Originally Posted by
Maoraigh1
"It's all about the people. The most problematic aeroplanes will get sorted out by a good group, the best aeroplanes will deteriorate rapidly with a bad group."
YES!!! But 4 is a bad number.
I don't agree that 4 is necessarily a bad number. In fact in many ways I think it is ideal. A group is a balance between the unlimited availability of owning alone and the fact that you are liable for all the cost vs only having upfront and fixed operating costs as some fraction of the total. The reduction in costs will result in diminishing returns the larger the group.For a 4 person group it is 25 % for a 10 person group 10 % . not much of a reduction for the potentially much reduced availability and the challenge of managing the interests and expectations of a much larger group. The member cat herding is going to be easier with only 4.
But like others have said the group works or does not work on the basis of the members getting along. I formed a 4 person group to buy a floatplane. I sold my share after 3 years for a variety of reasons but the biggest was the other members were constantly moaning about how much the airplane costs to own and maintain. The costs were in line with what I told them to expect but they obviously did not want to believe me.
One thing we all agreed on was that in practice scheduling was almost never an issue and so for all practical purposes availability was very close to what you would have owning the airplane outright despite the fact you were only in it for 25 % of the initial and operating costs.