UK ownership dispute

[yellowperil]

I don't see why this is a 'dispute', unless there's more to it than the OP is letting on, and it probably shouldn't need lawyers or legal advice to resolve amicably, assuming the Sports Union is on side.

Personally, I'd be trying to ascertain why the Flying Club was closed in 2014 and, leaving the question of assets aside for the moment, whether the SU has any objections to the establishment of an another one. Separately, I'd be trying to ascertain the airworthiness (or otherwise) of the aircraft - as others have mentioned, it may be beyond economic repair (so to speak). As long as the SU aren't irrationally prejudiced against flying clubs, and the aircraft can be made airworthy at a reasonable cost, the administrative matter of ensuring up to date ownership information should be relatively easy to resolve.

I assume the OP thinks it's an issue due to the chicken and egg problem most clubs encounter when trying to establish themselves: members won't join a flying club that doesn't have an aircraft, but a flying club can't buy an aircraft without members. While it's an understandable issue, the prospective new flying club committee probably need to understand that the mere fact that a flying club used to exist doesn't give them an automatic right to exist too, or any automatic claim to support from the SU.

Instead, the proposed new club should assume they'll need to go through all the usual steps (hurdles) of setting up a new sports club, getting it registered with/affiliated to the SU and having a financial model which doesn't pre-suppose ownership of an expensive asset such as a aircraft. But if you can do all of that, you ought to be able to amicably resolve the issue of the current aircraft.

The sad fact of university sport is that aside from the rowing club, the big clubs (football, rugby, hockey etc) don't have massively expensive equipment requirements, but get the big budgets due to their large membership numbers. The clubs with more expensive kit requirements tend to have lower membership numbers, and get smaller budgets accordingly, making it doubly hard to get established.

There's a reason why there aren't too many university flying clubs, and that's the same reason as there aren't very many student yacht, or formula one clubs either...