Due to inflation and rising costs for their rental contracts my flight school has packed up and sold their property on my home base. Which is driving me crazy because this is the second time this has happened to me within 4 years, and that in turn has had massively negative effects on the availability of rental planes for me and thus my currency. As if fate wanted to push me out of this hobby.
Having my own aircraft would solve this problem but the wife has said no as it’s too expensive and I’m “not flying enough” (which is true but also the main reason for getting your own airplane if you do not have easy round the clock access to rentals…)
That’s very sad to hear!
At this point I would try to set up a syndicate, with a small group of trustworthy people – because there will be others in the same boat.
MedEwok wrote:
Having my own aircraft would solve this problem but the wife has said no as it’s too expensive and I’m “not flying enough” (which is true but also the main reason for getting your own airplane if you do not have easy round the clock access to rentals…)
I’d recommend to have a close look at the UL/non certified with all the possibilities…
http://www.helmuts-ul-seiten.de/verkauf1a.html
For a given aircraft capability, it won’t cost significantly less because the required maintenance actions will be similar.
And if you can’t get the family to come along with you then you lose out big-time.
MedEwok wrote:
Due to inflation and rising costs for their rental contracts my flight school has packed up and sold their property on my home base.
Are you sure? Usually, if you dig deeper, it wasn’t calculated sustainable from the first place and a dead zombie anyways.
People got used to consume goods, not to maintain them in a sustainable matter. Consequently, those renting businesses invested money once and burnt it down, because customers don’t want to pay what it takes to keep it. Most of our old aircraft is well designed to live almost forever, but it lacks the contemporary owners to really do how it was designed. Now almost everybody seems to jump on disposable goods, like one-way bottles, Ultralights, eCars, AppleComputer&iPhone, houses to last max only one generation – all things meant to drive quick economical turnaround times. Do you really wanna be part of that?
Btw, Hildesheim is a very nice airfield and probably among the best places to be in Germany when it comes to GA. I bet there will be new opportunities at that field pretty soon, even though they gained reputation for popping business balloons in the near past.
Have a lookout for some bargains at the field, there are a few older aircraft almost ready to change owner!
Peter wrote:
For a given aircraft capability, it won’t cost significantly less
I can assure you, that this isn’t the case concerning performance figures 
All other aspects merely depend on mission profile (e. g. my own family is not keen flying GA, so I can perfectly do with a two seater etc.).
Feel for you @MedEwok… bad stuff.
On the bright side I found EDVM a pleasant airfield with a good infrastructure, and I wonder if there are no opportunities in either buying a share, or renting out from private individuals…
I’ve had different people ask me if I was interested in any of the options above on my field, plus I have at least 3 airplanes I can take out and fly just for gas at any given time. We have airplanes literally sitting around, whilst their owners just don’t have the time to fly them… of course, social integration on the field helps 
Homebuilts are one way to get good performance on a good budget, but yes, forget legal IFR And you could of course build, and then maintain your own. The Winter Sonderausgabe of the OUV had quite a selection of projects looking to be completed too
I’d recommend to have a close look at the UL/non certified with all the possibilities
I agree with @europaxs, it’s a very good advice to fly freely and build experience, you can fly certified 4 seaters VFR or IFR later when family and work life allows it plus you will have confidence to fly pax on challenging mission as you are likely to have seen stuff
I flew military in 2002-2005, went studying for 5 years (you have to make money to fly on your own), got my PPL in 2010 but never used it, went flying gliders for 8 years (one has to buy a flat before buying an aircraft ), then went back into touring in 2017
Most people who get into touring are 50-60 years old, there are obvious reasons for that: plenty of cash (kids can sort themselves and you can take 25% of your pension ) and plenty of time (usually you are doing an exec job or work for yourself) and plenty of IR medical is left, that lifestyle is hard to achieve under 40 years old
Well there are those who come with mid life crisis at 40 years old, where you let go everything and buy 20T boat or 3T turboprop having no clue about sailing or flying then you get someone to teach how to sail or fly
Peter wrote:
At this point I would try to set up a syndicate, with a small group of trustworthy people – because there will be others in the same boa
Indeed, that would be my prefered course of action but might be difficult in practice.
MichaLSA wrote:
Are you sure? Usually, if you dig deeper, it wasn’t calculated sustainable from the first place and a dead zombie anyways.
The owner hinted at his setup running a loss already though and now the problem got worse due to rising costs. But in the end it doesn’t matter for me, my opportunity to easily rent a plane at EDVM is gone.
MichaLSA wrote:
Do you really wanna be part of that?I’d love to keep flying certified aircraft and if I were to buy one it would be a used one anyways, but I don’t have the capital nor the justification for becoming a sole owner so I’m reliant on rentals or a syndicate. And frankly I don’t share the enthusiasm for the common aircraft designs, I think it is quite obvious that the fleet is outdated, overcomplicated and built for small 1950s people who were 1,70 m and 60 kg. Of course the latter seems to apply to ULMs as well.
europaxs wrote:
I’d recommend to have a close look at the UL/non certified with all the possibilities…
http://www.helmuts-ul-seiten.de/verkauf1a.html
I’m considering it. Since my wife doesn’t come around to finally flying with me, I might as well get an airplane suitable only for myself. But taking others with me was always part of my motivation to get into GA and as a 99 kg 1,92 m male the useful load on most ULMs isn’t that great.
What is so bad about Aeroclub Hildesheim?
Sure, joining fees and annual fees are rather high, but then hourly costs are low.
