LeSving wrote:
Newer aircraft also has a much higher availability.
I don’t know if that statement really holds up. If I compare the availability of our 1961 C172B and the New PS28 of a friend, he has had much more downtime in the past 2 years. We have both run approx. 100-150hrs on the airplanes. So it is a matter of how you handle and time maintenance and who is able to perform maintenance. If you always have to fly to a certain shop, then your availability certainly can’t keep up with an old spamcan that is maintained by a good local mechanic. Especially those 172s, 150s and 28s are very easy to keep alive and don’t need a specialised shop. With a good mechanic and proper planning, you could easily get a new aircraft’s availability for a lesser price, maybe even allowing more seats available for the money.
Flyer59 wrote:
A new C-172 is about the same price as a VERY nice Cirrus SR22-G3
Hmm yes and a new SR22 is about the same price as a very nice Malibu.
Thing is, that you can’t put any low time pilot into a SR22, as you can do it with a C172 or P28A. This is why they will stay around for quite some time. Of course, you don’t offer IFR capability, then. But I always thought that the Club is better off to sell a hangar space, then, and encourage ownership (as our Club does: of the 46 airworthy aircraft stationed in Rheine, the Club owns 13 aircraft, the rest is private).
As for EuroGA, if Peter has some leaflets left, I could hand them out to every new (and old) member of our flight school / aero club, aswell as on flight safety meetings and on the upcoming FI course.
mh wrote:
But I always thought that the Club is better off to sell a hangar space
Same here, “my” club almost breaks even renting out aircraft if nothing unforeseen happens, read hangar rent subsidizes aircraft charter.
hangar rent subsidizes aircraft charter
+1 for our club, but the rent for a hangar space in the club’s hangars is still significantly cheaper compared to the commercial offers at the same field.
This, however, leads also to quite a high percentage of club members who only joined to get access to cheap hangar space and are not active/visible within the club at all.
This, however, leads also to quite a high percentage of club members who only joined to get access to cheap hangar space and are not active/visible within the club at all.
That is funny (to me) because here aircraft owners are discouraged from hanging out around the school club, because the last thing the school club wants is experienced pilots making the instructors look inexperienced, and they want students (who are usually cash-strapped; in many cases they have cash only for the next lesson, which is GBP 250 in a PA28-161) to spend all their pocket money on lessons, not on cost sharing with the pilot / buying fish for the pilot while flying in a TB20 to Mali Losinj, and there is no prize for guessing what most PPL students would rather do 
It’s the opposite problem to the sailing club getting p1ssed off with people joining up to windsurf, who come, windsurf, pack up and go home, and don’t spend their entire weekends participating in the sailing club activities (involving mostly messing around with dinghies).
Peter, this brings us back the the vastly different definition of a flying “club” in UK vs. Germany (+ other countries).
Sure, a club wants to break even (for the sake of its members) but the primary goal is to encourage flying and not to make money (in fact, it’s not allowed to “make” money, it’s a non-for-profit organization, isn’t it. If our club ever breaks up, the surplus money is donated to the city. A proper club will encourage experienced pilots to mingle and members to go flying together, rather than discourage them to do that. Any club that doesn’t do that doesn’t deserve the name.
Well said Patrick – but I suspect real clubs are few and far between in the UK
From what has been described here so far as the UK club scene, it sounds a lot like the US “club” scene. Commercial outfits where people come to collect the aircraft keys, fly off, come back to return the keys and drive off in a puff of smoke.
I used to hang out quite a bit at my club(s) in Norway. There was an amazing atmosphere where you would hear all kinds of flying stories, some more true than others, but all good stories.
When I moved to the US there was nothing in terms of socialising. I was just a customer although I had to pay annual membership dues.
Peter wrote:
That is funny (to me) because here aircraft owners are discouraged from hanging out around the school club, because the last thing the school club wants is experienced pilots making the instructors look inexperienced, and they want students (who are usually cash-strapped; in many cases they have cash only for the next lesson, which is GBP 250 in a PA28-161) to spend all their pocket money on lessons, not on cost sharing with the pilot / buying fish for the pilot while flying in a TB20 to Mali Losinj, and there is no prize for guessing what most PPL students would rather do
I am highly involved into running our club’s flight school and here it is quite the opposite. The Instructor has to lead the new pilot into aviation, but I personally think many pilots “outgrow” me, in terms of there is just so much I can teach. To stay proficient and experienced as an instructor, however, you have to travel by plane and work on your handling beyond the exercises you teach. But within the club it is not that easy to find the “free time”, as most instructing in an aero club is done in the instructors free time, too. So there aren’t many possible weekends to go on long trips and spend a weekend eating fish with other EuroGA members :-). I personally instruct for around 100-150 hrs per year in my “free time”, besides the management / paperwork, flying for myself (around 50-100 hrs/year) and, of course, my dayjobs and marriage (it helps a lot, that my wife is a pilot, too, alas not yet an instructor).
I DO encourage anyone to become an owner (some people can be bored to this tune, though) because I have found that plane owners tend to stay in aviation much longer than pure renters. And I do encourage my students to go flying together or with another mentor. It doesn’t hurt me to see new pilots gain experience with new mentors and explore their kind of aviation, be it aerobatics, classic aviation, IFR aviation or whatever. I know a bit of everything, and that should be enough to guide someone into his direction (Plus, I can’t possibly be mentor for all the past students, they have to become fledged at some point. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be there if they have questions or need additional training, but there is a constant supply of new students who demand my attention).
As to the club, our club is the airfield operator, and thus you can’t rent hangar space unless you are a member. But then hangaring an aircraft is 130€/month and the C172P costs 160€(-ish)/h flight time, down to 70(ish) for the Falke, but with the ability to get lower rates for more frequent flyers. Plus, it’s cheaper during the week. I know many clubs who are set up that way. The encouragement towards ownership, of course, depends on whether the aeroclub earns by renting out hangar space or not, and on the individual instructors attitude towards aircraft ownership. As almost everything in flight training as largely dependend on the relationship between instructor and student.
The people who own private aircraft at our airfield / in our aero club are heavily involved in the club. They take part in organising trips and local events, work in managing the club, in maintenance of aircraft and airfield, flight instructing, work as “Flugleiter”, etc. pp. Many are much more visible than some fraction of the renters.
Of course a beginner can start flying in an SR22. It is a typical european attitude that this is a problem.
Hundreds of US pilots have learned to fly in a SR22.
tomjnx wrote:
The schools and clubs of course simply don’t want their members to fly too far away
How do you know? And what is “too far away”?
Basically from own experience before I owned my own first and second planes. I had considered renting for a while before buying again in 2009, but when I read the conditions the clubs ask, one can only come to the conclusion that what they want is people who fly nearby and are back the same day or latest after 2 or 3 days.
Secondly from the fact that almost all people who write to me about aircraft ownership name two major factors as the reason they want to own: Their clubs do not encourage travelling, rental conditions (minimum hours per day, liability, sometimes geographical restrictions) are such that they actively discourage long term rentals.
I reckon the one of the main reasons is that a school and a rental agency are two different things by nature. Secondly, many clubs are managed by some folks who like to see their birds someplace where they can easily get at them or fetch them back if there is something. And finally, a lot of the free lance folks who instruct next to their dayjob themselfs have never been too far away from the sofa at home.
Certainly there are other clubs who encourage this kind of thing, mostly larger outfits with larger fleets but most in smaller airfields already consider a weekend outing something out of the ordinary.
