Any Interest in Cirrus SR20/22 or Columbia350 group at Biggin Hill/Rochester?

[Morgo]

Just wondering whether anyone has an interest in forming a group (8-10 persons to keep the costs down) around a near new (or maybe new) Cirrus SR20/SR22 or Columbia 350 at Biggin Hill or Rochester?
Alternatively, there is Free Flight Aviation (www.cirrus147.com) that is looking for prospective people interested in investing in a Cirrus SR22 at Biggin Hill, if only a few of us are interested.

[Morgo]

Just a quick update that a small number of us are meeting this evening in the City of London to discuss getting a Cirrus group off the ground. Now is an ideal opportunity to get involved at a formative stage of a group, especially if flying a Cirrus takes your fancy!

Capital outlay looks likely to be in the region of £15-20K, monthlies approx £70 and a dry rate of £20 an hour (the wet rate can be as low as £80 an hour on the SR22 if flying at best economy which gives cruise of 160Kt!).

[pistongone]

Have you got the time and place Morgo?

[Morgo]

Phoenix Pub, which is on the corner of Old Broad St and Throgmorton St (next to the Tesco Metro). We are meeting up at 6pm.

If you PM me then I'll send you my email address and mobile number.

[brianharding]

Would be very interested if it was decided to base the aircraft at Rochester. Once the details have been discussed tonight would you pm with any decisions that were made.

[Morgo]

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[Morgo]

We need one more person to join up to the group so that we can place an order and purchase the aircraft (will be brand-new or a demonstrator SR22-GTS).

Max of 8 people in group.
Monthlies of £150
Dry rate of £66

Share price will be in region of £27-30K

Aircraft will be based at Biggin Hill. PM me for more info!

[IRRenewal]

Capital outlay looks likely to be in the region of £15-20K, monthlies approx £70 and a dry rate of £20 an hour

What happened?

[Morgo]

Far fewer group members and the purchase of a brand new SR22 GTS rather than a 3-4 year old aircraft as originally budgeted for :}

[IO540]

I know it's nice to have a nice shiny nice-smelling new plane (I bought one myself, some years ago) but you do pay a helluva price for that.

If you can wait for say 2 years you will pay far less, especially on a Cirrus whose used values go down as quick as the TKS fluid :)

It's also nice to get a glass cockpit (and will make it easier to get the interest to form a syndicate) but it adds nothing to mission capability relative to good quality more conventional avionics. It also requires a lot of type training for all new members.

I used to rent out an excellent IFR tourer and found that even that (a well equipped TB20GT, no glass cockpit) was beyond nearly all interested parties. Most IMCR holders would be not in the plane but 50 yards behind it for the first 10 flights, and most "IR holders" turned out to be long lapsed and with such poor currency they were no better. Only current ATPs were up to speed right away, but airline pilots usually prefer to fly rag and tube / aero types!

Of course there are plenty of private pilots who know this stuff but they tend to already be "sorted" when it comes to a plane so they aren't usually prospective syndicate members. Most of them are owners, and mostly N-reg.

And there lies the catch: you have to find a bunch of people who have the budget, who are good careful well organised technically-savvy pilots, and who do not currently have a plane of their own. I tried this, with a zero-equity group, and failed abysmally. And then got done by HMRC (for BIK) because I ended up being the biggest customer.

I do wish you luck - in this business we badly need many more nice planes and properly funded pilots doing some real distances - but assembling 8 pilots for an SR22 won't be a quick job.

That's before you get onto the G-reg v. N-reg decision.... personally I would forget G-reg because the number of JAA IR private holders is negligible. I would contact some US schools who have recently trained UK pilots for the IR and see if they can pass your details on. You can also find FAA license holder names and addresses on the FAA website; there are hundreds of IR holders in the UK and mailing them is easy enough.

[Morgo]

Hi IO540,

Quite right about depreciation! Having followed Cirrus closely over the past year, the aircraft does seem to depreciate about $100K over the course of 3-4 years. Undoubtedly due to the constant technological innovations that Cirrus upgrade their aircraft with and as such they're continually making their older airframes relatively outdated! Whether the depreciation over the course of the first few years is worth it is debatable, but at least we'll have peace of mind with warranty and an aircraft with all the latest innovations and safety modifications.

Whilst Glass Cockpits may not alter mission ability, they do have the secondary impact of presenting a lot more information to you and allowing the user to have better situational awareness. Of course you need additional training (I myself have recently completed the Cirrus Transitional Training with TAA at Denham) but the net impact should be a pilot who has more information to hand, but able to process this without breaking into a sweat, and hopefully able to make safer flights as a result.

You're absolutely right about it being difficult to find pilots willing to invest (hmm... maybe not the right word to use :} ) a sizeable chunk of cash. I have been trying to form a group for the past year. We now have 5 people signed up and with the signup of 1 more person we will be able to order the aircraft. Touchwood it will be easier to sell the final 2 shares once we have the aircraft sitting on the tarmac at Biggin :) Great idea for contacting FAA holders in the UK (we will be going N reg)... I had no idea that this information was readily accessible!

[neilcharlton]

You could always sell shares at a lower price , as long as they own 5%. You would then have to maybe load the hourly rate or monthly fees .

A lot of people could maybe stump up 10k for a share than 30k and pay a 160 an hr , 200 a month or what ever.

Or maybe lease the aircraft back to a training school , but then your looking at G reg , Pulic C of A , blar blar blar.

Good luck , and when you do get the aircraft i'd love flight , i'll pay for fuel of course ;-)

[IO540]

A 5% share means there will be 20 pilots, which is way too many.

Leasing a plane back to a school means you can more or less forget it. It's going to get smashed.

I tried leasing back to a school which was going to be doing IR training, but like so many in this business they were just bu11sh1tting. One problem did surface though: the school may say they will always fly it dual (which seems OK because there is always an instructor on board) but that narrows the market drastically because many pilots will want to self fly hire also...

An SR22 is a serious IFR machine, and one has to go for serious pilots. One can fly it VFR, and one usually does especially around the UK (where anything goes in Class G and a short airways flight is too much hassle), but one cannot be sitting in there with a compass and a stopwatch counting the villages and lakes at 150kt. Only a masochist wants to do that, and they will get lost or kill themselves if they ever get into poor vis (like today, 1-2nm in places) or IMC.

[dublinpilot]

I also don't think it's a good idea having some people who are in for 30K, and some who are in for 10k. Each will have different priorities, and have different attitudes towards the aircraft, because it has cost them vastly different sums.

I'd also suggest that if people are struggling to buy into the group, then perhaps they aren't the best people to have in the group. No offence intended, but I imagine with a serious aircraft such as a new SR22, there will be serious bills at certain stages, and you really don't want people in the group who can't afford them.

dp

[007helicopter]

Did you get the plane ?

I am Also interested if still going ahead.

[Morgo]

I have bought a 50 hour share in Free Flight (www.cirrus147.com) instead. This is working very well for me and I'm enjoying the group immensely. Having 6 aircraft to choose from (5 x SR22 and 1 x SR20) means the availability is generally very good.

There are a couple of members selling shares at the moment, meaning you can gain entry to the group at a very reasonable cost.

Also, for more info, there is a whole page article on Free Flight in this month's copy of Loop (an electronic version is available at www.loop.aero).