Another flight school closing down?

[happyflyer]

Looks like a flight scool I trained at in allegan michigan is unable to pay the bills and soon their creditors will be liquidating all of there assets, sure was a sad day for me to see this online, http://www.orbitbid.com/items.cfm?auction=2053&category=0&location=0&page=2, but maybe now someone lookicould get their ng to buy an airplane for cheap.........

 

[LDJones]

Sad, indeed. But did you look at the engine hours?? 3,900 on one Warrior and 3,500 on a 172?! Can those be right??

 

[Tom-D]

Sad, indeed. But did you look at the engine hours?? 3,900 on one Warrior and 3,500 on a 172?! Can those be right??

inspect and repair as necessary.. time continues

 

[LDJones]

inspect and repair as necessary.. time continues

I understand that....but double TBO without getting to the point of actually doing an overhaul seems pretty amazing. I guess they used good oil and changed it religiously!

 

[happyflyer]

I agree that it is sad but I havn't flown out there in a couple of years because of the high time, and to be honest I was kinda shocked the time smoh was that low. The guy has owned the place for 6 years and the only aircraft to get new engines was the 180, his personal airplane after the engine failed, and the arrow after it had an engine fail. The rest of the airplanes had a cylinder or two replaced whenever the compression got low.

 

[ajstoner21]

The flight school I learned to fly at went out of business too. Its a tough business.

 

[Tom-D]

I understand that....but double TBO without getting to the point of actually doing an overhaul seems pretty amazing. I guess they used good oil and changed it religiously!

Oil has nothing to do with it, they could have changed every part in the engine using new parts and signed it off as a repair.

 

[Dan Thomas]

Flight school engines can last a long time, simply because they're flown regularly and corrosion doesn't have a chance to set in. Airplanes rot whether they're flying or not; a low engine TSOH really doesn't mean much if the airplane flies ten hours a year.

We run seven airplanes in a flight school. six of them have Lycomings, and we replace them at TBO because the On-Condition program in Canada for commercial aircraft requires some extra ongoing work during the life of the engine even before TBO, and if you do all the stuff as laid out it can become a saw-off in terms of savings. All of these Lycs end up with compressions in the high 70s and no metal in the filters when we take them off for replacement. They'd make fine homebuilt engines except for the huge core charge against them.

Dan

 

[Richard]

The flight school I learned to fly at went out of business too. Its a tough business.

Maybe it is a tough business. But there is big money to be made too. And that attracts some real slimey characters. So when I hear of "another flight school closing down" I'm not apt to shed any tears.

 

[AdamZ]

I flew with Ed in that Arrow to 6Y9er

 

[schmookeeg]

Maybe it is a tough business. But there is big money to be made too. And that attracts some real slimey characters. So when I hear of "another flight school closing down" I'm not apt to shed any tears.

Neat. Which of the Forbes 500 were Flight School tycoons again?

 

[ajstoner21]

Maybe it is a tough business. But there is big money to be made too. And that attracts some real slimey characters. So when I hear of "another flight school closing down" I'm not apt to shed any tears.

Where is the big money hiding in flight training and plane rental?

I've heard that in order to make a small fortune, you gotta start with a large one.

 

[weilke]

The only 'big money' in flight schools is in the prepaid tuition scams. Lease a fancy facility, call it 'jet-somethingandtheother' and offer 'guaranteed interviews' with a regional airline. On average, there are 200 suckers who will write you a $100k cheque before the ponzi scheme blows up. Rinse and repeat.

 

[Dan Thomas]

There are a few flight schools making money. Aviation Consumer recently had an article on it; they're the outfits that rent brand-new Cirruses and Corvalises and so on, and charge 30% more than the competition. They offer high-quality flight training. It's all aimed at the upscale market, guys with lotsa money and who aren't impressed with the usual ratty FBO airplanes. These fancy schools have exotic cars in the parking lot. The upscale market is small and will only support a few such schools, though, and only near major centers.

Dan

 

[weilke]

There are a few flight schools making money. Aviation Consumer recently had an article on it; they're the outfits that rent brand-new Cirruses and Corvalises and so on, and charge 30% more than the competition. They offer high-quality flight training. It's all aimed at the upscale market, guys with lotsa money and who aren't impressed with the usual ratty FBO airplanes. These fancy schools have exotic cars in the parking lot. The upscale market is small and will only support a few such schools, though, and only near major centers.

Dan

I have doubts about the profitability of even those schools. A lot of the 'renting new aircraft' model is built on someone else eating the horrid depreciation on the fleet.

 

[Dr. O]

Local pilot bought a Warrior from a flight school with 2700 SMOH... He flew it nearly every day to ~3400 hours... It finally stuck a valve and he decided to go with a factory overhaul (exchange) rather than a top over haul since he planned on putting another 3K hours on it... After they had the engine off they pulled a rod cap and a main bearing cap to take a look... The A&P working with him said the bottom end still met service limits and would have been good to go with a fresh set of cylinders... He told me if it had been his airplane he would have sent the cylinders out for inspection, new valve seats and guides, new rings, and put it back in service - and he expected the bottom end to go a minimum 5000 hours before needing fresh bearings IF it continues to be flown every day...

As others have said, it is sitting and dry starts that eats up engines... An engine that flies every day will often double TBO with a bit of TLC...

denny-o

 

[wabower]

Or to paraphrase Cookie Rojas' quote about baseaball, "leaseabacks hab been berry berry good to me."

I have doubts about the profitability of even those schools. A lot of the 'renting new aircraft' model is built on someone else eating the horrid depreciation on the fleet.

 

[Everskyward]

Maybe it is a tough business. But there is big money to be made too. And that attracts some real slimey characters. So when I hear of "another flight school closing down" I'm not apt to shed any tears.

I don't know about the big money but I will agree about the slimy characters. And the big egos. Of course this does not apply to all flight schools or aviation businesses but I have seen my share of them.

 

[Anthony]

Or to paraphrase Cookie Rojas' quote about baseaball, "leaseabacks hab been berry berry good to me."

Cookie Rojas played for the Phillies when I was a kid. I don't remember him saying that, but I remember Chico Escuela saying it on SNL.

 

[wabower]

He played for the Royals for a while at the end of his career and became quite popular as an after-dinner speaker. He hung out with George Brett, who was a good friend when we lived in KC, and played golf with us at the mens club. Funny guy. I never did know who stole the line, but heard Cookie say it first.

Cookie Rojas played for the Phillies when I was a kid. I don't remember him saying that, but I remember Chico Escuela saying it on SNL.

 

[kevin182]

Actually, I bought one of those Allegan airplanes, 2515U was my prize. The engine has 3600 hours or so SMOH (which was actually a replacement). I've put 100 hours on it since I flew her home on 1Nov11. The engine is solid. It doesn't burn oil, the compressions are all good , no corrosion, and I get about 8gph. She drips a little bit of oil, but it's less than a teaspoon a week.
Just completed the annual which ran me nearly 3K because the trim cable from the wheel to bulkhead was frayed and needed replacement and the NAV light potentiometer went TU for the nav light portion.
The mechanic from Allegan did my inspection at his new place of employment.
I've flown her all over the place. She gets exercised regularly.
As with any training airplane, it's a bit beat up on the inside and had some hanger rash. So, I had the nose cowling fixed and repainted by Flying Colors in Benton Harbor. I bought and installed a new trim wheel shroud from Piper Plastics. This winter she will get a new door seal and door plastics. Gotta replace the #2 radio because the comm side frequency modulator is shot.