Cheap Hour Building Wanted
 

I'm based in Sussex and looking for a cheap option to build 20/40hrs by November?

Any Ideas / suggestions?

Possible shares going?

Try Stapleford for 152's, very good rates and lots of aircraft

Hav'e yo'u considere'd buyin'g a shar'e i'n somethin'g? Fort'y hour's, eve'n a't £100 a'n hou'r, woul'd bu'y yo'u somethin'g yo'u coul'd sel'l of'f afterwar'd.

I know they are doing 20 hour blocks in c150 for £87.50ph at Cranfield, might be a bit far but if you do a lot in short time period it could prove to work out to be cost effective.

PM me if you want more info.

If it were me I think I'd go to the US for a couple of weeks and knock out the40 hours on the cheapest aircraft I could find.

Flying Time at Shoreham - if you sign up for their hour building programme, you can get hold of a C152 for £45 per hr dry - generally good availability (particularly during the week) and the aircraft are not in bad nick versus some of the other 152s I have flown over the years! Pop in and see them about it.

Flintstone - you crack me up man, he got the message! :D

I've got a share in a cessna 150 at Barton Manchester. The share was £1300 (which I will get back when I sell it). I also have to pay £45 per month direct debit to the group. The 'wet' price per hour varies depending on fuel prices but has never been more than £55 per hour. I've also bought a landing card for thre year which cost £360. This allows as many landings touch and goes at Barton as you want.

It's taken me about 10 months to do a hundred hours so the total cost has been-

10 times £45=£450
Landing card=£360
100 times(max)£55 per hour=5500

Total=£6310, or, £63.10 per hour wet.

Unless I'm mistaken this is the cheapest way of hour building and there must be similar groups in Sussex. Also the availability is excellent, I can pretty much fly when I want and it's a really well run group with very friendly members.

Jon

Hour Building
 

I fly out of cranfeild, which of the flying clubs is offering this option?
Many Thanks

CATS I think.

But just walk in and look at all their noticeboards - it'll only take you 15 minutes!

Phenom - for cheap shares, look either at Aircraft for sale or the back of the LAA magazine.

G

Phenom,

Did you manage to come up with a solution to this? I'm in Sussex as well and looking for the cheapest way of doing hour building.
Jonbud's way looks great, that's cheaper than going to the states to do it.

Cheers
Matt

If you'd be willing to go to the states, the guys in EFT, Florida just started hour building programs with the piper cadet about $80 an hour.

I am thinking about doing that myself, 50 hours, $5000 all inclusive (almost) :}

AMM

Its Billins at Cranfield that were doing the deal on 20 hour blocks, not sure if still available so best to give Richard a call to see.

Cheers
Matt

Just back from doing hour building in the States and did 75 hours over the course of a month, the breakdown of the costs is below (the average exchange rate at the time was $1.61 to the £1)



Checkout ride.........................£121.46
C172 for 75 hours dry..............£2,771.81
Fuel.....................................£1,390.09
Landing Fees.........................£25.00
Maps....................................£90.00
Hotel....................................£543.84
Transport/Share of hire car......£25.00
Spending money/Food.............£755.57

Return flight to America ..........£596.05
Other bits and pieces..............£34.00


Total............................£6,352.82

This accounts for every penny (cent) I spent whilst away so if you divided the total cost by 75 hours you get

£6,352.82/75 = £84.70 per hour

or if you look at just the cost of the plane (ie. dry rate plus fuel) that would be

£2771.81 + £1390.09 = £4160.90 divide this by 75 and you get

£4160.90/75 = £55.49 per hour wet for a C172


All in all I think it was a good deal, I got to visit 24 different US States, covered 6465nm and never landed at the same airfield twice (other than the place I picked the plane up from) and only had to pay a landing fee on three occasions.

I had the option of hiring a Robin DR400 in England for £70 per hour wet but once I had factored in the landing fee's at airfields that I wanted to visit and then accommodation for the night it would of easily brought me over the cost I had in America.

In my opinion if you find a good rate in England and are happy to only stray away an hour or so from your home airfield before returning to land (to save landing fees) than England is for you, whereas if you want something a little bit different America might be for you.

I will say that if you went on your own the accommodation cost would go up (I would say double) as I did this trip with friends and therefore the price above is my share of the cost, other than that all of other costs should/would be the same.

Either way... Happy Flying!!

24seven well done mate! Looks like you had a lot of fun over there! :)

I did my hour building for £79 (about a tenner cheaper if you fly to France every day and make use of the duty free fuel) inclusive landing fees etc via a dry lease in a newly refurbished and painted C-152. Great fun, managed to fly from London to Glasgow and back a couple of times as well. The best part of a dry lease is that you have exclusive use of the plane, no sharing or waiting around plus it's only airborne time you pay for.

the company is called big red kite aviation, Keith, the owner, is a decent bloke, it's worth having a chat with him.

regards D-G