Hour Building - South Africa??

[mustflywillfly]

Chaps, Chapettes

Is South Africa a viable option for budget SEP hour building? If yes any suggestions for FTO's / Operators.

Cheers

MFWF:ok:

[Mikehotel152]

Yes and no.

You've got to get there = £

Hourly rate for a 172 is about £65 wet. By the way, a 172 is often regarded as a 2 seater in SA because you'll be flying mainly at high altitudes.

Lanseria in Johannesburg are supposed to be good. Be aware that many places have a minimum daily charge equal to about 2-2.5 hours on any aircraft you hire from them. Fine if you fly occasionally but not for trips away from base. I gather there are other great places to train on the south coast, near George.

Licence Validation takes about 3 days. No problem really, provided you do it near Johannesburg, otherwise your application goes in the post and the SA postal service is pretty awful so it can take 10 days or more before you're ok to fly on your own.

Beautiful, friendly, cheap country. I'm going to do hour-building there. PM me if you want to know more.

[A and C]

I find it very hard to understand why you would want to spend a lot more money than you would in the UK if hours building is the objective.

As stated the C172 is a two seater at that that altitude so I will use a C152 as a UK example.

The cost of the aircraft is £65 wet, the cheapest airline ticket I could find on expidia was £661 (air france via CDG) so the cost over two weeks and 40 hours flying is £81.52, and that is without hotels and food etc add say £25 a day for very basic accomodation and food and you are up at £91.27/hour.

You would be unwise to not have travel insurance at about £40 per visit.
I shall leave the inssurance out of the calculations for that chancers on the forum!

In the UK you can get a C152 for £40/hour dry, by the time that you add ALL the costs it will run out at about £73.10/hour and about £6 /hour cheaper if you fly abroad.

I can't understand why you would want to spend £18.17/hour more (that's £726 more for the 40 hour package) if hours building is the aim of the game.
After all most people need about 100 hours of hours building and the saving of flying in the UK over 100 hours (£1815) would likley go a long way to paying for some thing that is essential........... like an MCC course.

[Mikehotel152]

South African FTOs on the coast will probably have cheaper and more suitable aircraft available for basic hour-building. Basically, it's half the cost of flying equivalent aircraft in the UK. For example, I'm going to be hiring a 182 for 30 hours for £75 per hour wet. I paid £150 per hour in the UK last summer. The cost of getting to the other end of Africa is not quite important if you do enough hours over there.

But it is swings and roundabouts. I think 30 hours in African airspace in a 182 is worth more than 30 hours in a Spamcan over the airfield where you did your PPL. More expensive? Maybe, maybe not. If you would prefer to do it as cheap as possible, or have no choice but to do it as cheap as possible, perhaps it's not an option.

[AlphaMale]

A & C only used the 152 as an example due to the altitude in RSA.

You could always take out a 172/182 here. A & C could supply you with a C152 £40/hr dry. I don't think you'd have to fly all 30hrs in 1 week and you wouldn't need to take a week off work either.

Time off work/Accommodation/Flight or Flights if you have two people going.
As nice as it would be to fly around the coasts of RSA and seeing a different landscape I don't think it would work out cheaper. If I took out A&C C152 I'd take a friend up or a family member and share with them my love for aviation.

Burning 100 hours flying around Florida for 3 or 4 weeks seems like a waste when I could do 100 hours over 2 months here in the UK and sharing the experience with a friend.

Horses for courses.

[Mikehotel152]

AlphaMale, you echo the views of a great majority of hour-buildering wannabes in the UK. I'm just giving the original poster an option. ;)

The C152 is a great little aircraft and fine for hour-building, except for long distances, short fields or more than one passenger. Being a simple but sensitive aircraft, it also won't push forward your flying skills in the same way as a wobby prop C182 would, but both will offer fun.

Yes, of course, if you're hour-building in the UK and working full-time, you would have to spread your flying over many months and could take friends and family with you to experience the joys of aviation. Having been there, offering everyone free flights, I'm still amazed at how few people have taken up the invitation. My wife and father, plus others, will fly with me in Africa, so 1 or more seats will always be occupied when I fly.

The comparison A and C made between the 152 in the UK and the 172 in SA is only a valid comparison if you only plan to fly at altitude in SA. A rather large 'but' is the fact that only the interior of SA is at high altitude and even with a 182 you wouldn't really want to go there. The coastal strip is what I'd recommend. There are loads of FTOs - check out http://www.algoafc.co.za an go to their Club forum.

I totally agree about Florida, but SA just isn't the same at all. SA is big, beautiful, just as cheap, less bureaucracy (no visa needed), more interesting flying etc etc. The UK is excellent for hour-building too, hence I plan to do more than half here. I have to admit that I did borrow a C182 for touring the Western Isles and loved its performance with full fuel 4 people on board. The trip wouldn't have been an option in a C152! But the downside is that you'll be very lucky to get a C182 in the UK for less than £150 ph/wet and in most places they are a lot more, so it's not an economically accessible option for hour-building for most people in the UK.

But I'm also going to do an SA/Namibia trip. The overall cost of the trip, hire of a C182, flights to SA and back, fuel and landing fees will work out at £100 ph for 30 hours of flying time. I don't think that's too high a price to pay. Not cheaper than the UK, but it is also my annual holiday. :E

[A and C]

It would seem to me that your objective is not pure hours building.

It is a flying holiday in a more expencive aircraft that someone has convinced you will push your flying skills forward.

The price that you you are paying for the VP prop (that you touch about 6times a flight) is one that those on a tight budget can't afford and I do have to doubt that it is a price worth paying for that reason alone.

