Set up a climate where people own → stimulate longer and probably more interesting trips.
Definitely true, and while I realize entrenched power is preventing it in many cases the fundamental solution to maximize the utility of traveling in the simplest and thereby easiest to own aircraft. That means fixing the airspace, eliminating cross border hassles and all the rest. Encouraging IFR as a work around isn’t the fundamental answer, especially when IFR is also more problematic than necessary.
Peter wrote:
The marginal cost of flying an extra hour is highly relevant to whether one will fly that extra hour or not, surely?
Indeed, but it is not relevant if you want to compare the cost of flying your own aircraft compared to renting.
Notwithstanding gigabytes of forum posts on “owning v. renting”, almost nobody actually makes that calculation with a straight face – because the benefits of ownership are so massive. Many previous threads…
It’s like working out whether a man should get married, by estimating the value of free cooking. And I am not going to get into the woman’s version of it 
Remember the climate kids shouting “how dare they” at us?
One climate kid, I think, and she has turned into a walking joke.
@Airborne_Again it’s highly relevant when comparing the two as possible ways to operate.
My syndicated TB10 costs me £132 per month plus £95 per hour wet.
At 10 hours per year, renting is cheaper. £200 per hour vs £2.5k for the syndicate. But only flying 10 hours per year, a noticeable chunk of that will be wasted on currency checkouts. At 20 hours per year, the syndicate is cheaper by about 600 quid. Get to 30 or 40 hours and it’s a total no brainer. Then the differentiators that I fly where I want, when I want, and make all my own decisions. And the aircraft is better.
The PA17 costs half what the TB10 costs.
I fly a friend’s RV-8 at £100 an hour wet and no standing costs.
I’m building an RV-7 which will one day see me cross into sole ownership and likely abandon the others.
I just can’t see any sensible role for rental in any of this, other than if perhaps if I’d almost totally withdrawn from flying but for some reason wanted to keep my license valid and fly 12 hours every 2 years. Even then, the PA17 would be cheaper.
And as @Peter says, when you think about doing that extra trip it’s the marginal cost that matters. It probably even makes owners fly more, because they like to get value from those fixed sunk costs and bring the cost per hour down.
Graham wrote:
At 20 hours per year, the syndicate is cheaper by about 600 quid.
How much does your aircraft fly each year and how many people are in the syndicate?
I don’t know off the top my head how many hours it flies per year, but I’d guess maybe 170-200.
There are nine in the group, of whom maybe five fly reasonably regularly.
Graham wrote:
I don’t know off the top my head how many hours it flies per year, but I’d guess maybe 170-200.
I don’t see how this can be cheaper than if the aircraft flies 4-500 hours/year which it typically does in a club. Unless, of course you disregard things like depreciation and engine fund. Sure, insurance can be cheaper and so can maintenance if you do a lot of it yourselves but that can’t make a factor two difference as you wrote earlier.
Then the differentiators that I fly where I want, when I want, and make all my own decisions
That’s the real reason for owning, isn’t it?
Another advantage of owning is that one is not subsidising others.
In any multi person access setup there is a cross-subsidy in operation.
Firstly, any organisation has to aim for a surplus. We’ve done this many times; it is always denied because “an aeroclub is perfectly wonderful and fair, works for its members, etc”. Assuming money is not being grown on trees, the incomings must be at least same as the outgoings, and since a perfect match is impossible, even in a setup which is described as “nonprofit” for accounting purposes, there needs to be a surplus. You can call it “insurance” if you like. If you don’t do this, on the first mishap you will have to sell the plane. And the more people fly, the wider range of skill levels will be seen, and the bigger this surplus needs to be.
Secondly, even if the setup is run “totally tight” (zero margin, prices adjusted daily according to what gets broken), you are cross-subsidising other flyers of lower skills than yours, because they will be breaking more stuff. This is very real and is the reason why so many operators stop renting stuff out. A local FTO stopped renting out DA42s because of damage, and their rates were high enough – £400/hr or so.
Third, there is always a balance between monthly payments and hourly rates. The “perfect” setup is where others pay for the plane but rarely fly
The bottom line is you pay more. And in clubs and the rental scene generally one gets the most people with the lowest currency.
Other factors include the organisation requiring checkrides with instructors, regardless of your skills.
All adds up to more hassle than owning.
According to my experience owning is not about costs. It’s about availability.
The flying I do now is totally impossible when renting.
That’s true for most “trips”.
We come back full circle
