to Obiwan
Hi Obiwan,
well that could be the case, but that would more accurately described as self-fly-hire -- and there's nothing wrong with that.
More usually, a number of people (min 2, max 20) club together and buy an aircraft (or several aircraft) and then share the cost of running it.
There are many, many variations on this theme, but that is the general idea.
In the fixed wing world you get "non-equity" syndicates where one person or entity invites others to join. In this case usually there's a monthly fixed fee plus an hourly rate.
Hope this helps,
Big Ls.