arj1 wrote:
Are you legally allowed to put five people into a four-seater? It’s a genuine question!
When I owned TB20 I registered it as a 4-seater because of lower insurance fee and the fact that I didn’t have any mission for 5 people. Regardless the fact that 5th seat and seatbelt were readily available on board, accorrding to our CAA I wasn’t able to legally use it.
arj1 wrote:
Are you legally allowed to put five people into a four-seater? It’s a genuine question!
AFAIK yes, as long as it’s the factory-installed fifth-seat option available on some Cessnas.
UdoR wrote:
Other than that a real six seater won’t work out for a club.
It’s a bit of a catch-22 situation. If you only have relatively slow 4-seaters then people don’t go on longer trips. OTOH if you do have a six-seat touring airplane, not many people fly it. Our club had a C210, but for most pilots it was too much airplane to handle, so it didn’t fly that much. However those who did fly it took it on sometimes week-long touring trips. I was one of a handful who really used it – best SEP ever made!. If I was in the market for a SEP, that’s what I would get.
UdoR wrote:
This is for that one hour flight with 2 adults and three kids. Should work!
Are you legally allowed to put five people into a four-seater? It’s a genuine question!
With small kids it’s not so hopeless in a Cessna 172 as it looks. There exists a child bench as third row.
This is for that one hour flight with 2 adults and three kids. Should work!
Other than that a real six seater won’t work out for a club. It’s just too expensive. 55% fly solo, 40% training, that’s 2 POB. Don’t nail the numbers, but it’s in that ballpark.
I found out that we actually have an aircraft in the club with seating available for six. But it’s never ever been used for this. It’s our tow plane, a Maule 235.
Oh, and of course PA-27 is MEP, not SEP
Yes six seats are occasionally useful. In my case more typically five.
For a club mission, however, I don’t think a 210 is the right aircraft: a club will not do good use of a travelling machine.
A PA-32 will be a cheaper and simple option for medium/short trips, as well as providing a more comfortable cabin for three-four adult backseaters. It is to be expected that individual club members will not be using such an expensive aircraft recurrently so better to keep it simple.
I only know of one club in Spain with that capability and it is ACBS with their PA-27. I occasionally see it offloading 4-6 people at LESB. A reasonable 333EUR/h price for a five-hour block or else 353/384EUR/h on weekdays/weekends.
I had some requests like that, but I have to admit it is some “specific” mission.
I have many friends with two or more children, and have repeatedly been asked if I could carry families of four or five in my plane. A six seater would certainly come in handy for that, especially as three adults and three Kindergarten age children should not bust MTOW usually.
We are also part of a group of friends who spent a yearly holiday week together, typically with between six and eight families. This year we were 24. I have also been asked several times if I could charter (and fly) a plane big enough to carry all of us…
The club that owns an Elixir told me they sold their only 4-seater (a 172) because it did on average 7 flights per year with 4 POB.
They now only have 2 and 3-seaters (Elixir and APM20/30), 100% rotax and burning only mogas.
Some complained but the club flight hours stayed the same.
To me, it looks like the future of clubs instead of six-seaters 
While the 206/210 are very fine it may be useful for passengers to compare the third row seating of the PA32 with a 206? The carburettor PA-32-260 may even enjoy a Mogas STC making it about the cheapest to operate. It also has a better useful load than the -300. As long as you don’t plan to fly above FL80 I understand they are an honest six place 125KTAS tourer. A lot of charter operators used the PA32, although the 206 was tougher in the bush – the 208 came along.
