R22 Syndicates

[FlyAnotherDay]

It's been said that many recreational pilots learn to fly helicopters, but give up altogther or end up flying planks, solely as a result of cost.

I've just left an R22 syndicate in New Zealand, where excluding insurance, I paid less than 40% of the hourly rate I pay for self fly hire in the UK. Does anyone know of any R22 syndicates in the south east (Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambs) of the UK?...

[muffin]

They seem to be very few and far between although very common in the fixed wing world. I have been looking for a long time and have never found one, hence the reason I am considering buying a Rotorway!

[Helinut]

I don't quite understand why, but syndicates and heles don't seem to work (in the UK anyway). Perhaps it is that the joy of heles for a private user is the instant use from your own back yard, estate grounds or whatever................

You don't even find many joint ownerships that work.

[Obs cop]

Sadly I think the lack of heli syndicates is purely down to cost.

Most fixed wing syndicates operate eiter four seat tourers or something that can be flung round the sky in aerobatic manoeuvers. However, even then the costs are typically around £4k to £6k to join a group of 4 to 6 depending on the aircraft.

£50k buys you an R22 with no engine fund. Now £5k for a group of 10 seems okay initially, but you have limited range payload and performance and therfore there is not a huge amount you can do with the aircraft. Even then a group of 10 makes availability an issue.

Now consider an R44. More than 10 members could make the availability a problem so the cost to the individuals becomes huge comparatively. £10k plus I would suggest for which you could have a decent share in an IFR twin or even an ex-military jet.

Just my humble opinion,

Obs cop

[206 jock]

A partnership worked in my case. For 5 years two of us owned an R22, fresh out of overhaul, and did 350 hours between us. Then we bought a JetRanger, worked the ass off the R22 in a flying school to catch up the hours, sold it earlier this year.

Mind you, we did live in next door villages, so I guess the 'out of my back yard' scenario didn't really apply.

[muffin]

I have been in a number of fixed wing syndicates over the years, and without exception they have all worked out well - even one that had 20 or so members. Availability has never been a problem, as nobody ever flies as much as they think they are going to at the outset. 20 hours or so per year max is about par for the course in my experience.

At the moment, I am in a group of 3 owning a PFA aircraft. It lives about 10 mins from all of us and rarely gets flown more than once a week. Obviouisly one major attraction of a helicopter is keeping it in your back yard and maybe prospective users are deterred from group ownership by the perceived inability to do this freely. However, I think the fundamental problem is that rotary pilots are just much fewer than f/w and therefore the syndicates that do exist are correspondingly fewer. To get a PPL(H) these days sets you back £10k, which reduces the number of new entrants considerably. Like most things, it is a numbers game and there is no simple way to change this.

[FlyAnotherDay]

If approached as mine-to-play-with-when-I-want-at-zero-notice, then shared ownership won't work, but as a route to more affordable flying, it can.

The Kiwi syndicate works well - with 23 owners. Each share is about 3,500UKP or so, including an overhaul reserve. Insurance, doubtless far more than would be the case in the UK, works out at about 40UKP/month. Once you've flown 7 or 8 hours over a year, it's cheaper than local self fly hire. Not all the owners flew regularly - whilst I was there, the majority of the time was flown by five or six and availability wasn't a significant problem. Owners were PPL students, CPL students, hour builders and recreational pilots.

I guess a syndicate of around 12 or 15 could work well in the UK.

[Genghis the Engineer]

I own one whole aircraft, and a couple of syndicate shares, and have owned other shares in the past - all planks I'm afraid.

If you want guaranteed regular availability, there are only two ways, (1) rent from a large operator, or (2) own shares in a couple of nearby syndicates.

Owning your own aircraft, or a share in only one machine, means guaranteed regular downtime.

But, shares work - at least in the fixed wing world. My "4-seat tourer" share ties up £3k of capital in a large syndicate, but I pay slightly under 50% (in total, including the monthlies) what I'd pay to rent the same machine. My "2-seat taildragger" share costs me to fly roughly what my similar "2-seat nosewheel all mine" costs - and again under half what rental would cost, with similar availability (less maintenance downtime on the syndicate because I do my own maintenance on the sole-owned, but I can't take it away for weeks at a time). I fly about 40 hours per year in each of those.

