Anti-Death-Spec wrote:
Greetings:
I am considering part ownership/partnership. I would greatly appreciate any
comments, suggestions, recommendations before I make my decision. What
things have some of you learned from your experiences. Thank you. Brian

The ideal number of partners is 2 (including you). Three is acceptable. Any more
than that is in the region of diminishing returns.

2 is better than one, because you get some cost sharing, and because you can
increase the utilization of the airplane, thereby amortizing your fixed cost
over more hours.

When you go from 1 owner to 2, you cut your expenses by 50 percent.
When you go from 2 owners to 3, you only go from 50 percent to 33 percent, a 17
percent improvement, but the amount of time you have to spend communicating with
your partners doubles.

.... and so on (3 to 4, etc).

Be certain your partners have the same ideas you have about whether the aircraft
is to be maintained to barely meet FAA standards, or to be a fly-in show winner,
or somewhere in between. When something is broken, will they want to fix it
before the sun goes down, or shop around for the best price at several airports,
or have a partner meeting about it, or defer it to the next annual inspection?

Will they want to spend money on show-winning paint, or on avionics to optimize
for cross-country flying, or not spend anything they don't have to? What do you
want to do? Make sure the answers align.

Will they want to overhaul the engine as soon as the tach ticks over recommended
TBO? What do you want to do? Make sure the answers align.

Don't be fooled by taking on a partner who seldom flies, thinking that the
airplane will be always available for you - that partner is unlikely to be
motivated to get timely maintenance. After all, he doesn't plan on going flying
until next month anyway.