dom175B

I have experience of running a Non Equity Group at Leeds Bradford. My advice to you is:

1. DON'T whatever you do give up your day job.
2. However much you plan your costs to be - Double it.
3. Consider checkouts and who is going to do it.
4. Make sure you spend time with each new member and talk to them about care of YOUR investment.
5. Only do it if you want a lifestyle business, you will not make any money.
6. Be prepared for sleepless nights.
7. Have a contingency - get out structure.
8. Form your first group with friends, who will bear with you.
9. Put lot's of thought into collecting money and how!
All said, it's great having your own aircraft...don't spend too much though. Modern yes but don’t guild the Lilly.

Will I expand? I currently have 2 aircraft. An Archer III and a 172s I plan to buy a Cirrus next year but I'll be very selective who flies it.

If you intend this to be a career change then you will have to make profit. If you make profit you wont be that much cheaper than conventional hire (trust me). You will not attract the number of members you expect because if you do your sums correctly you can ignore price as a USP. Because it isn’t.
Good luck
CFG

As others have suggested, it's very difficult to make money renting out a nice plane.

It's awfully tempting to think "most of the stuff on rental is such crap, there must be demand for something decent" but THERE ISN'T. Well, not if it costs more than a penny extra. This is UK GA, the land of flat broke pilots who are mostly struggling to make 12 hours every 2 years.

And anybody with 2p to rub together has already escaped the self fly hire scene (by buying into a group or - for IFR pilots - by buying outright) and is absolutely not looking back.

I know, I've tried it myself.

It can be made to work, however:

You start with a piece of wreckage, spend the absolute minimum on it, and run it into the ground. Of course you will probably not want to be flying it yourself after all that, but hey you did want a business didn't you? :)

There are other issues with rental.

A lot of people rent out a plane because they want to fly it themselves and renting it out reduces their operating costs. HMRC attack this as "not a real business" and they go after the owner in various ways. If owned by a limited company they hit the Director for Benefit in Kind. The well publicised BIK defence (the Director pays the same rate as the renters when he flies it himself) doesn't work in this case. PM me if you need more info...

By the time you get reasonably fussy about who flies it, there is almost nobody left. I used to rent out a very nice new IFR tourer, and this is a quick sample of the enquiries/customers I got:

1 promised 50hrs/year and delivered 2
1 (instructor) promised 130hrs/year (IR training) and delivered 2.5, and fiddled with the fuel flowmeter to reduce his billing
1 promised 30hrs/year and delivered 10, then lost his job
1 (airline pilot) promised 30hrs/year, then his wife had a baby
1 had an expired IMC Rating and wanted to fly around France with a compass and a stopwatch
1 (instructor) "had an IR" but got lost in France and had to scud run all the way back at 1000ft, his IR turned out to be long expired
1 (instructor) with a bogus ATPL, kept inventing various in-flight system failures to get me to chuck it in and put the plane on his school fleet.
1 nice chap but flew his last plane into a hill in fog (amazingly he survived) after a DIY IAP

and so on. I also got assorted hassles like people popping over to Le Touquet and doing their own fuel duty drawback claim and pocketing the money from it, which paid for their whole trip. The next person could not do a claim of course. I had to write some rules after that, allowing drawbacks to be fairly shared out.

It's very tempting to think that airline pilots (the obvious well funded, current and competent customers) will be queuing up to do flights in a nice IFR tourer, but actually they are usually sick of IFR. Most of them either hate flying full stop, or they want to fly rag and tube types to grass strips.

As I say, it can be made to work, in the right situation and with a hard nose. I know of one apparently successful business renting out some DA40s and DA42s, nice looking modern planes, but they are doing it on a busy GA airport where there is no competition. Wel there is the usual rental junk but it's not sufficiently cheaper.

If by any chance you do want to fly yourself and are looking for a way to spread the costs of operating something nice, put together a group of like minded pilots.

And don't bank on avtur being duty free for long. It is likely to go up to avgas levels, except for AOC holders. The DA42 will still be cheaper to fly than say an SR20 but the margin will be small on the grand scale of direct operating costs.

Don't forget the DA42 is a twin! That makes it all the more amazing that it can be cheaper to run than a Cirrus or equivalent. Avtur may not be cheap in the future but avgas certainly won't ever be cheaper than avtur.

