Besides asking people around you, how do you find planes to rent and fly?
What are the exact keywords you use if you use Google or a search engine?
I tried to search for “rent a plane” but a lot of charters come up and I think there are better words for it, like time building and location.
Too bad we don’t have too many flying clubs in Europe like they have in the States.
Laurent_N wrote:
Besides asking people around you, how do you find planes to rent and fly?
I usually find all the schools around me and then check those.
Another options is to ask, as you’ve already pointed out.
Laurent_N wrote:
What are the exact keywords you use if you use Google or a search engine?
I tried to search for “rent a plane”
add a make – piper for rent or cessna for rent etc..
Not sure if that works where you are, but there are several Facebook groups for that. I hate FB, but for stuff like that the groups there are actually quite useful.
Just typed « flight school romania » in my search engine, and had a few returns.
Re the US, you probably mean FBOs, or flight schools… of which there are probably more to the square mile in Central Europe than in the US. In Switzerland for instance, there is a flight school, or club, on almost every field.
As a practical exercise, assuming you are using SD, zoom on the country you are looking for, pick the airfield you are interested in, and go to the Airfields Admin Information tab. There usually is a link to the fields homepage, or use your search engine, to find more about the place.
Good hunting 
@Laurent_N wrote:- Too bad we don’t have too many flying clubs in Europe like they have in the States.
Please don’t do what many seem to do on here and equate your region with the whole of Europe.
In France there are some 600 aéroclubs affiliated to the FFA. There are also clubs (I couldn’t tell you off hand how many) who are non affiliated. I will not mention the ULM clubs affiliated to FFPLUM or the clubs affiliated to the RSA for experimentals, home builts, kit builts, aircraft of special interest.
At many of these an aircraft for hours building could be negotiated.
There are also a number of companies which have aircraft for hire.
However, they have one thing in common they all have the aircraft that suits them and that aircraft model might not be the type you are after.
Secondly to get a deal on say sole usage for a period of time you would have to commit to an agreed number of hours over a specific period.
The more hours you commit to the better the deal you can negotiate. This is often the procedure here either inter club rentals or clubs and ATOs hiring in for the summer.
It seems to me that Sweden also has a number of clubs.
Agreed we perhaps don’t have as many clubs as the USA but we do have a fair few in Europe.
Thank you very much for your suggestions.
Do you think it would be a good idea to create a list of all places I can find where people could find planes to rent? Something like a big flying club.
I noticed there were other people with the same problem in other groups.
@gallois I know that France has a strong general aviation. Yes, that is true, the more hours you buy the better is the price, but the commitment can be risky if things don’t go well (plane too much in maintenance, incidents, overhaul and so on).
@Dan thank you very much! I did this in the past, but I was very surprised to find some ads on Instagram for renting a plane at the airport where I did my PPL. I couldn’t find the company on Google, just that Instagram. There are some plane owners that would like to make some money by renting the plane (not part of a school or FBO – btw – how are the FBO called in Europe?). Great idea with the Skydemon, however info is pretty much old, new companies are not there.
@ivark that’s how I would search but as a marketing person and someone that has done a lot of SEO I found that most companies have bad SEO on their websites :)
@172driver yeah, Facebook groups are the best part of Facebook, if you’re not into cat pictures.
@arj1 yes, flight schools are the main renter here as well. But from my experience you can find better deals sometimes from private people renting their planes, however not 100% reliable (they have just one plane, if it is in maintenance, no flight that time).
Laurent_N wrote:
arj1 yes, flight schools are the main renter here as well. But from my experience you can find better deals sometimes from private people renting their planes, however not 100% reliable (they have just one plane, if it is in maintenance, no flight that time).
I’m afraid even with the schools it is the same – if they have a choice of cancelling a renter or a student due to an aircraft failure, they are most likely to cancel renter (for many reasons, not just money).
And re: Googling – try to add something like ‘-charter’ – meaning exclude charter.
arj1 wrote:
I’m afraid even with the schools it is the same – if they have a choice of cancelling a renter or a student due to an aircraft failure, they are most likely to cancel renter (for many reasons, not just money).
I know, I had several flights canceled in the last months, 3 of them in the last 2 weeks because of the 3 identical aircrafts are in maintenance (or probably higher priorities than a renter).arj1 wrote:
And re: Googling – try to add something like ‘-charter’ – meaning exclude charter.
To make it clear – I am considering building a website to make it easier for people to find schools. Yes, charters come up a lot!
