That’s why, in reality, the pricing in most aeroclubs rather are a compromise between full cost and variable cost only. A 172 would be more like 150€ and the “break-even” is often more like 10-12 hours.
In fact, without club dues, it is now almost impossible to find a newish C172 for rent here for 200€.
Airborne_Again wrote:
So the aircraft rental fee only covers marginal cost while you take all the fixed costs over the membership fee?
That’s certainly something which would encourage people to fly more.
One might think so – but in my experience it does not. As w_n says, 20% of a club’s members do 80% or more of the flying, subsidied by the infrequent flyers. Has been that way forever, at least in the clubs I am familiar with.
Once you have joined a club the step to cancel the membership and thus effectively shedding all your flying for the year (many airports have no commercial rental outfit) is much more emotionally significant than finding excuses not to fly one weekend after the other. And then, every other year you will need to fly at least some hours if you do not want to loose your class ratings. So most people keep their membership going with the firm intent to “really fly more this year” – and in the end they don’t. And for most of those, money is not the main factor in the game.
I would personally love such a setup, but the risk is that the 80% who only keep the licenses current would simply drop out.
You have to have a bit of a margin, to cover maintenance surprises. These can easily be 5-10k. So a decent fund must be built up – in addition to known stuff like the engine fund.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Which in my experience is not true.
Well, that is certainly true in my club. For basic PPL training a 40 year old C-172 or Cherokee is just as good as a brand new one I guess. But to keep the average member flying as much as possible requires a newer aircraft (or something with glass and looks nice inside). Most people would rather fly a nice and new aircraft, than an old aircraft. A newish C-172 with G-1000 is like a magnet. Personally, I feel best at home in a Cub, but that is definitely not what the average club member does.
LeSving wrote:
A newish C-172 with G-1000 is like a magnet.
Well, we do have one of those but it is not the magnet you would expect. Many people find it difficult.
what_next wrote:
1. Flying clubs. They are non-profit organisations, managed mainly by volunteers and in many cases not even the instructors get paid. Their main source of income are the annual fees of their members of which only 20 percent or so really fly, the remaining 80 percent just keep their license current. This leaves these clubs with plenty of funding to buy modern trainers like Aquilae or Katanas. As a club with 100 members only trains 3 to 5 new pilots each year, these aircraft don’t get beaten as much as those of a commercial outfit. For such a club it makes perfect sense to buy modern aircraft.
This fits quite well as a description of our club. Last year we trained 5 pilots (PPL) I think. I don’t know the exact number of club members, but it ranges at or above 100. I only see about a dozen of those using our planes regularly (some also own their own planes and thus don’t appear in the booking schedule).
The basic membership fee is 300€/year + 60€ if you don’t put in the required “work hours” (6 hours of work for the club/year). There is an initial joining fee of 400€.
The club has three planes:
