Namark

Folks, this is not an advertising, but rather an idea that I have been thinking about for some time. I like to hear airline pilots / retired or close to retirement give feedback on this.

Spent some time with a retired United captain, and he mentioned the lack of good airplanes available for personal missions / flying.

We wer not talking about Cessna 172 or Cherokees or standard single engine less than 200 knots airplane. We were talking something that will get a retired airline pilot excited about flying again.

So here is an idea:

Forming an Alumni Aviation Club, probably nonprofit, and purchasing Navajo Chieftan, King Air, and Citation Jet. In these aircrafts, DRY direct operating cost is from $400-1,000 respectively. Hence, for the club members who would have to have TONS of hours to qualify for insurance purposes, it is just add fuel cost to dry cost number.

This will allow folks with tons of hours, retired captains, and long time aviators to enjoy real machinery without the cost of ownership.

Assuming we got insurance, and other issues worked out (I think we will). WHAT IS YOUR TAKE on this idea. Would you consider joining such club ?

CaptainCarl

Training costs for the type rating in any aircraft over twelve-five is one of the main detriments I can think of.

On top of that, scheduling, maintaining, positioning and repositioning, etc. Lots of factors that get in the way of a club on the scale you're talking about. Better to have a tighter knit partnership with a few owners who all live in the same geographical area.

But don't let me slow you down, if you can figure out a way to make it work and make it easy, I'd think about joining.

Namark

Thank you so much for candid feedback. All of the birds listed are just shy of 12,500. Insurance does not require much of very high time captains. You can get an 1 hour checkout and go. Assuming you get rating worked out. I thought about having CFI do it for club members. That is definitely the large obstacle but not impossible. King does not require type neither does Navajo. CJ is different a bit. Again THANKS FOR FEEDBACK just what i wanted to hear. P.S. If one works, more areas can open up. I just hate that there is no fast planes available for rent anywhere where I live.

CaptainCarl

Ah, right, I was thinking about the big King Airs (former 1900 driver, so when I think Beech, that's where my mind is). If it's as simple as a quick checkout and a little bit of ground school, sign me up. There's always a group of friends looking to escape to the beach for the weekend, but the biggest thing I can find is an Aztec which the owner doesn't like to let out of the hangar overnight.

Honestly, the scheduling is an easy obstacle with the myriad of options available today. The maintenance can be accomplished fairly simply if one or more of the members is an A&P (working on it ) and someone has an IA. Other than that, not a whole lot of repositioning would be necessary if the airplanes are based at one airport for each individual "branch" of the club.

What's the upfront cost of this idea? Would you lease or buy the planes? What would you do with them in their idle time, lease them out?

Namark

This is exactly how the idea started and why. if you flew heavy iron, aztec is just not safe enough. Another issue for me, i want single engine climb performance and I want to be above weather. There is no Pressurized nicely equipped planes for rent PERIOR.

Logistics: The planes in question are bargains today. Will be bought out right by club. Positioning - Local club local flights but here is what I am trying to avoid and hate about rentals.. so this is all new.

If we keep 20:1 ratio of captains to planes then everyone can schedule. There will be no minimum's to rent. I.e. 3 day vacation in Bahamas you only pay flight time. So repositioning is mute point. I expect 20 airline alumni's can schedule around each other vacations. If really really needed then we can have time builder CFI local wanna fly guy do free repositioning flight. From scheduling I look at it more like vacation time share except there is no buy in cost. Dues could be kept to $400 per year to help with small admin costs. and you simply pay for hours dry + gas. Checkout is an hour, and if you had recent time in type (1 hour) there is no check out. Worked that out. The real issue is cost. These are expensive to maintain hence dry/hour price is up there. Free time of plane: Plan to lease back to couple of local companies as backup planes for their fleet. Again if this works on local scale... then it can be replicated in other areas. I love flying and i think the people who left the airline job have NO options.