Flying is a fantastic life skill. Whatever your reasons for starting your training, what will you do with your licence once you qualify?
If you're very lucky, your school may allow you to rent your training aircraft after you qualify so the process of continuing to fly will be seamless.
School aircraft are expensive to buy and run and the opportunity cost of you renting the aircraft is a lost hour of training revenue.
So you may find yourself having to find another aircraft to fly.
Do you buy your own aircraft? buy into an existing syndicate? setup your own syndicate?
Regardless of your decision, you might want to consider the actual cost of running your aircraft once you've bought it (or bought into a syndicate).
Top tip: once you've worked out the cost, don't tell your missus!
When I qualified as a PPL(G), my school decided they weren't making enough money from running the aircraft and were going to sell the gyro.
It was listed for sale on afors.com (check out https://afors.com/autogyros/for-sale/United-Kingdom ) and I was left with the choice of buying it/giving up/finding another aircraft to fly.
I knew The Management wouldn't sign-off on me buying the aircraft outright but, if I could find another pilot willing to start a syndicate, maybe I could become a joint owner and find a way to run it sensibly so we wouldn't find ourselves having to stump up chunks of cash for unexpected expenses.
Long story short, I bought the aircraft with Gary 9-Fingers (G-9F to his mates) and we lived happily ever after.
Helpfully, the school gave us a spreadsheet similar to the attached, which laid out the ongoing fixed and variable costs we would need to cover.
HSBC were offering a Community Account to groups of individuals setting up clubs. Perfect!
We setup the Echo Whisky Operating Account, paid in enough cash to buy the aircraft and, importantly, left a large enough balance to cover the costs we might expect in the next few months. The first of which was a couple of jerry cans each.
Based on an estimate of how many hours the two of us expected to fly each year, we divi'd the total expenses and agreed an hourly rate we'd each credit to the account as we flew the aircraft. And we setup standing orders to cover hangarage and insurance during those months we weren't flying.
Debit cards on the account enabled us to fill our jerry cans so we'd always arrive at the airfield with enough fuel to go flying and to leave an agreed level in the tank.
Six years later we sold the aircraft. Not because we fell out, but Gary was not flying and I wanted to buy a new training aircraft.
Our hourly rate had included an allowance for the big ticket items (a new engine) we might have to buy as we racked-up the hours, so we'd accumulated a healthy Sinking Fund which made up the difference between the purchase price and our selling price. We each walked away with the same chunk of money we'd contributed when we originally bought the aircraft.
You hear horror stories of syndicates that don't work. Make sure you go into this process with your eyes wide open. Be mindful of the frequency and magnitude of the costs involved and, if you are setting up a syndicate, get everyone to sign-up to a Syndicate Agreement (think of it as a pre-nup).
Gary and I arranged all of this over a spreadsheet and a handshake. And I count myself very lucky still to call him my friend.
Ownership is a big subject and the above barely scratches the surface.
Don't hesitate to comment on this post and maybe we can start a discussion that will benefit the rest of the BRA Community.
Regards,
Clive
