As far as I understand, there is such a concept in the US, where you get checked out by a CFI on a given airplane (let’s say a C172) and you can afterwards use all C172 that are in this system, all over the US. I’ve read an article about this some time ago but forgot the name…
- The reason you own (and do not rent) the plane in the first place is because you want to use it when you want (even on short notice).
I think it goes even further than that. I’m not an owner, but I think that if I was, one important point is that nobody else has flown the aircraft. So it’s a 100% known quantity. If the engine doesn’t make TBO it’s not because some other pilot mishandled it. If the nose wheel collapses, it’s not because some other pilot had a hard landing and said nothing.
If the interior is dirty, it’s not because someone else was careless.
I think there is something about knowing that nobody else has flown your aircraft and knowing that someone else hasn’t had a mishap in it and said nothing.
WingsWaterAndWheels wrote:
As far as I understand, there is such a concept in the US
Yes, there is, but as far as I know, these are school aircraft. They are run for a profit, and aren’t anyone’s personal “pride and joy”.
lionel wrote:
I saw one such network for the US some time ago.
Yep – and they aren’t around anymore. The idea was to give you a really thorough checkout, akin to a checkride and then you could waltz into any of the participating FBOs and go fly. I can’t remember the name and don’t know what killed the idea, but I suspect it was insufficient uptake.
I think it was OpenAirplane, who shut down in 2019
Capitaine wrote:
I think it was OpenAirplane, who shut down in 2019
This is exactly the kind of platform… It doesn’t specifically state why it shut down. Implicitly sounds like low demand despite a decent fleet size having signed up (from the rental side of platform)?
A lot of the above issues could be bridged though:
So it sounds more like there is a reluctance for aircraft owners to sign up and “give up” their asset vs. demand from potential renters.
172driver wrote:
but I suspect it was insufficient uptake.
Yup, and after reading the blog post it sounds like I was right. In reality, I think the market for pilots who want to rent far from their home base is minuscule, even in a big place like the US. If you really want to do a local (most likely scenic) flight somewhere, you just go up with an instructor.
High end rental is tricky. I rented out my then new TB20 2002-2006. I have posted about some of the challenges before e.g. here. If one was to summarise in one sentence, the main problem is that most of those who you would regard as good enough to rent your nice plane have already got one.
The plane will also get shagged pretty fast. That’s ok if you run it as a business, but not if it is your personal plane.
dublinpilot wrote:
I think there is something about knowing that nobody else has flown
Absolutely!
In German we say “Things starting with F you don’t rent out (Flugzeuge, Füllfederhalter, Frauen, …)” only very badly translated with “things with p: Planes, Pens and Pals”
dublinpilot wrote:
So it’s a 100% known quantity. If the engine doesn’t make TBO it’s not because some other pilot mishandled it. If the nose wheel collapses, it’s not because some other pilot had a hard landing and said nothing.If the interior is dirty, it’s not because someone else was careless.
I think there is something about knowing that nobody else has flown your aircraft and knowing that someone else hasn’t had a mishap in it and said nothing.
I think those questions can be adressed easily, why not have an EDM-930 & G-meter and price including a monthly cleaning fee?
This was the case for a non-equity Cirrus near London (joke: I doubt anyone in “Cirrus groups” is smart & techy enough to fiddles with fuel totalisers, engine data or g-force data…most will just pay & fly pressing buttons without getting their hands dirty 
)