2 engines for the cost of one - brilliant! The Tecnam twin looks promising too, although it runs on avgas or mogas, it'll offer similar economics as the DA42 if marketing is to be believed. It'll likely be even more economical infact because the engines are proven, have low acquisition costs as well as replacement cost and service should be readily available. The arget price is also about 100 000 EUR less than the 42 and cruise performance is only slightly less.

Hilarious!!:p:p:p:p

How's that for a bad business model!!

The problem, sternone, is that one cannot wave one's business model to one's [potential] customers and force them to conform to it :)

A small point, one which is usually totally lost on financiers.

Doesn't the Tecnam twin use Rotax engines? If so, it needs to carry a spare. Mind you, the DA42 uses Thielerts so definitely needs to carry a spare :)

”1 had an expired IMC Rating and wanted to fly around France with a compass and a stopwatch”

What is wrong with this? I assume he had a chart as well, in which case he was doing what most of us do.

Rod1

You're a sucker for old american iron no doubt IO540! :E
What's your problem with the Rotax now then? I'll admit the Thielerts still are in their infancy, but the Rotax has been around for a long time and performs vey well from what I hear. I only have 1.5 hours behind one myself but it seemed nice enough...

”1 had an expired IMC Rating and wanted to fly around France with a compass and a stopwatch”
What is wrong with this? I assume he had a chart as well, in which case he was doing what most of us do.

I was going to dig out the French ZIT collection PDF at the SIA website but don't have the time.

Then I was going to dig out the references to the maximum fines for busting these, and the rules under which aircraft confiscation is a possibility, but haven't got a clue where to look for this.

If somebody is renting out a 150kt IFR tourer, he is entitled to make sure the renter understands the equipment aboard. ALL of it.

If a renter gets into trouble, he will just walk away from it, while the owner picks up the bill for all the rest.

You have all offered very valid points, I can see this could turn out to be a complete nightmare! You guys have had some pretty amazing encounters with offering aircraft for rental purposes!!


Maybe time for a rethink!

Just to add some positive input. I am presently a member of an SR20 rental scheme and find it to be a huge improvement on my old club rental. This is due to the lovely aircraft & the fact that it's readily available. As a customer, I am prepared to pay slightly more for these 2 factors.

Unfortunatley, what the compay wants and what the customer wants will cause conflict in the business model with regards to availability.

I don't really see the potential to make money with this set up, or anything in GA for that matter!

Might be an idea to wait before ordering a DA42.

http://www.tecnam.com

Two Rotax 912s engines, full IFR approval and 145kn on a full 4 seater using 30 lph

Rod1

Thank you very much, really interesting! I will keep you informed, will gather some more information.

Hi,

Did this ever get off the ground?

Regards

Matty I would suspect not otherwise I am sure original poster would have wanted to let everyone know.

I Had this emailed to me last week (I have no interest) looks a good deal

• aircraft G-GCDC (http://www.caa.co.uk/applicationmodules/ginfo/ginfo_photo.aspx?regmark=G-GCDC&imgname=G-GCDC002&imgtype=jpg)
  
• Hourly rate (wet) = £85 YES £85 THAT IS NOT A MISPRINT !!!
  
• Monthly rate = £130
  
• Minimum commitment = 6 months
  
• it cruises at a nice 130kts.
• [email protected]

Thank you BK14. E-mail sent!

Regards :ok:

How is that charged? (Hobbs/Tach/Brakes on-brakes off/Airborne time)

Its charged on Hobbs 1 which start as soon as you switch the two Alternators on.

They limit you to 60% power which gives you 120 - 125 IAS and a fuel burn of 8.4 GPH.

dom175b
 

Can we put in a bid for the maintenance of your fleet?

We have just got EASA 145 maintenance approval ( having held BCAR M3 for years & EASA subpart F since the start) for the types that you are talking about.

We should be a Dimond service centre by spring next year and are the peope that the UK Cirrus agents recomend to fix any major damage.

You will probably have to be a bit more specifc that this side of Cherbourgh.

An American built diesel engine
 

This is a US designed engine that can burn 4 different jet fuels and two diesel fuels. American built too and I believe it is certified.


DeltaHawk Diesel Engines

300 to 450 hp versions are being finalized now and should be available in three years.