The main reason not to rent is so nobody ever touches your aircraft except you…. and that is all the justification I’ll ever need :-) My longest flights currently are overnight, because free time for periods much longer than that is spent on the other side of the world.
If I ever do find myself in the mood to take my longer holidays in the plane, I’ve already got an idea how I’m going to do it… Its going to be fun and cheap, which will make Pilot DAR happy :-) I’ll sell my current stuff, buy a Bellanca Viking or maybe a Turbo Viking for $50K or whatever, fiddle with it endlessly as is my habit, and go places at 160 or 180 kts versus my current 130 kts TAS.
Whether in the US or Europe I don’t think you can encourage the growth of GA with the prospect of group ownership – better to encourage them to own something, anything, that flies, and progress from there. Maybe that’s just me, but the whole point for me is to own and use my own stuff, not just be an operator.
Peter,
Where I am based, with one school I know, you could take a plane away for as long as you want, subject to paying something like 2hrs of rental billing per day. So say a trip with 5 days away works out very expensive (at today’s rates it would be about £1700) – unless you actually fly the 2hrs every day.
Exactly. And that is a pretty tame rule. What I have seen around here, even with planes which had very low usage, was 2 hrs per weekday, 4 hours per week end day. So basically, you can “own” the airplane for 14 hrs per week…. which in the case of the TB20 I considered renting would have been 4500€ per week :) Actually, for that club, renting out on a pure flight hour basis would have gotten them more hours than it did, so they eventually sold it.
The same goes for any decent traveller around here. Equally, a lot of clubs and schools actually make you present your flight planning e.t.c. beforehand after which the chief CFI and the board decide whether they will entrust the plane to you for a given task. My request if I could fly to Bulgaria at that time was met with a “NO” set in concrete.
Yes but who said that flying is cheap? I hope you don’t want to imply that it would cost less if it were your own aircraft…
Actually yes. I calculate my flight hour price by dividing the total cost per year by the numbers of hours flown. If the aircraft makes around 100 hours per year, then the price I calculate was about 60% of the net rental price of a comparable airplane here in Switzerland. The only Mooney I found available to rent costs normally about 350€ per hour, mine currently costs around €250 per flight hour. And if I took a cheaper plane which is slower, things would get even more out of control. A 2 week trip with 15 hours in my plane costs €3750.- If I were to rent with the conditions above and the same € 250 per hour it would be €7000.
Or calculated the other way around, with the money I spend on my own plane right now, I could fly half the hours were I to rent.
The usual wisdom or rent vs ownership in this class of plane is if the aircraft flies > than 100 hrs per year, it is cheaper to own than to rent.
And no, flying doesn’t have to be “cheap” but it has to be affordable for an average salary in order to attract youngsters to do it. The tendency, which is accelerated by unnecessary and unreasonable requirements by the regulators, has had the opposite effect in recent years.
But, with all respect, please know that others can’t hear it any longer (I know I am not the only one).
Shooting the messenger is certainly easier than reckognizing what is going on in our scene? well, I said it before, be my guest and wait what the powers that are come up with next. Clearly, with the kind of plane you fly you will be less vulnerable to unreasonable demands because it is up to date and difficult to attack, but you won’t be the first to eat their own optimism. I certainly am now.
his doens’t mean other people are denying the difficulties that GA in Europe has…but nevertheless a lot of people still enjoy flying in Europe quite a lot
I do enjoy flying, what I do not enjoy is having the rug pulled from under my feet with the regularity of bad pennies coming up. Not all of us can simply caugh up tens of thousands of hard earned money just because some office jock has eaten too many beans and puts the result into writing.. Flying is not supposed to be a privilege for people with too much money to throw around. There is enough of that already.
If we want to see an increase of interest with younger people again, all of us who are still active need to take action against the overregulation and the cost involved with it. If we prefer in fighting, it is only helping the enemy.
Apart, I do notice with no small satisfaction that some people seem to think differently any actually start taking action. I had some interesting feedback on both the WAAS and the 8.33 issue this week and will communicate it once I can confirm it. These reactions were triggered by some posts in another place which got some people woken up. Belongs in another thread however.
Just to bring this thread back to mentoring and away from owning vs renting, I’d like to chip in and say that as a student PPL (I started 2 months ago and have done 11 hours so far) I love the content in these forums. It’s brilliant. The joy of flying is the main reason I am learning, but as a very close second I am learning so that I can travel. I am already thinking about trips to Ireland, France and beyond. I do not plan on simply flying around the local area – no way!
