenance. The owners are too busy to do this so its handy to have someone like me around to do it
That’s always the best solution …
I gave my Warrior to a friend FOR FREE now that i have the Cirrus. He will have to pay for the maintenance, hangar and insurance and once he has his PPL in a month or so he can fly it as long as he wants. It’s the plane my father bought in 1978 when I was 18 – so I just can’t sell it …
Yes – as long as it doesn’t have any negative impact on availability, renting out your private plane to someone else – in theory – makes sense even at an hourly rate equal to the variable costs plus 10 Euros. Now nobody does that, but one doesn’t need to charge the “full” hourly cost (variable costs plus proportionate fixed costs) for it to make sense. There is usually a “sweet spot” somewhere in the middle where it makes a lot of sense for both sides (again: only if that doesn’t compromise availability). The difficult part is to calculate the real variable hourly cost.
Downsides are that you the insurance might be higher and the fact that wear and tear increases dramatically. It is a fact of life that people will treat their own things very differently than rented stuff. It’s natural. Operating both an owned aircraft and rented aircraft regularly, I have noticed this by my own person.
Plus many people just want to / don’t have the financial need to share their loved airplane with others. IME, this is the most important aspect that causes so few “nice” private airplanes being available for rent.
