Does anyone have experience with being a member of a flying club? After researching the rental rate prices they seem comparable to renting from a school. Is the advantage of joining one of the these flying clubs the fact you have a better change for rental availability given students rent the majority at a school?are there any other benefits to joining flying clubs these days?
I was a member of a club for 14 years, from 2004-2018, and I was on the board of directors for most of that. It was always a three-airplane, 30-member club, but at the beginning it was two Archers and a 182, at the end it was a newer and much nicer Archer, an R182 (RG), and a G1000 DA40. That is still their fleet now, but the Archer is about to go in for a very nice glass panel upgrade.
Let me start by saying, there are many things that people call "clubs" and they are different. Some have one plane, some have over 40!* Some are nothing more than block time schemes at a flight school or FBO, some are a guy who owns an airplane who wants to make a buck, some are really just an aircraft shared ownership deal, and some are "real" clubs with their own airplanes, and you may or may not actually own a part of them. For what it's worth, the club I was in is an equity club, where 30 members all own shares in the corporation which in turn owns the airplanes.
When I joined the club, it was $120/mo, when I left it was $180/mo but we had much newer nicer airplanes. In both cases there was a "flying credit", $40/mo at the beginning, $50/mo at the end - That much flying time was counted in your dues. It was enough to at least get out and go around the pattern a few times, but if you didn't use it in a particular month you lost it. It was there to encourage currency and proficiency. We also billed everything by tach time (not Hobbs) and gave people credit for buying cheap fuel when they were away from base. Hourly costs were baked into hourly rates, and fixed costs into the monthly dues.
Throughout, as long as you flew about 4 hours a month on average, you came out ahead financially compared to renting, and you were in MUCH nicer airplanes than were available for rent.
What it did for me as a pilot, though, was priceless. Availability was fantastic, I think there was only one time in 14 years where I wanted to go fly but no airplanes were available. I was also able to take the planes on trips, the longest of which was 19 days. I flew club planes from our Wisconsin base to the east coast, west coast, and gulf coast. I landed at the highest and lowest airports in the US. I landed on pavement, grass, and gravel. I took a mountain & backcountry flying course. I landed in about 35 states. All of that experience made me a FAR better pilot - Getting well away from your home base is the best way to learn without a CFI aboard. And there were an awful lot of amazing adventures along the way.
And yes, there is a social aspect to clubs as well, some more so than others.
Finally, being on the board allowed me to learn an awful lot about aircraft ownership before I ever had my own airplane. I stayed in the club and on the board for another 6 years afterwards anyway, just to give back and help others have the great experience I had in the club.
Yes, I highly recommend joining a club, if it's the right club for you. Find a club that has planes you want to fly (and hopefully some you can grow into) and has rates you can afford. Ask to see their flight schedule to gauge availability - 10 members per plane works well when you have three planes, but not as well with a single plane - And I know of clubs with one airplane and 40+ members, but often clubs like that have low dues and lots of members that rarely, if ever, fly and are merely there for the social aspects. Ask about their finances, and what happens if a plane crashes, or an engine needs an overhaul, or the club goes belly up. Ask whether it's an equity club. Ask to see their bylaws and SOPs. Ask what the process is for joining, and for leaving! And if it all sounds generally good to you, go for it!
* True story. The two biggest clubs I know of have 41 (Aspen Flying Club) and 57 (West Valley Flying Club).
