PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Any Interest in Cirrus SR20/22 or Columbia350 group at Biggin Hill/Rochester?
Old 12th Apr 2007, 07:39
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IO540
 
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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.
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