On that note, the idea of mentoring sounds great. After my PPL, I am planning on paying for more instruction, covering topics such as GPS navigation and using SkyDemon etc and will probably take an instructor on my first Ireland flight. Clearly, the learning process has only just started once you pass your test, and budgeting to continue paying for training beyond the PPL is something that’s always been my plan. In addition, any and all mentoring from the community would be warmly welcomed. That could be simply offering a spare seat (great idea!) or it could be offers of sharing experience over a beer on the ground. I’d love that. The great thing about this is that you would have additional sources to learn from. Whilst paying for instruction at your flight school is fine, the variety of extra knowledge we’d pick up by talking with – and flying with – other people from outside the school would be huge.
Great idea – lets make it happen! In the spirit of sharing, if anyone is thinking about starting a PPL and would like to sit in the back during one of my lessons to see if you like it – PM me and we’ll sort something out. I’m learning at Gloucester, UK (EGBJ).
Just to add a few thoughts to the rental debate.
First off, I’ve been renting for the past 15 years and touring is definitely possible in a rented airplane.
There are a couple of things to consider, though:
1) Don’t rent a standard training a/c like a 172 or a PA28. Rent something that isn’t utilized much. At the two places I mainly fly from that’s a 172RG and a 182RG respectively. These are out of the league of freshly minted PPLs and are not used much for training. Both are required for a few hours in the CPL syllabus, but otherwise don’t fly all that much. Which means, that you can usually cut a pretty good deal.
2) it doesn’t matter if you fly the minimum hours (mostly 2/day) every day. I have never come across that rule. You get billed a minimum of 2 hours/day – fine, if that means flying 14 hours over the course of a week, then it’s no problem, as you will most like;y be flying that anyway.
I am not saying that renting is preferable – it isn’t. But touring in a rented a/c isn’t as difficult as some people make it sound.
172driver,
Rent something that isn’t utilized much. At the two places I mainly fly from that’s a 172RG and a 182RG respectively. These are out of the league of freshly minted PPLs and are not used much for training. Both are required for a few hours in the CPL syllabus, but otherwise don’t fly all that much. Which means, that you can usually cut a pretty good deal.
That is true if the club is flexible and willing to let you out of their local area for more than a few hours. The conditions I read in several clubs here however have severe restrictions and reprecussions if something goes wrong.
it doesn’t matter if you fly the minimum hours (mostly 2/day) every day. I have never come across that rule. You get billed a minimum of 2 hours/day – fine, if that means flying 14 hours over the course of a week, then it’s no problem, as you will most like;y be flying that anyway.
One experience I’ve come across was a guy who flew a rental plane to Italy for 3 days and got stuck on the South of the Alps coming back. It being November, but the weather forecast having been favorable on the departure day for a very likely return, this aircraft got stuck there for more than a month before time and weather could be matched to bring it home. Total flight time was 10 hours. He paid a total of almost 120 hours plus fees for the ferry pilot plus the usual fees he would also have paid with his own plane. Luckily, this was a relatively cheap trainer which made it, if I remember correctly, about €15k in total. He did of course dispute this but had to take his lawyers advice and pay up, even though the airport the aircraft was based at was IMC for most of the time. (He tried to claim that there was no lost business as they could not have flown anyhow.) Their rule was minimum of 2 hours per weekday, 4 per weekend day (Sat/Sun). After this, we had pretty long discussions about ownership and as far as I know he has been owning for the last 10 years or so.
I think you have exactly the right attitude, and actually even after just a few months you have great foresight in what you can do post PPL. I wish I had that when I was learning 8 or so years ago, but then maybe unlike you, I didnt read forums like this at the time so what I could learn external to my club was limited.
And it absolutely makes sense to budget for extra training post PPL. I’ve been flying for 8 years, have an IMC rating part own an aicraft and fully utilise things like my Garmin GNS430 and SkyDemon. A few months back I asked an instructor to fly with me as a safety pilot as I wanted to practise instrument approaches and holds using my GNS430 functions rather than non GPS instrumentation. I took the safety pilot in case I made a complete mess of the Garmin stuff (I didnt), and would have someone with more experience using it. You never really stop learning and trying to better your skills and use of equipment.
