CHEAP Los Angeles C-172 Flying Club CHEAP

wrote in message
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Keep flying in spite of the economy !

This is a notice to determine if there is interests in a no-frills,
super-frugal club, based on 1/10 ownership of a classic 1950's VFR
Cessna 172 in the northern Los Angeles metro area. We are considering
forming a club around this aircraft, and we want to see what the level
of interest is.

The big idea is to make it LESS expensive than other clubs or
expensive airplane fractional ownership schemes. We are shooting for a
$3995 buy-in which includes club membership entry fee AND a 1/10
ownership in the aircraft. There would be a low monthly fee, maybe
$50, that would cover normal annuals, tiedown, and insurance. There
would hopefully be a zero or very very low ($5) hourly charge. Non-
routine maintenance, overhaul, upgrades, etc. would be voted on and
assessed only if/when needed. The older 172's with manual flaps and
simple basic electronics are pretty low maintenance.

The club would be limited to ten members. Students would be WELCOME,
the insurance will be set up to allow student pilots to use the
airplane for lessons! You can save a FORTUNE on training costs this
way!

Compared to renting a more modern 172 at the local FBO, our basic
calculations indicate that for a three year period, flying 100 hours a
year (300 total), you could cut your flying costs in HALF, even if you
keep your membership. If you sell your membership after three years,
your cost of putting those 300 hours in your logbooks is ONE THIRD of
what you would h ave paid as a renter. That includes an engine
overhaul or replacement somewhere n that three years.

The only "downside" is that this is a basic VFR fun / $100 hamburger /
keep current airplane. No G-1000 big-screen TV, no autopilot, no
instrument work. This will be for people to fly inexpensively, not
watch $100K worth of gadgets and blinking lights. Your $300 used
handheld GPS will get you to the hamburger just as precisely as the
big gadgets will. You want gadgets... go spend half a million on a
Cirrus!

Local pilots please contact me at victorbravo at sbcglobal {dot}}
net and let me know if this would interest you or if/why it would
not.

I'll give you a bit of advice based on my experience with a similar equity
ownership situation and you can take it or leave it.

An older 172 makes an excellent plane for what you're doing with it. With
10 guys in your club, you will want to keep costs as low as possible, which
will be the prime factor with people who wish to join such an organization.

1) You may want to weigh the option of getting a hangar if it's not
prohibitively expensive. Planes left out have lots of maintenance issues
and are more prone to weather damage and getting broken into. You also get
a place to store things like spare parts, tools, personal items (lockers are
nice), and you'll have a place to do things like oil changes. If it's only
$150 more per month, you're only talking about $15 per person. Most would
gladly pay it and it just makes your club that much more attractive.
Sometimes if you get the hangar through an FBO, they will give you fuel
discounts also, which may defer the cost.

2) Be very careful on insurance. Club insurance is much more expensive,
especially if you're going to allow primary training. Read your policy
extremely thoroughly. Cheap insurance usually has a lot of exclusions which
could leave you holding the bag.

3) I would strongly caution against not maintaining funds for unscheduled
repairs, engine and prop overhaul. The problem you'll run into is when you
need money for something major like an overhaul, you will inevitably have
some guys that just aren't going to pony up on a timely basis. So the plane
sits while you can't fly it and still have to pay the monthly costs.
Another advantage by charging an engine/prop fee out of every hour flown is
the guys that are doing most of the flying are paying their fair share of
the costs. If you just wait until the overhaul and divy up the costs
evenly, some members who don't fly much are going to be ****ed off and may
refuse to vote for the repairs.

4) You can sign up with an online scheduling site for about $5 per month.
They are well worth it.

5) You may wish to opt for a wet rate instead of a dry rate. There's
nothing worse than going out to the plane and finding it low on fuel, then
having to track down who flew it last. It WILL happen. Some members will
also routinely leave the plane a gallon or three off full and hope others
won't notice. You can charge a wet rate based on the price of fuel at the
field, so if someone goes someplace and buys more expensive fuel they have
to make up the difference. There's advantages and disadvantages both ways,
so you just have to figure out what works best for your situation.

On Apr 4, 8:51*pm, "Mike" nospam @ aol.com wrote:

5) You may wish to opt for a wet rate instead of a dry rate. *There's
nothing worse than going out to the plane and finding it low on fuel, then
having to track down who flew it last. *It WILL happen. *Some members will
also routinely leave the plane a gallon or three off full and hope others
won't notice. *You can charge a wet rate based on the price of fuel at the
field, so if someone goes someplace and buys more expensive fuel they have
to make up the difference. *There's advantages and disadvantages both ways,
so you just have to figure out what works best for your situation.

Just one comment on this point. I belong to a flying club that
charges a wet rate that we adjust weekly to reflect actual 100LL
prices at our home field, which is about right in the middle for
cost. We use historical fuel burn rates on the planes, multiply it
by the current cost at the field, and add a dry rate to come up with
this rate.

We reimburse in full for fuel no matter where and at what price
purchased. The philosophy behind that is safety, we want our pilots
to always have sufficient fuel and not try to stretch to get to a
cheaper field to save a few bucks out of pocket. Now if a member is
consistently abusing it by purchasing $7 fuel at Signature at a big
city airport when there is a cheaper FBO available on the field we
might counsel him, but we've really not had a significant problem with
this.