Glad to see Silvaire and Malibuflyer agree on something :)
As a renter, I must admit I would behave differently with my plane as I do with club airplanes. I take care of club planes, but not as much (scratches etc…). Pretty much like a rental car vs your own car.
If I have a plane, I could rent it, but I would do the checkout myself and few would pass :) So it would more like friends/flying partners that really care about it. Especially if I built it beforehand :D
I think the renter needs to have some attachment to the plane, to treat it like his. But it must be a plane you really like, not the most common, that you need for your mission etc…
As a matter of fact, I do rent my plane to a very few others (SR22 NA).
The people that fly my plane are people that I know personally very well. All of them have a valid EASA Instrument Rating, which is a minimum requirement. Also a checkout by Cirrus Groningen is required. I don’t rent out my plane on a hourly basis. The people pay a yearly amount upfront to cover a fair part of the fixed cost, where the hourly price covers the variable part. I would not rent out my plane to someone that I don’t know or someone who would only pay a price per hour. The people that currently fly my plane have to treat it as if it were their own plane, although it isn’t.
So far, this model works. Yes, there are risks involved obviously, but nothing that can’t be handled.
I don’t make a profit, but it helps reduce the costs significantly, although that’s not my main objective. One big advantage is that the plane flies more often, which is a good thing for the engine. Also, I make trips together with my ‘renters’ which makes good fun anyway. Should I have bought a Turbo, I probably wouldn’t rent out my plane at all, since there are a higher risk of engine mismanagement and associated maintenance costs.
I looked into it as one possibility for my plane when (I hope!) we move back to France. The local club I know well – which has an excellent collection of nice planes, e.g. several recent 182s with G1000 – told me to forget it. Turbo, retractable, advanced (if oldish now) avionics – no way. They said, someone will break something and it will cost you far more than you will ever make from the rentals.
There is a plane exactly like mine on the line at another club. It doesn’t get much time, then someone took it (against the rules) to Burning Man, which is held in a huge and very everything-mechanical-hostile area of the Nevada desert. Then they made a forced landing in the desert. The plane was down for TWO YEARS while the resulting damage was sorted.
I did look into a partnership with a good friend who I trust as a pilot, but even that I got talked out of. We’ve been together, N5296S and me, for nearly 20 years now. It’s a relationship. If I wanted say a share in a Decathlon I’d happily do that with my friend, but not Sierra.
