I've been a sole owner, and a renter, but am mostly a parallel and serial group member.
Benefits of group membership:-
- Cheaper so long as you fly at-least 2, preferably 3 hours per month on average (usually, whenever I've worked it out)
- You can take the aeroplane away for days, weekends, or weeks.
- You get to know the aeroplane much better
- You can share all the aggro of looking after the aeroplane
- Getting to fly much more interesting aeroplanes than you can usually rent.
- Being allowed to use your own judgement about flying conditions more.
Downsides:-
- If you stop flying for a while, or are trying to sell your share, the bills still come and need to be paid, and so do your working contributions to the group (turn to wash it, etc.)
-The occasional a****s who crop up in syndicates as they do in any other walk of life.
- Being constrained to flying one type most of the time.
- If there's a big and unexpected bill, the dreaded "cash-call".
- Having to juggle occasionally with other owners who want it.
For me personally, the upsides: most especially being able to take the aeroplane away for a long time (compared to renting), and cost (compared to either renting or sole ownership) much outweigh the downsides.
But for other people, certainly, the equations work out differently. I'd say that if you fly less than 2 hours per month - rent. If you are likely to fly more than 6 hours per month on average, consider sole ownership - but expect a lot more work and money for that privilege.
And always check the following make sense for you:-
- The personalities of the group members
- The syndicate rules
- The accounts
- How well the aircraft seems to be being looked after.
- The cash reserves and planning for big ticket items (engine overhaul, annual, CofA, recovering....)
My three current syndicates are:-
Flexwing: £2k 1/3rd share, £35/month + fuel, £75pa club membership
Modern group A: £1200 1/20th share, £40/month, £90/hr, £125pa club membership
Vintage permit group A:£1k 1/10th share, £45/month, £60/hr. £300 club membership.
Do watch out for the extra cost of local club memberships and landing fees [all three of mine the landing fees are included at-least, but that's not universal] - I'd save a lot of money if all three of my aeroplanes were in one place. But ultimately, I pay £2k per year for the privilege of being able to choose from 3 aeroplanes I like, at very low prices, across which I fly about 70 hours per year: all of them I can take away for weeks at a time, and 2 of them for weekends. That works well for me.
G