Advice to become a co-owner

Hi Antonio,

first of all, nice to read a new user here, welcome to the world of General Aviation!

About this proposal which you seem interested in, it is certainly something I have never seen as such. You buy a share in a company who operates a bunch of airplanes and therefore rents you out airplanes? And they ask 25 k for this plus 3.5 p.a. in order to fly, plus variable costs? I don’t know this outfit, no idea how well they do work, but in my book, it does not make much sense to pay this kind of money into a rental company. It sounds too much like a time share or other scheme for me to be attractive.

The other bit: The Cirrus’ they have are N-Reg, that means you need to get a US license validation. I am well aware that in France a huge part of the planes are such, but nevertheless, if you do your PPL in France and also wish to do your IR in France under EASA, then you will need additional paperwork to fly an N-Reg airplane, particularly under IFR. Quite a lot of people do that in this forum so they can tell you what is required.

Personally, I would shy away from something like that and put the money towards my own ride. 25 k will aready buy you a nice VFR tourer in France, for an IFR plane you’d need to calculate maybe from 35k up. But then it’s yours and you can do with it what you please, put the equipment you like and fly it whenever you like.

You won’t get anything remotely approaching a nice DA40 for 35k, however.

I believe that for the 61.75 validation you still have the same issues as for any FAA checkride.

Welcome to EuroGA, AntonioD

Peter,

I recently saw a very nice fully EASA IFR capable F-Reg M20E sold in France for 30k with plenty of time reserve too. Clearly, you won’t get a DA40, but you can get a wide selection of VFR Robins, Pipers, Mooneys and other airframes pretty cheap in France. The only problem is that many of them are N-Reg.

This one here is a quite lovely M20E with low hours and even a 2 axis AP, asking 45k… means you can get it for 40 or even less. It needs Mode S but otherwise would be a perfectly nice VFR tourer.

@AntonioD, we would all hate to kill your enthusiasm, but it would be equally bad if you got yourself into something and later find out it wasn’t the right thing for you.

Before you go ahead you should probably learn more about light aviation than you have had the time to. You’re on EuroGA, so that’s probably a good start!

At the point you’re at, how can you be sure you will really fly 100 hours per year? That is actually quite a lot of flying, although I would really encourage you to actually fly that amount of hours during the 12 months after you get your license so that you can consolidate the hopefully good habits you acquired during your training, and gain in confidence. Before getting into aircraft ownership wouldn’t you want to look around to see what options you would have other than this syndicate?

If you fly 100 hrs per year, and the company does not ask the shareholders for additional financing to pay for incidentals, the hourly price for those airplanes does not sound unreasonable even if you write off your initial investment over 10 years. Just to give you a little bit of perspective, here is a sample of hourly wet rates for aeroclub aircraft at LFPT or other a/d in the Paris area:

You can buy a good, previously owned DA40 G1000 for around 150.000 €. As Mooney_Driver has previously pointed out, although he is incredibly biased towards the Mooneys , you can get single-engine aircraft for a lot less money than that, especially if you do not mind the paint scheme or dated interior. The PA28-181(Archer II) is a very nice aircraft which cruises at 110 KTS with full tanks and 4 POB, and lands on any French runway without fear for the gear, but it is in such demand that it is not very cheap, but may have a good resell value.

And why would you not then set up your own syndicate?

@AntonioD , I share the skepticism towards this “SARL setup” that has been voiced by the previous posters.

It seems to me that your are willing/able to invest about 40k Euro up-front. As mentioned by Mooneydriver, you’ll get a very decent VFR aircraft for this money, including minor works after purchase or a first “catch-up annual”.

Now imagine you have a co-owner: Together you have a budget of 80k Euro. With this you are well in IFR aircraft territory and can choose from a variety of very capable models. Avionics, while the second most expensive item next to the engine, can be retrofitted. With eg. a Commander or a Mooney for – say – 50k Euro and avionics for 30k Euro (meaning 2 used 430 plus an Aspen plus some minor additional work, installation and documentation included) you will have a plane that equals or surpasses a DA40 in every aspect.

Even if you fly 100 hours a year (which would be very much for a private pilot), a group of 2 shouldn’t have availability issues. Me and my co-owner just don’t manage to fly our aircraft for more than 80 hours a year between us two, so even a 3rd partner would be no problem.

In my opinion, aircraft are best bought in small groups of 2 or 3 persons for the best compromise between cost efficiency, availability and personalisation.

Aviathor wrote:

At the point you’re at, how can you be sure you will really fly 100 hours per year? That is actually quite a lot of flying

I agree, that 100 hours are a lot and IF that’s really the case, an own aircraft becomes very interesting. However there are quite some possibilities. One (which is my favorite one) is, to buy an aircraft which is cheap to operate (e. g. a two seater that can even be a microlight or experimental), but which can (maybe) do almost all missions and rent a (club) aircraft for the missions the two seater isn’t capable of. In any case it’s very important from my point of view to first elaborate the ACTUAL missions rather than making (expensive) decisions based on wishful thinking (like travelling whole Europe with the complete family on an all day basis).

europaxs wrote:

In any case it’s very important from my point of view to first elaborate the ACTUAL missions rather than making (expensive) decisions based on wishful thinking (like travelling whole Europe with the complete family on an all day basis).

OTOH the most expensive aircraft is the one you invest in – only to sell it a short time later because you find out you have outgrown it.

I’m very grateful that my co-owner, who had already owned 2 aircraft, steered me away from my initial thought of buying a 2-seater or a more modest 4-seater (PA28, C172). It would be even better if we had bought a F33/35, Commander 114, M20 or the like, however, as we (especially I) are a getting a bit frustrated with the limited IFR potenial of our ST-10 (200 hp NA, no de-ice, limited AP options) by now.

As a 100% owner since 2002 I would of course agree with much of the above

And I have helped and encouraged a lot of people buy into ownership.

However, ownership is a significant learning curve. Only the individual will know for sure if he/she wants to go up this curve. Actually I would ask about his/her background e.g. IT, engineering, because believe it or not this is highly relevant. If you cannot even check the tyre pressures in your car, forget it…

And if “you” don’t want to go up the curve, setting up a syndicate helps with this only if the other person knows / does something useful. I know of syndicates which were formed purely to get enough money together – because that’s all that most people have in mind. That does not work. It also does not work in business (you need complementary skills, and money is not a “skill” which is why “sleeping partners” are invariably a disaster in the long term) but that’s another story…

Even if the other person is very qualified to do the maintenance, and this has been agreed, he is going to get seriously p1ssed off if you just jump in and fly it. Well, unless there is some favour going the other way.

I would also caution a non-technical person (which may or may not be the case here) against buying something too old. That Mooney is 1965! It may have been lovingly looked after, it could be completely shagged, or anything in between. That sort of thing is fine for an experienced owner who has a trusted “team” in place to do the necessary work. Now, 2015, I could buy a 1982 TB20 for say €40k and bring it up to a top standard (another €100k but that’s not the point). Would I have been able to do this in 2002? No way, and I am an engineer and have been tinkering with mechanics since the age of 5.

The suggestions really need to be geared to the person’s desires and ability.

Incidentally, how much is the share in just the DA40?

An interesting setup and an attractive blend of aircraft types.

“Wrt availability, 30 co-owners each flying 50 hrs/y means 1500 hrs flown on the fleet of 5 aircraft.”

I would guess that a proportion of those pilots will participate more to be owners of an attractive and diverse fleet, than to fly affordably, and so would not fly 50 hrs/y. Pilots flying 50+ hrs are more likely to want their own personal plane.

Based on my experience/knowledge, I would not shy away from the project from fear of poor availability.