As a captain of a jet airliner and a flying club deputy CFI I find it is the basic skills that are lacking in most of the "new" pilots that I meet and have to agree that flying 50 hours within 20 miles of the home airfield is not going to help your flying skills one bit, however I encourage the people who lease my aircraft to take the aircraft on long trips. To this end I provide help (european Jepp plates) and advice on flight planning,cheap airfields, hotels and how to get the tax back on the fuel (saving £6/hour on my quoted price).

A trip to northern Spain is likely to "push flying skills forward" at least as much as as a long flight in South Africa and probably be more relivent to the next stage of of trainning towards the ATPL.

The objective of the hours building is to get the most (licence usable) flying experience for the least money. However your your objective seems to be a holiday with the "spin off" of flying time towards your ATPL and I don't knock that, but you are very lucky to have the extra money to spend, most ATPL students don't.

[Mikehotel152]

Yes, I don't regard hour-building as a purely numbers game. I think it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to fly for enjoyment.

I completely agree that many hour-builders don't make good use of the time and I wish more aircraft owners had your wise and liberal attitude to hour-building. :ok: Funnily enough, I am planning a trip to Spain as a large part of my remaining UK hour-building, so I'm delighted you've endorsed it as a good idea. :)

Yes, I will be spending more on my hour-building than the bare minimum. My well-respected FTO quoted me £8K for their 100 hour hour-building programme. I have no doubt that it would have been very good preparation for the CPL. I have arranged to do my hour-building off my own back instead and it will cost me £10K. In the context of the £40K modular cost, it's a fraction more.

But look at it this way, rather than 100 hours in a Spamcan, once I have completed my hour-building I will have only 20 hours in a Spamcan, 5 in a C172, 45 in a C182 and 30 in a DA42 Twinstar. I will have flown around East Anglia, the West Country, traversed the UK and flown around the Western Isles, France, Spain and Germany, as well as Namibia and South Africa. I know I'm privileged to have this opportunity, but in the grand scheme of flying training, it is not a massive extra cost.

BTW, while I don't knock the C152 because I am a huge fan, I do think flying more demanding aircraft as part of hour-building can't be knocked if you can find the extra cash. Yes, wobbly props and twins aren't difficult to learn, but I would have thought it helps to be familiar with them before doing the CPL/IR.

No doubt the flak will fly once again, but I'm only being honest. Perhaps it will inspire others to be more adventurous and enjoy their hour-building a bit more.:O

[A and C]

You are very lucky to have the money to chuck at the hours building problem.

Most people don't!

So I provide one of the cheapest ways to get the hours required. I also try to help the guys get the most from those hours.

[Mikehotel152]

I know you don't mean to be rude mate, but I think it's a little unfair to suggest that I'm 'chucking' money at the issue. I'm only spending an additional 5% on my training when compared with others on the same course, and it's still half of what the lads and ladies at OAT are spending. I sold my house, car, gave up my previous lucrative career, and have made a lot of personal emotional and financial sacrifices, in order to do this training.

And I don't regret any of it! :p:}

[oompa loompa]

Having flown in South Africa (CPL/IR), and the UK (fATPL), I would tend to agree that you won't save much at the present exchange rate going to SA.

I did my training at 43; that was around about £100/hr. I also flew a c172 from Port Elizabeth which was around £65/hr.

I came back the UK and brought a share in a piper cub (fantastic plane!!!) which ran at £35/hr, plus £75 monthly. I sold the share for what I brought it for, and had pretty much a free run of the aircraft so it I could do as many hours as I wanted.

Once I had the basics, I found I learned more from owning my own plane than I ever would have from hiring or being taught.

Ultimately, I assume, you're planning on a UK licence, for which there is no better training than actually flying in the UK. The weather is not that restrictive, and despite what I was told in SA, the ATC and airspace environment here is quite different here than SA.

The only problem with the UK is that its pretty small, and it's full of airspace which doesn't appreciate GA aircraft buzzing around.

Hope that helps. Feel free to PM me if you do decide to go to SA and want advice on anything.

OL

[A and C]

Mikehotel152
No rudness intended but my point was that you are lucky to have the extra money to spend, a lot of the FO's that I fly with have had to morgage themselfs and the wife,dog,cat ,house etc to pay for the ATPL. Good luck to you if you can afford the gold plated option but most guys can't.

oompa loompa

Yours is the ideal option for hours building but assuming 100 hours over a year the true cost is £44/hour with your numbers just to fly the aircraft.

The cost that I quote includes an allowance for landing & parking fees.

The other problem with ownership is risk, if the aircraft has a big technical problem, lets say metal in the oil filter it is going to cost £4500-5500 minimum to fix ad you run the risk of having to pay a slice of that to get the aircraft back in the so that you can fly or sell your share.

In short if you buy an aircraft share you own the problems as well as the benifits and it all comes down to how much financal risk you want to take.

[Mikehotel152]

A and C. Sure, I understand your point. Apologies for reacting over-sensitively :p. It's expensive and hard going getting into this game unless your surname is Trump. Good luck to all who are silly enough to do it. Why don't we all become plumbers and fly as a hobby? :}

[mustflywillfly]

Or why don't I just stay in the Navy and fly as a hobby.

Because flying is in my blood and I can't stand it any longer.........

Thanks to everyone for the replies to my original post. To be honest I suggested SA because it seemed like a great place to build hours over some stunning scenery. Having done the numbers game again and thought long and hard about what I am trying to achieve I have decided on the UK. Scenery? Well I guess the Lakes are rather nice and so are the highlands!

Thanks again :ok: