I would have no problem sharing my plane with another pilot – who i like (and that’s the criteria for me). But then – i always gave my car to anybody who needed one :-)
My experience is that the best way to kill my old Piper would be to PARK it for a year or too. I like “wear and tear” by flight much better than the sad picture of a plane rustig in the hangar. After all i didn’t get much more beautiful the last 30 years … What I want to say is that i can accept wear by USEAGE much better than destroy it by not flying it, which is clearly the best way to ruin any airplane.
Yes i see your point but i treat the aircraft with respect. I always allow the engine to properly warm up, i never stand on the seats etc. One of the owners who’s plane i borrow dose not have a medical at the moment so his planes would be in a pretty bad state if they were not flown regularly!
So does any one fancy letting me use their plane? I want to get my hands on something new! 
At the local club, we pay between €2,38 / minute (Archer III, Mogas) and €2.47 / Minute (C172SP) based on actual flight time – it was considered that we would rather have people warming up the engine, taking time doing their preflights than rushing them, leading to possibly dangerous scenarios, trying to save a few euros here and there. Also I rent in UK where I pay around £185 / hour (Hobbs) for a Warrior III or £175 for a C172N, I know where I prefer to rent ;-)
Having said that, I was considering renting from the Rietberger, the only problem is first of all the distance – 80km each way also adds to the cost and secondly, they might appear to have enough aircraft but unfortunately they also have a high number of charterers (around 400, as I was informed). At the local club, I think we have 100 active charterers from our machines so the availability is good enough for me.
Yeah, I flew 0.9 yesterday. I did not have to pay for the plane by the hour – I own it. I did not have to pay a landing fee either, I own the runway. I did not have to drive to the airport, it’s at home.
But, I did have a an hour into cleaning off the plane, and preheating it, and a total of 11 hours of snow clearing of the runway before I could use it. Paying for a costly hour rental, for a warmed up, clean plane, with a cleared runway ahead, was looking pretty good yesterday. But, I’m glad I did it when I did, ’cause there was another 5 inches of snow on the plane this morning, so I cleaned it off again….
I guess there are people I’d let fly my planes without me on board, but I could count on the fingers of one hand the occasions it’s actually happened. There aren’t many of them, and they’re busy flying their own planes.
Both my aircraft have had long periods of inactivity in their past. If I add up the flight hours on both of them and divide by their combined ages, their lifetime usage has averaged 20 hrs each per year. It hasn’t hurt them, mainly due to dry/warm storage and also a lot of care and attention – obviously far more per year than they’ve ever been flown, and for many years before my involvement. Now they get flown a bit more than in the past.
My direct cost for flying averages maybe €30 per hour when converted to that currency. No landing fees or any other fees. Insurance and hangar rent cost whatever they cost (the equivalent of €400/month total) but it’s my lifestyle I’m buying and I’m only going to live a few more decades. I don’t really care what it costs as long as I don’t notice it very much, and enjoy it!
I can use a group owned aircraft (Piper Archer III) for 140 euro (wet) per block hour (brakes off to brakes on). The group consists of 18 other pilots! I get to take this aircraft in the winter time to Africa (I am flying this group Piper instead of the Cirrus SR22T). In the summer time this would not work out, but in the winter most of the pilots in this group would not fly it anyways.
I was private hiring a C150 for £95ph wet plus landing. But the owner has just sold it :(
So completing the checkride on a PA28 Cadet which I can then hire for about £160 wet plus landing and looking to checkride a C172.
If anyone knows of something to private hire at EGBJ, (at a sensible rate) Peter has my email address. Can supply references :)
My co-owned TB10 costs me £95 an hour wet plus £110 a month.
Factor in £300 or so a year for ‘membership’ at EGLM which means no home landing fees.
I only have to fly 1.5 hours per month to make it cheaper then renting a club PA28. Plus the availability is better, the aeroplane is better, better maintained, equipped, etc.
Checked out a few prices around Zurich. All in Euros and only a few samples, I take no responsibility for the figures, just what the Internet research returned..
Zurich:
MFGZ offer a discount payment of €790, after which rent prices are reduced.
C172 normal 266€ per flight hour or 218€ with discount.
PA28 Archer II normal 274€ or 226€ with discount
PA28 Archer III IFR normal 309€ or 262€ with discount.
PA32 Seneca II IFR normal 525€ or 475€ with discount
Birrfeld: Also offers a discount pack of about 400 Euros per year. Also per flight hour.
Super Dimona: normal 135€, with discount 109€
Piper Cadet : normal 213€, with discount 172€
Piper Archer: normal 255€, with discount 209€
Speck Fehraltdorf has a company offering Jodel airplanes for around 157€ per hour.
There are several other clubs around. All of them require membership fees and some useage fees for the airport. All of them have minimum useage rules on per day rent as well as a quota (e.g. 30% of the reservation time needs to be flown or a minimum of 2-3 hours per day, if not flown, the rest time will be added to the bill). Those prices are pretty representative for what is around, with some higher and some lower can be found if one puts an effort into research.
Currently for my Mooney I am calculating with 235 € per hour to achieve break even at 100 hours p.a.
