The people I know who like to be at the airport, around aircraft and flying them, are very often paying others to do (for instance) their gardening. Mine is US $150/month 
Being at the airport is fun, a privilege earned by buying a plane and committing to it, as well as making an implicit commitment to helping others when they need it (assuming you’ll need their help later on). If you make that commitment and ‘pay the gardener’ you can use the time saved in an enjoyable way.
FWIW there is nothing to prevent your Part-66 CFS-Friend to work for beer…
WhiskeyPapa wrote:
That sounds most reasonable. Any way to have a G-Reg Morane annualed at your shop?
There should have been the Rallye Maintenance Manual, Repair Manual and Parts Catalogue with the aircraft. You can download AC43-13b here:http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/advisory_circulars/index.cfm/go/document.information/documentid/99861
You can do the Rallye 25, 50 and 100 hours services completely under pilot-owner-maintenance. You then sign it with your LAPL/PPL-Number and off you go, no CFS required. For the annual, work with a CFS who will be able to guide you and sign off your work.
The beauty of Europe: A Spanish CFS, working for an Italian Part-145 company can sign off work done by a German mechanic on a British registered aircraft owned by a Belgium individual living in the Netherlands during vacation in Estonia.
True, if you start to account your working hours, the balance differs quite a lot. But if you’d factor that, any RV becomes mighty expensive, too. (Vans states 2000-2200 hours for a standard kit. At the rate given for Norway, this would translate into more than 216k€ in work alone. So an RV translates into a 300k€ aircraft, non IFR, non NightVFR. For the 280k€ difference to a “spam can” you can buy quite a lot of gas and maintenance…)
Cobalt wrote:
Low prices for old aircraft and relaxing regs around self-maintenance will help to attract people to (1). I dare say it puts off those who want (2).
Exactly. If you want something to fly VFR and don’t want to use lots of money and time on maintenance (or trying to make sense of the labyrinth called Part-M with reference to non existing appendixes), nothing will beat a modern ultralight.
Peter wrote:
But ultimately most people are looking for a “return on investment” of some sort.
Are they? most people? Most people doing recreational aviation are men, 40-50 and older, and have all they need in life. They are mostly looking for a place to have a good time, doing what they like, and be useful in some way within a community.
Martin wrote:
time always has value, even free time
I edited my post after you picked it up, but what I meant by a “return” was that most people aren’t willing to work for nothing for ever, maintaining others’ planes, especially if it means enabling the others to fly cheaply, especially if the others are purely saving money as a result of you fixing up their planes for nothing. As you put it: “Most people doing recreational aviation are men, 40-50 and older, and have all they need in life”.
LeSving wrote:
how battling with cryptic EASA regulations (part-M), national bureaucracy and crooked maintenance organisations over the maintenance of a 40 year old “wreck” really help in that respect.
I think you are very rude constantly calling the aircraft owned and flown by me, Mooney_Driver, Silvaire, AdamFrisch, PilotDAR, Alioth, RobertL18C, BeechBaby “wrecks” that would demand tens of thousands in maintenance, while being shown that this is not true, imposing our needs would be better fulfilled with what YOU like to fly and obviously not understanding how our planes could be maintained and operated by lack of knowledge about a system that you for some reason condemn. By extension, I could mention easily 20-30 people to add to that list.
Your microlight won’t do:
- family trips with dogs and bags
- night flying (at least microlights in Germany)
- IFR flying (at least microlights in Germany)
- aerobatics (at least microlights in Germany)
- flights with paragliders in the back to travel to the paragliding site
- PPL training
- scenic flights with friends
- short vacations with friends
- live the ramp appeal of a Luscombe or BE35
If these constraints are fine for you, then okay. Alas you claim anybody should be okay with them…
Cobalt wrote:
Maybe we need two threads…1) About attracting people to aircraft ownership. Objective: enjoy owning and maintaining an aircraft, flying is a bonus.
Analogy: Owning and driving a genuine oldtimer.2) About attracting people to flying. Owning and maintaining an aircraft is a means to an end.
Analogy: Driving a regular car.These two camps will never reconcile.
Low prices for old aircraft and relaxing regs around self-maintenance will help to attract people to (1). I dare say it puts off those who want (2).
I have a university professor friend who flies an as-new DA40-180. His wife works in an upscale art gallery, using her cultivated accent to maximum economic effect. He does very little to his plane except change the oil and polish it, and he takes it to the Diamond place at another airport for annuals etc. They love being at the airport and spend most Sunday afternoons there. Other than taking numerous trips, most of his flying is giving groups of PhD students scenic rides, which is certainly a very positive contribution. His wife likes to feed people upscale hors d’oeuvres, so naturally they get invited to anything we might put on. I also do the ‘safety pilot’ thing whenever he needs to catch up on IFR approaches. I suppose more generally what they get out of it in return is a bit of sage advice on plane ownership and maintenance plus making friends with some very interesting people ranging from a an unusually intelligent truck mechanic who can fix anything (and often does) to a former commander of the International Space Station who flies a biplane. It’s a bit of a ‘country club’ but with unusual non-publicized membership criteria. Anyway, Groups 1 and 2 seem to be quite well reconciled
I think maybe the biggest issue in the health of aviation, aircraft ownership and maintenance is hangar space and access. That’s what makes the world go around.
mh wrote:
If these constraints are fine for you, then okay. Alas you claim anybody should be okay with them…
I don’t claim anything. People can do whatever they want. But to suggest that a 40-50 year old aircraft somehow is better “investment” than a modern microlight for someone who is fresh out of PPL is plain wrong. It’s not something I’m just saying, the fact is, we have all these old planes available because people see for themselves that there are alternatives, and chose the alternative instead.
I fly both, and I know all the things you cannot do with a microlight. This doesn’t seem to matter to people, because what you get is:
It’s as effortless as it gets, and these points are real and tangible, not some “potential may do some day” thing. However, with boats there is something we call the 3’ sickness. The boat is always 3’ too small and people eventually get a larger one. The same will happen also for airplanes because an ultralight really is way too small and too light and have too much restrictions for anything “serious”. As a first plane – perfect. How painless an upgrade to a larger airplane later will be, is all up to EASA.
I think maybe the biggest issue in the health of aviation, aircraft ownership and maintenance is hangar space and access. That’s what makes the world go around.
Very much so. Having a hangar, where one can work on the plane (or you can get freelancers to work on it) is just wonderful.
It’s similar to horse ownership. My ex was a mad horse owner, and she had constant hassles with renting fields, the farmer letting people light fires in the field, etc. Having your own field around which you could put an electric fence was great. Eventually she got a house with 3 acres, had 3 stables built, a bridleway running next door – a girl’s dream
LeSving wrote:
If you want something to fly VFR and don’t want to use lots of money and time on maintenance (or trying to make sense of the labyrinth called Part-M with reference to non existing appendixes), nothing will beat a modern ultralight.
With that mission, VFR fun with maybe one other person, I would certainly look at motorgliders and VLAs before ULs. The weight limit is just too severe for my liking.
LeSving wrote:
OK, but I don’t really see how battling with cryptic EASA regulations (part-M), national bureaucracy and crooked maintenance organisations over the maintenance of a 40 year old “wreck” really help in that respect.
Why would you? As I wrote, any newcomer will need someone to rely on. Even to buy the plane in the first place. That’s true even for brand new ones. Especially in the UL world where there is a lot of choice. Building deeper understanding takes time.
LeSving wrote:
we have all these old planes available because people see for themselves that there are alternatives, and chose the alternative instead.
I can see other reasons why we have the old planes around. Because GA is declining while the technical (and frequently economical) lifetime of the old spamcans is very large.
