Renting from Private Person - West US

[JeroenC]

Hello,

I'm back again.
After having a almost certain reservation with a private person renting his plane from Canada, he suddenly pulled back because i'd only make 35-45 hours in 3 weeks, while he normally had his plane flying 50 in 2 weeks. Too bad, because he knew this from the start. He was oofering a good rate.

So, my question is: Does anybody know somebody who rents a plane to go touring the West US, and Canada, for about 35-45 hours in 18 days. I am going for the first three weeks of August.

160 HP is OK, 180 HP would be better. I will be travelling with my girlfriend. I am a 68 hr PPL, studying ATPL (not that that matters, but still ;))

It will be holiday/hour building purposes.
Yes, I know about ADP (don't rent out > 25 hr, max leg distance also).
AAA I know too. They all have "minimum away time" of 3 hr, which i don't make.

Who can help me out, I'm getting short of time here.

Thanks in advance.

PM is of course also possible!

[slim_slag]

Suspect you are asking a lot here.....

I don't know anybody who would let you turn up unseen from Europe with 68 hrs and take their plane out on a long trip. Any private individual who was inclined to let low time pilots fly their plane will have an agreement with a flying school to do this. So you deal with the school.

Best thing to do, in my opinion, is to use www.airnav.com to find a list of flight schools which are convenient to your start point. Buy a prepaid phonecard which lets you do cheap international calls (Argos do one but thats in the UK) and work the phones.

One rule about the US is that everything is negotiable. Call them up, tell them what you want to do and see if you can make a deal.

Good luck, you will get what you want at a price which is a bargain compared to Europe, but you might have to be flexible yourself.

[Aim Far]

JeroenC

I read the route you were planning on the other thread. Its quite a long way for 35-40 hours in a 160hp spamcan.

Just for a comparison, I did San Diego to the Arizona parks, Roswell NM, Rapid City SD, Yellowstone, Sandpoint Idaho, Seattle, down the west coast, popping inland via Yosemite and Death Valley and back to San Diego and it came to 70 hours in 3 weeks with a couple of days lost to weather.

I just wonder if you are beating yourself up about this hours thing unnecessarily? You may be closer to three hours a day than you think. And if you are close eg 60 in three weeks, I don't see that the owners will get too upset.

One other thing, check whether the insurance wherever you are hiring from actually allows flying to Canada.

[TonyR]

JeroenC

I would never stand in the way of you getting out there and having and adventure.

But with 68 hours, in West USA you may find it tough going.

Would you not consider renting from a School and travelling around from a fixed base, taking it one day at a time.

At least spend a good day (4-5 hours) with an Instructor first, while your girlfriend is at the shops.

I do hope you have a great hoiday whatever you do.

Tony

PS. I have a good way of keeping the weight down. Take twice as much money and half as many clothes as you first intended.

[JeroenC]

The more I think about it, the more I think it might indeed be better to work from a fixed base.

Hmm... I always seem to make it difficult for myself...

Thanks for the sound advice guys!

[Aim Far]

Don't worry about flying a trip with 68 hours TT. I had 62 when I did the trip I mentioned above. A friend of mine just went on a similar trip 10 hours after his PPL. The FBOs at each airport will look after you, will find you hotels and rental cars etc. If something goes wrong, most airports have maintenance. The flying is a piece of piss once you get away from busy californian airspace (even then its not exactly difficult). The FSS will tell you when the weather's too crap to fly. Get a GPS and you wont get lost and do your density checks if its hot or high.

Just get in a plane and go.

And another thing, I would have thought an airline would be more interested in an ATPL stude that had toured a bit and experienced various different scenarios and weather conditions than someone who flew 20 times round the same route in southern CA. Just my opinion.

[willbav8r]

PM me if you are interested in basing or renting near San Francisco.