The most obvious Q is whether anyone would have enough currency on the type?
It’s doable but depending on whether cost or time is the limiting factor. If you only fly 50-80hrs a year PIC but then fly the same again as a RHS pax you can remain reasonably current. A syndicate could be good for this.
Is recurrent sim training mandatory?
This would be FAA Part 91, and with no recurrent training.
I have come across a number of owners who flew very little, say under 50hrs, and most/all of them had a semi permanent CFI/CFII in the RHS. At that level it gets silly, IMHO.
You will need about double the numbers you are quoting to keep current on that sort of aircraft, I’m flying IRO 80 hours a month and when I get back from two weeks of holiday I feel rusty.
I can’t see how seven hours a month will keep you current to full IR standard.
I think you would need to discuss this with your underwriter?
The ideal business model is that the aircraft flies 500 hours pa and you trade in for a new one every three or four years. These aircraft seem to hold value initially, but then drop off after five years. Working back from this each syndicate member might need to be flying 100-150 hours p.a? It also implies you might want to start with a TBM900. Turbine aircraft needing TLC are a less predictable financial investment.
Having an experienced SET FI as a member might be useful, and while single crew, recurring CRM focusing on type might make sense.
Line training is something the likes of Flight Safety can’t provide, hence having an experienced FI on hand to provide line training seems a good investment.
It would be a TBM700 C2, whose prices are pretty “good” nowadays.
The main reason for doing a syndicate would be to get reasonable use out of the aircraft. For example currently I am doing 180hrs/year. That is a lot by any measure. Say 1/3 of that is local stuff, which one isn’t going to be doing in a TBM (it’s useless for messing about and you can’t get half decent photos out of it). That means that if the rest was done in a TBM (which is 2x faster) it would be 60hrs/year.
In spite of higher cruise speed you won’t do half the hours. You will also fly more so I bet you do more than 120 hours.
In spite of higher cruise speed you won’t do half the hours. You will also fly more so I bet you do more than 120 hours.
+1
For a private plane I think there is a certain flight duration each pilot is willing to accept. The faster the plane the further away one is willing to go for a 100 or 1000 dollar hamburger or a week end vacation. And with an all weather plane the flight hours increase a lot. Less flights get cancelled and as it works out so nicely more trips get planned…
I am no expert but for the TBM all seems to come down to maintenance. These things seem so expensive to maintain and once you own the thing you become a hostage of the manufacturer. So even if they would give them away for free I am not sure I would want to own one.
I don’t get why these aircraft should be so much more demanding than a fast SEP with all the bells and whistles flown at Oxygen levels. The only additional thing is pressurisation, weather radar, and the laggy engine response. The approach speeds are not hugely different, and whether you need to anticipate the descent and slow-down earlier than previously is not much of a muchness.
What am I missing?
Cobalt wrote:
I don’t get why these aircraft should be so much more demanding than a fast SEP with all the bells and whistles flown at Oxygen levels.
Because they are much faster in the terminal area and typically have more complex systems.
