N-reg aircraft rental in europe
 

I'm thinking about to bring N-reg aircraft for renting it in Europe. It would be operated only in one European country. FAR 61.3 (a) (1) says: "when operated within a foreign country, a current pilot license issued by the country in which the aircraft is operated may be used".

I've seen that there are few companies renting N-reg for flying in Europe like this one N5274A - Beautiful Cessna 172 SP for rent in Cologne / Germany - Welcome!

What are the regulations for doing this kind of renting in Europe?
Particulary I'm interested in payment details.

Where do you intend to base the a/c? Type?

Someone can lease the aircraft from you but then have to fly it themselves or hire an FAA CPL /ATPL to fly it for them.

You as the hirer cannot have any involvement in the operation of the aircraft while in their hands other than approving the pilot and operation.

Ie you dry lease the aircraft

Pace

Pace - do you have a reference for the above?

The "dry lease" bit has been done to death years ago; I was hoping it would not reappear for at least another 5 years :)

10540

Check your PM

Pace

I didn't get the impression from the original post that Zoom planned on trying to run dodgy charters with an 'N'reg, more that he was considering buying something like a 172 to rent out to folks with American licences and was hoping to find out how much demand there would be.

The principal reason why someone would like to rent an 'N' reg aircraft is so that they could exercise the IR privileges of an FAA licence.

I know lots of people with an FAA IR, so I should imagine that the right 'N' reg aeroplane located in the right place, would be quite popular.

There are a number of N-reg planes around for rental. The best known are the Cirruses - there are several businesses doing this.

Perfectly legal. The restrictions are centred around the ANO Article 140 stuff (aerial work needing DfT permission) which basically affects the pilot renter receiving training in them, where the instructor gets paid. This may or may not affect the particular pilot, who may have to do his BFR (for example) in some G-reg.

I have to say that julian storey is pretty much close to my thoughts.

This aircraft would be only for renting to folks with FAA license and to folks with JAA licenses. At the moment what I'm trying to find out is how to legally charge renting...

Sorry, I did not understand why that was a problem? A pointer to any previous discussions clarifying the issue would be appreciated, just for interest.

It is perfectly legal to rent it out to someone who holds a licence and intends to fly it themselves.

As IO540 points out though, undertaking any kind of training in it starts to get complicated - but self fly hire, no problem.

A decent touring aircraft on the 'N' reg should be quite popular.

Quite. I repeat my question: what? where?

Not necessarily. I'm not an aviation lawyer, but what if you wanted to do some touring across several countries? I believe we've had the argument in another thread wether Europe is to be defined as a 'country'. Most likely, at least at present, not.

Also, you'd be surprised how many Europeans hold FAA tickets, but not necessarily local ones.

Can't see why there shouldn't be a market, if right type and location.

And that is most definitely quite a sizeable market in my opinion.

Yes agreed as it would be pretty pointless renting out a Cessna 150. It would have to be a type that could get into the airways and operate there with European poor weather. Ie Turbocharged and deiced/anti iced.

Pace

You can certainly rent out an N-reg - the existence of a number of businesses doing that confirms this.

However, I used to rent out mine, as both G-reg and later as N-reg, and found it wasn't plain sailing. I have already written here on my "experiences" so won't repeat them, but in this context the biggest issue is that if you have something even half decent you want to be fussy about who flies it, but most people who are instrument current are already owners (or syndicate members) because keeping current on pure rental is awfully expensive.

So, among some high quality customers, one gets a large % of non-current people coming along, not to mention a number of the less than savoury types (expired licenses being the pleasant end of the spectrum) which are unfortunately plentiful in GA.

And even the nice people tend to run out of funds at various stages in their lives (marriage to a non-flying girl, baby arriving, job loss, etc) whereas in a cruel way being an owner would keep you flying (due to the high financial bar of jumping off) but if you merely rent then you will put that on ice and before you know it you are out of flying totally.

I don't think I had a single JAA IR potential customer whose IR had not lapsed. And FAA IR holders who are not owners sometimes let their IR lapse and then renew in one rental session, by flying 6 approaches, or fly an IPC - neither process is conducive to currency. The JAA IR annual checkride does next to nothing for currency especially if done in some basic wreckage rented for the day.

All these things (most of all the fact that most current and competent and well funded pilots are already sorted) restrict the market to a much smaller number of people than one may be expecting. Not to say there isn't a market but the customer base is going to be of somewhat lower "quality" than one might be hoping for, which is OK if you just rent the plane out and don't fly it yourself.

The other thing is regarding the UK Inland Revenue. This gets pretty dirty and I could talk for hours about this, but in a nutshell any arrangement where a plane is being rented out as a business, but the owner also flies it himself, attracts their attention.

Pace - you have a point about renting out something capable but that makes it even harder to find customers because then you need people with serious currency on type, who know about engine management (read Deakin, etc). I can tell you that exceedingly few pilots who are not already owners do long range European touring. The nature of rental prevents long take-away trips, anyway.

10540

I am in a position of wanting to rent and there are Cirrus groups who do nothing other than rent although the one I looked at are mainly G reg with only one N reg based in Jersey.

I held a quarter share in a G reg group which was a disaster with a number of accidents by one of the group and a lot of expense and down time.

Luckely I am out of there. If i looked at the true hourly cost of my group owned plane I could have rented a twin for far less.

Especially now in the recession and the poor £ /$ rate a fixed price for a block of hours starts looking attractive.

IMO you really need 300 hrs a year to make outright ownership viable and certainly not less than 150 hrs.

There could be a market especially with the low £/$ for Americans coming to Europe for flying touring holidays where such aircraft would also be attractive.

Pace

That depends very much on your priorities.

If you like to fly something nice, something which hasn't been secretly bent by somebody else, something maintained to your exacting standards, something in which any fault is fixed before the next flight, then ownership makes sense on 10 hours/year :)

Otherwise, yes, the figure is likely to be between 100 and 300...

If you want to fly something decent, the best way will always (except for a seriously busy pilot flying almost daily, usually on business) be a group. You can try to set one up yourself.

Just need to find several people who are willing to put some money where their mouth is - tricky! But this is no different to the situation in which the owner of a plane find himself when he wishes to rent it out. He is after renters, not shareholders, but they still need to be of a reasonable quality.