Hello all dear pilot friends,
I am wondering about how to fly well and long in the GA world.
I am PPL since almost 1,5 years (42yo), looking for a professional conversion since my latest lay-off (the 3rd) from a great american company here in France, that closed its office mainly because the board wanted more money.
I’m engineer, now looking for some control of my professional life as a pro pilot, expecting CPL IRME end of the year 2019. I’m now MEP/frozen ATPL since 2 weeks, and will soon start IRME. I am currently achieving flight hours using school planes (DA40/42) and club ones (PA28 and DR400-120/180), playing legs of 1 to 2 hours in the south of France, almost 140 hours.
I am trying to find some faster and more confortable planes for renting, all the more that I will be IFR in some months, so in the need an IFR plane. I have a very rough idea of what are the owning cost of such planes, but I find it rare and expensive to rent here in the south of France.
Planes like turbo arrow or C182 are almost non existing here, and renting cost are more than 250€/h, which is barely compensated by the better speed.
Is that price a correct price thoughout Europe? knowing that DR400-140/160 are around 160€/h, I find the gap huge.
What type of mission needs this, are you going to ask? I’d like to go farther and sometime get more people.
I’d like to take family to around the France (north/east), GB, northern Europe, or either as Sicily or Greece as examples, and doing it in a Warrior is a 3 to 4h legs, that I could withstand, but not wife and 7yo child.
2 weeks ago, I have a friend who asked me if I could get his family to Corsica, which I couldn’t because there is no 5-passenger planes around.
Currently, I don’t want to buy a plane. I am unemployed as fully concentrated on training, so not a good candidate for sacrificing thousands of €€.
If you have any thought or ideas for these missions, any tips to share, I would be pleased.
That is a just a mood topic…
I’m not in a bad mood, but just a bit fed up to spend so much money in planes that are older than me, most of them well maintained, but frankly speaking I would be reluctant to be carried as passenger in that old cars, and they are always on the ground.
Flying these planes will never get cheap. If you can rent a IFR Turbo Arrow for something around € 250,00 per hour (wet) and are allowed to use it for a couple of days or maybe even a week at a time, then I guess that’s as good as it gets.
Buying a plane and maintaining it to a good standard will translate in higher hourly costs, but it will give you the freedom to fly when and where you like.
There is a N-reg TB21GT that you can rent in LFMD (I don’t know what their rental policy is, but it can’t hurt to ask). PM me for details if you wish.
€250/h for a 182 is a very good rate. I am record keeper for a larger number of aircraft, doing their books. A typical old 172 will be around €150/h TCO if barely kept alive, €200/h if moderate modernized and reaching €250 already when getting nicely maintained. A 182 on €250/h on lease will be consumed and while flying degrade – no chance for the aircraft to survive on that budget mid to long term. If you want to collect hours, seriously – buy a 150 for IFR flying, maybe even get one from the big stupid auction asshole (a friend just got one for very very low money) and scrub the hours – target at 1500 hours before even considering a professional career. If you really want to get into professional flying, do not buy a fast plane! All what matters in the beginning is hours, not distance flown! Cheap C150 IFR brought thousands into airline cockpits, fast TB20s none.
I’m a Private pilot in Cannes and i can’t find IFR single engine for rent in Cannes also at reasonable price for me.
And i will be happy to find a C150 or C172 IFR but quite impossible to find for rent here.
The cheapest i think is a DA40 G1000 for 260€/h + 20% VAT
Reading your post, Greg, are you ready for a long hard period trying to get an airline pilot job?