Incidentally, there are a few things to know about syndicates. One is that UK law limits the number of owners to 20, the other is that you are all jointly responsible for the management, so expect your share of committee meetings, aircraft washing, ferrying to maintenance, etc. Also if you hit an unplanned expensive problem, you need to find the cash to fix it from somewhere. There's no such thing as a free lunch !

Don't forget about capital being tied up, but you can always get it back when if or when you leave.

It seems normal that most syndicate members will fly very rarely. My tourer syndicate has 17 members, of whom 4 of us flew more than 20 hours last year. Availability on a big syndicate is invariably far better than you'd intuitively expect.

G

[muffin]

OK, so we are agreed syndicates work and are a good thing. Who would be interested in one based on an R22 somewhere in the Midlands? e mail me direct and if there is sufficient response I will do the maths to see if the economics stack up. Your location is an important element obviously.

If there are not sufficient people, I will revert to my Rotorway project.

[hughey]

Expressing an interest for R22 syndicate. Currently SE UK.

Just casting a line.

[moosp]

OK so we are a long way from the "south east (Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambs)" that you want but I would like to support helicopter syndicates.

I am a member of a successful syndicate in HKG which has a target membership of twelve members, with an R22 and an R44. As the members are from different walks of life some fly mid week, most wish to fly at weekends, but availablity is a rare issue. The two different machines helps, as sometimes a member wants to fly three friends, sometimes just solo or with a partner.

We have got the costs down to a level that is sensible by world standards, especially when you consider that we pay 2.3 US$ a LITRE (yes, not US gall) for 100LL and depending on the exchange rate we are cheaper than private hire in the UK or Europe.

Like all groups/syndicates it is successful if the people work. So if you have a good one, be brutally honest about new members. Rather reduce the number of syndicate members and increase your costs than take on someone who might not suit all the other members.

[Benet]

Splendid idea, if it can be made to work. I'm in London, and interested!

Benet

[FlyAnotherDay]

It's good to hear support for syndicates, although I haven't heard of any R22 ones (or any others for that matter) in the South East...

When I have a little more spare time - in late autumn - I plan to look more closely into setting one up, unless I've already found one, of course! pm me if you are or might be interested.

[RDRickster]

I've tried to start a helicopter flying club in my area a few times, and I've always found several folks who are interested. However, the pilots that wanted to do it didn't really have the budget maturity (in my opinion). Cost is always a factor... hanger fees, scheduled maintenance, unscheduled maintenance, principle & interest payments (if you finance), and insurance costs. Most people have no idea of what they are getting into, and for helicopters you need to have 3-5 pilots for R22 and 5-7 pilots for R44 to make it worth while. Otherwise, it is simply cheaper to rent your aircraft from time to time. If you do it, you should require 200 hours + safety course + members own their own home in your area + Class II medical. In the U.S., you CAN setup a non-profit company for social purposes (flying club); therefore, there are tax benefits if setup properly. Good luck!

[FlyAnotherDay]

Ghengis

The availablility issue is interesting. I was surprised how good the availability of the R22 I had 1/23rd of in New Zealand was. Your 4-seat tourer suggests this is not exceptional.

RDR

I agree that caution about how the potential liabilities are controlled and shared is sensible. There needs to be 'spare' money in the bank and syndicate members need to be prepared for unplanned additional expenditure. A high hours requirement is attractive, but will exclude many potential members and so may well be self-defeating. As with self-fly hire, check rides and a responsible means of approving or declining planned flights seem wise as a precautions to minimise the risk to each of the shares in the a/c - unless you have complete faith in everyone else's judgement!

Insurance has been said to be the making or breaking of syndicates (although this was in NZ) and I'll be interested to see what the insurance costs are. Would anyone like to tell me what they pay for multiple pilot, non-commercial use insurance as a % of hull value, assuming no previous claims and with what minimum pilot experience?

I set out to look for a syndicate, but seem to be heading in the do-it-myself direction. All part of the journey, I guess!

[KevBac]

I asked the same question just over a year ago on this forum and was completely put off of following up the idea so virtually had to stop flying for a while until I had enough to pay the enormous sfh rates in uk.

Would consider again in the future based on the (slightly) more positive posts this time around.

Would now have to be after my dream posting to USA for two years where the 22 sfh rate is basically dollars for pounds so will be getting back into the sky that side of the pond!!