One of the paths I am considering in my quest for aircraft ownership is renting the plane out to my local air club for use in PPL training and possibly for their AOC activities. Another one is setting up a group to share the ongoing costs of ownership (but with me as the sole owner). I’ve been trying to do a cost vs. benefit analysis for these approaches over the past few days, but have gotten hopelessly confused.
Am I correct in understanding training other people is considered “commercial operations”? Using it under an AOC by definition is commercial, right? How about a plane shared between people (not co-owned by a group of people)?
ELA1 / ELA2 are defined for “non commercial aviation” so these rules apply only to planes used privately, so none of my use cases proposed above would qualify, correct?
CS-STAN on the other hand does not seem to be limited to NCO (it applies to any plane with a MTOM under 5700kg), correct?
Can’t edit, so I’ll answer myself.
ELA1/ELA2 have no distinction in terms of “commercial” vs. “non commercial” (see page 3 of COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 1321/2014 )
The “owner defined maintenance” for ELA1 planes excludes those used for commercial operations (see EASA Maintaining Your Aircraft leaflet )
So, am I correct in understanding that for a commercially used ELA1 plane whatever the manufacturer suggests is what needs to be done, including any TBO based on time or usage?
Flight training is not commercial operation by EASA definitions.
Flight “under AOC” are commercial, but there are very few AOC flights in SEPs.
tmo wrote:
One of the paths I am considering in my quest for aircraft ownership is renting the plane out to my local air club for use in PPL training and possibly for their AOC activities. Another one is setting up a group to share the ongoing costs of ownership (but with me as the sole owner)
Clubs normally don’t want to rent other peoples planes, because it will make no sense commercially compared with the club owning the airplane themselves. Here in Norway it would also have to be maintained according to “club standard”, meaning you would have much less saying in the maintenance (in principle none), but still have to pay it. In my opinion this only makes sense for microlight, and only if you are an instructor, using your plane for instruction and to “rent” it out to mostly previous students. Club owned microlights is a rather dubious thing, with some exceptions, for the same reasons club owned “real” airplanes are not. It’s mostly to do with maintenance.
@boscomantico – the “training is not commercial ops” is great – do you have a reference for my records? I really want to cross all the ’t’s and dot all the ’i’s on this one, since concepts like “ELA plane” seem to be foreign ones around here.
How about renting to a group of known people that do not co-own the plane, just pitch in for the upkeep (a non equity group, I guess)?
The AOC aspect is allegedly a must for taking people for sightseeing flights, they actually have gliders undrr that AOC… I know of at least one more single plane AOC operation around town, this one a totally private venture, so there might be some merit to this.
@LeSving – I agree the situation is, to be polite, unusual, but the club is severely short on planes in working order and doesn’t forsee getting a four seater in the near future. The lack of available club planes (training has priority over members, because it makes money) is one of the main reasons for me pursuing ownership (and, yes, I want to say “my plane” (and having the fredoms that come with it) is the other big one). I expect my standards to exceed the club ones, but will make sure that is all understood before committing – thanks for pointing this out.
@boscomantico – thank you. For everyone’s reference, a link to the specific EASA FAQ entry
In your analysis you’ll surely consider the difference in insurance cost that could arise from different usage of the aircraft.
I am no expert, but suspect that training- even while considered NCO- will probably will have a higher insurance bill than letting a few licensed named pilots fly it in return for some sharing of the cost. I let 2 other pilots fly my plane and my insurer told me that these additional named pilots does not result in an increase of the premium vs just me as a named pilot. They did tell me that more than 3 named pilots would mean a bump in the premium though. No doubt different insurers have different offerings..
Very good point, @aart – but for the time being I will be the cause of high insurance premiums – I’m basically fresh out of PPL. That said, yes, I am taking the insurance angle into account. I expect (but don’t have any firm quotes yet, just info from other owners in the vicinity) an open-pilot insurance policy to cost about the same as hangar space, which I hope to get taken care of by virtue of the club using the plane. We’ll see, this is all lines in the sand right now.
Any and all comments, appreciated – always!
boscomantico wrote:
Flight “under AOC” are commercial, but there are very few AOC flights in SEPs.
It seems there are some difference from country to country. For Netherlands you have and A to A (sightseeing) AOC and an A to B AOC. Which will require stricter regulations on maintenance and certification.
