@etn Snoopy @Peter @Ibra thank you for details.
@Ibra I never considered SEP AOC. I always thought about SET. What is “owner arrangement”? And last question – is there any way to find out how hard would it be to set up a FOCA or DGAC AOC?
By the way, this is the best community I’ve been part of, thank you everybody for your answers!
Back to buying : the pre-buy inspection is best done by the guy/organisation who will do your annual. Never by the seller’s guy.
Laurent_N wrote:
And last question – is there any way to find out how hard would it be to set up a FOCA or DGAC AOC?
Why not pursue an AOC with your local CAA? I’d assume the fees in Romania to be way less than in Switzerland or France.
Snoopy wrote:
Why not pursue an AOC with your local CAA? I’d assume the fees in Romania to be way less than in Switzerland or France.
I asked just because Ibra recommended to set up the AOC with FOCA with Pilatus or DGAC with Daher. I am very far away from that, but was just curious.
Maoraigh wrote:
Back to buying : the pre-buy inspection is best done by the guy/organisation who will do your annual. Never by the seller’s guy.
That’s in the happy situation where I could find a plane close to the guy/organisation who will do the annual. But most of the planes I find are in other countries. I don’t know how to handle this (other than getting someone from the organisation with me when seeing the plane).
I never considered SEP AOC. I always thought about SET. What is “owner arrangement”? And last question – is there any way to find out how hard would it be to set up a FOCA or DGAC AOC?
I was told you need more just an aircraft, probably 10 people: 7 admin people (with good CV) and 3 flying people (PIC, TRI, TRE), these guys fly TBM850 & PC12
From the website: After 10 years of making you travel, VOLDIRECT is ceasing its activity as an air operator.
probably 10 people
Not for a SEP AOC. I know of UK cases. For SEP AOC, pleasure flights A-A, zero extra staff (the whole setup was just 2 people). For MEP charter, you need a few “occupied posts”, which in one case I know was solved by putting the wife’s name on a plate on a door, etc, for when the CAA “team” visited. The room was empty and door locked the rest of the time.
It is the same if setting up a Part M company. You need a bunch of daughters and you appoint these to various posts. Then you can run the company out of a back of a van. Yes, an actual case.
AOC requirements vary a lot. In southern Europe they are a lot easier than higher up. Read up on the famous Cork twin TP crash. In Africa, someone I knew ran a 747 cargo (and sometimes pilgrims to Mecca) operation, with 5 people on the ground. I guess he did have an AOC.
Peter wrote:
Getting well off topic now I will change the thread title a bit.
That’s a good way to assure threads stay on topic 
Looking at how the thread has “evolved” 
I think it leads to one single solution: CPL-H. At least in Norway, there is no longer any market for small companies doing operations with airplanes. Lot’s of smaller helicopter companies though, one pilot, one helicopter is not unusual. Looked at the numbers some years ago, and in Norway we have 13 times the density of helicopter pilots compared with the USA.
In later years, even that is getting tight, as drones eats into stuff that previously could only be done with a helicopter. They won’t replace cargo/people transport along with a few other things anytime soon though
The only other way is to become an FI in a club (pretty much independent and self sufficient), but that is more of a hobby than a job for the purpose of making a living.
Nowadays an FI doesn’t need a CPL. Only EASA CPL theory exam passes.
Re. Pre-buy. We paid our CAA Annual guy to go from Inverness to Bodmin in Cornwall to do our pre-buy. We made a profit on what he found when we bought the plane. (726 road miles.)
