Get yourself a share and see how you get on with that first.
I had shares for about 10 years before buying my first aircraft, the main reason I bought my own was because I was looking for something unusual to fly / aerobat and there were no shares of that type around.
I now have both my own permit aircraft and a share in a CofA type (or whatever its called nowadays).
The permit aircraft is a high performance single seater for when I want to be a hooligan and the CofA is a grown up 4 seater for when I'd like to do some more relaxed flying without my knuckles being white....
The Permit aircraft I maintain myself and doesnt cost that much to run, £500 for insurance, £70 per month hangerage and about £500 for parts for servicing and the annual permit. Thats doing about 50hrs per year in it.
The CofA type would be a financial killer if I was to run it myself, hangerage is about £160 per month, insurance about £1500 and the last annual was about £4-5k, thats after we'd just spent £5k having a load of other work done.
If your thinking about something like a C172 / PA28 I'd go group all the way, I did 250hrs in my last group one and never had to dip my hand in my pocket other than the fixed and hourly costs.
Regards
UA
Last edited by Unusual Attitude; 29th Jun 2012 at 11:55.