I happen to hear from people who have tried and more or less given up. Sure, the forecasts for 1.6 trillion new airline pilots by year 2093 may be right 
but what they don’t tell you is that there are 1.7 trillion starry-eyed and dead keen young kids who watched Leonardo DiCaprio and who think this is a world of glamour and willing stewardesses looking to “marry” a pilot To that you need to add another 0.5 trillion pilots who have 5000 hours and the Type Ratings and who spill into the job market every time an airline goes bust, which happens quite often and will happen more often as people get bored with travelling just because they can get a €20 ticket. I am told that the only reasonably sure way to get a job in the present market and given current big-name recruitment policies and gender quotas is to be a likeable guy who really aces the sim ride, or be a woman who meets the requirements.
Apart from the above, I also wonder whether just building hours works today. Once you have the 14-exam CPL/IR (a “frozen ATPL”) you need to look for a RHS job; this will be subject to all the above factors. You may need to pay for your own TR. Then you need to log 500hrs RHS in either a big jet or (this is the route for a very rich person) do 500hrs in a full motion sim. I can’t see how logging say 500 or 1000hrs in a C152 or whatever will do you any good. In the US system it is different (as it was up to a few years ago): you needed 1500hrs (incl 100 at night) to apply for the ATP checkride and then you got a real ATPL. DIY applicants there used to rent a C150 in a 100hr block very cheaply, and just fly it up and down often with no purpose. Europe has no such route. You need 1500hrs total time, so you need to log 1000hrs somehow, plus 500hrs in a multi pilot cockpit. I don’t see an airline giving you preference because those 1000hrs were logged in a C152.
Another way is the DIY route, where you gain experience and hours flying GA around Europe, and after loads of years you will have loads of hours. But at 42 you don’t want to spend 10 years doing that. But this is expensive. I have 2500hrs, since 2000, but at say 150hrs/year you can work out the cost. And doing 150hrs a year in a C152 is going to drive you crazy.
Maybe I am missing something but I can’t see a route in the present market other than getting a RHS job ASAP.
Markuus wrote:
A typical old 172 will be around €150/h TCO if barely kept alive, €200/h if moderate modernized and reaching €250 already when getting nicely maintained.
That’s very high from my perspective. Are you talking about commercial rates?
Peter wrote:
To that you need to add another 0.5 trillion pilots who have 5000 hours and the Type Ratings and who spill into the job market every time an airline goes bust, which happens quite often and will happen more often as people get bored with travelling just because they can get a €20 ticket.
You forgot 0.2 trillion ex-military pilots who love flying, retired at 25 and have knowledge and skills to ace exams and type rating and have nothing else to do for next 40 years.
If it’s the only thing you want to do I don’t want to talk you out if it. I do recommend to accurately „jobshadow“ an airline pilot for a period of time to get a good impression of what you are signing up for. Now, don’t shadow a 30 year legacy airline captain. Go for the ryanair guy who is based somewhere in eastern europe.
greg_mp wrote:I’m engineer, now looking for some control of my professional life as a pro pilot
Unless you become a major star youtube pilot celebrity you have very little control over your professional life as a pilot. You get a schedule, fly it, and if you are lucky, the airline survives, expands etc.. and your number comes up you progress. Your daily work will only get attention if you screw up. You have no means to advance because you fly better than others. Let’s putnit this way: it’s not exactly a job that will give you control over anything through your individual skills (unless you count hacking the rostering system to assign off days over christmas).
Corporate flying is an even bigger shark tank.
I was quoted „you pay 25000 € for the rating and IF we need you we will pay 350€ a day“ when I inquired about flying a PC12. Not saying it’s always like this, but examples like this show that so many people like to fly , or need a „first break“ to get hours, they’ll do it for free.
As for flying, owning or renting planes: It’s expensive. Of the hundreds of pilot colleagues I have worked with so far, maybe a handful own an airplane. Meaning: it’s possible, but not without sacrificing other expenses.
And don’t forget the saying: Working as a pilot will cure your love for flying :(. I love my job but if the goal is to fly when you want, where you want, in what you want, then my advice would be to use your engineering skills and run your own business.
I agree: start a manufacturing business. That’s one of the very few (legal) ways to make decent money without killing yourself.
