I have been pondering the viability of sharing the acquisition of a modern lightweight composite kitplane such as a Europa
I used a Europa for hour-building.
The aircraft I bought into was shared by other PPLs, not necessarily hour-builders. I paid something like £6500 for a 1/6 share in 2002, and flew it for (I think - my memory may be a bit hazy) around £35/hour dry (about £45/hour wet) and £50/month.
In late 2004 I tried to sell my share due to having moved out of the area where the aircraft was based and so not being able to fly it regularly. It took me in excess of 6 months to find a buyer, largely due to the fact that the Europa were experiencing some financial troubles at the time and no one wanted to buy a Europa whilst those troubles were still outstanding. In the end I had to sell for a slight loss, I think I sold for £5500.
A few thoughts on your plan:
First of all, don't try to get together a group of hour-builders if it's a home-built you're looking at, but try to buy into an existing group. The reason is because good, new, home-builts don't come onto the market all that often. Quite understandably, the builders usually like to keep them and fly them themselves. But there are quite a few shares around if you go to the right type of airfield.
You will be expected to help out with maintenance, under the guidance of those in the group who are more experienced (including, probably, the original builder) and the PFA.
As has already been mentioned, no night and no IMC in PFA aircraft, including all home-built. This turned out to be a problem when I got an IMC rating, and found I couldn't use the rating when I had my aircraft booked and the weather was crap, and the only way to stay current on instruments was to hire a C172 from my club, and take with foggles and a safety pilot, regardless of the weather, once a month.
Flying a PFA aircraft will open up a whole new world of fun flying, and you're sure to enjoy it if you go in with your eyes open. If you are just trying to get some cheap flying, you might be a bit disappointed.
Also, consider whether you want to get a tail-dragger checkout. Europas come in three varieties - the monowheel (which mine was), the conventional taildragger (both of the former will require tail-dragger differences training) and the tricycle (which isn't a tail-dragger). My group was quite happy to let new members in with no prior tail-dragger experience, because we used a very experienced Europa instructor/test-pilot to do all our pilot training, and he would teach you everything you needed to know, but other groups might insist on some prior tail-dragger knowledge. If you want to avoid this, stick with the tricycle, although the tail-dragger will certainly improve your handling skills during take-off, landing and taxy!
Hope that's given you a bit of an insight. Let me know if you've got any questions.
FFF
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