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I don’t know about you but I love flying but just can’t seem to get the time to get up as often as I would like. It’s a combination of cost, time and not enough seats that keeps many of us on the ground when we’d rather be in the air.
Like many on DownWind I have a PPL but I’m only endorsed on aircraft that can realistically carry three people. The fact that I have a wonderful wife and three kids just compounds the flying problem. Getting endorsed on a six seater is a nightmare that costs thousands of dollars and at the end of which hiring one is often a tough job.
 As a PPL I have two wishes in life. Someone to solve the above problem so that 6 seater aircraft are more accessible to private pilots at a reasonable cost. My second desire is to effectively own my own aircraft. What do I mean by effectively?
I’m more interested in flying rather than remembering to pay airservices because I landed somewhere or the fact that the plane needs a hundred hourly maintenance check. These things all just get in the way of enjoying a good flight.
I’ve looked a fractional ownership which in my opinion is a euphemism for fractional friendships. This is where multiple people have partial ownership of an aircraft. So not only do you now have to keep airservices happy you now need to keep track of who paid what when and how much does someone owe because they didn’t pay on the required date. Nightmare!
What I really want is to be able to drop some money on the table and buy a membership in aircraft. I haven’t really calculated out the numbers but say pay between $30,000-$50,000 for the membership plus an annual fee gives you a discounted flying rate in a clean, fully maintained aircraft. It also means that I can sell my membership at a later date. Sort of like timeshare but for flying.
I know that they do this in the USA with corporate jets but I would really like to see it here. I hate having to hire a different aircraft every time I want to fly and wouldn’t it be great if the membership included things like ensuring the plane was checked out (yes, we still need to do our own walk around and check the dailies), fuelled to requirements, your flight plan submitted on your behalf and by the way here’s the weather that will impact the flight. When you drop the aircraft off, you toss the keys to the attendant and they fill out all the necessary paperwork for your account to be billed.
I had a friend of mine go to hire an aircraft and it took him an hour just to get access to it because it was buried up the back by other planes. My impression of many places where you hire aircraft is that they’ve forgotten the basics of customer service and the fact that a PPL is about to spend several thousand dollars on their passion.
I want my own plane but without the hassles….can anyone help out?
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I've only just started learning but can already see the issue of the limited available of good 6 seat aircraft in my future. (like yourself I have a wife and 3 kids I want to take for a fly.)