Good luck, and enjoy
Mooney Driver
Fair enough, this is really the worst-case scenario. That said, I don’t think I would take a basic trainer across the Alps in November and bet on getting back….. In my case, all the a/c I rent are IFR equipped (I’m not instrument rated), so in your scenario the worst that could happen is to get an IR pilot out and fly her back. That said, I think that’s a pretty rare situation to get into!
The joy of flying is the main reason I am learning, but as a very close second I am learning so that I can travel. I am already thinking about trips to Ireland, France and beyond. I do not plan on simply flying around the local area – no way!
Oddly enough that is exactly why I learnt to fly, but I don’t think it is very common at all. Mentoring is doubly relevant to people who are learning to “go places”.
it doesn’t matter if you fly the minimum hours (mostly 2/day) every day. I have never come across that rule.
I am sure such a rule doesn’t exist. They just bill you for 2hrs (or whatever) for each day the plane has been away – very simple 
He paid a total of almost 120 hours plus fees for the ferry pilot plus the usual fees he would also have paid with his own plane. Luckily, this was a relatively cheap trainer which made it, if I remember correctly, about €15k in total. He did of course dispute this but had to take his lawyers advice and pay up, even though the airport the aircraft was based at was IMC for most of the time.
I am sure he was appallingly badly advised. How can you return a plane when the required flight is outside your privileges, and anyway as the “captain” it is your unquestionable decision to not fly (on a private flight; in a commercial scenario you will likely be fired if the wx is above minima and you persistently refuse to go).
This happened to more than one chap when I was hanging around schools where I am based (Shoreham). AFAIK in every case the renter just walked away from it, leaving the plane in France, and paid nothing.
Subsequently, at least two of the schools I was involved with banned self fly hire renting for foreign trips – at least to people who they were less than very sure about. They did the foreign flyouts but there was an instructor aboard on each plane so they could be sure of the retrieval. Of course, it was explained to me by one chief instructor, that has the useful side effect that every leg of every flight generates the maximum billing: self fly hire plus the instructor rate.
172driver
Fair enough, this is really the worst-case scenario.
Yes. But at least in Switzerland not uncommon. That they would exploit the situation this badly is probably rare, but if you read the small print, most of the clubs have it. I’ve also seen some which had such severe consequences listed in their agreements for binging home airplanes late, that they got told to stuff it after a couple of get home-itis-incidents. It was an eye opener however.
That said, I don’t think I would take a basic trainer across the Alps in November and bet on getting back…..
Well, where we live at least half of our flying is in or across the Alps. And yes, there are weather situations where I would do it, actually have done it with even my old Cessna 150. I think his was a Cherokee 180. He simply had bad luck and did the absolutely right thing to turn back from being on top already North of the Alps and landed in Locarno. This case caused a lot of controversy and aggravation for that organisation, nevertheless that is what their contract said. I know of it because this guy came to one of the training seminars I used to do and told me about it. If I am not mistaken he now flies an Arrow II which is his. And he is IFR as well by now. Believe he even was then but the plane was not.
That said, I think that’s a pretty rare situation to get into!
No, that is actually easy around here. Happened to me a few times, thankfully with my own planes. Not since I have the Mooney actually, there I cancelled earlier than I used to. My Cessna used to be IFR but still it got parked a few times off base due to weather. Once in Geneva and once in Lugano, both for 2-3 weeks at the time. Not only the weather needs to be ok, you also have to have time.
NicR
The joy of flying is the main reason I am learning, but as a very close second I am learning so that I can travel. I am already thinking about trips to Ireland, France and beyond. I do not plan on simply flying around the local area – no way!
That is the right spirit! By all means.
After my PPL, I am planning on paying for more instruction, covering topics such as GPS navigation and using SkyDemon etc and will probably take an instructor on my first Ireland flight.
That is a good idea. Nevertheless, you can even start doing this during your training. Use GPS and other things as part of your cross country flights and if that means you have a few hours more before you do the final check, then so what. If you have an instructor you like, who is proficient in all this and also is nice to have along, this is ideal.
I did actually exactly that after regaining my license. I got on really well with my instructor so we did a few trips after the check in a easy and routine environment. Helped a lot.
If you want to travel, it is a good idea to see what kind of airplanes are on offer where you are and see onto what to upgrade once you have passed your check. Most trainers are only very limited use for real travel and can actually cost you more money on a trip than something a tad faster and more expensive per hour but not per route.
In any event, you are very welcome to ask as many questions as you may have. And you’d be welcome to share my flight deck with me too, albeit it is a bit far away :)
