Flying club question

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poadeleted3

Pattern Altitude
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Mar 2, 2005
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Probably not enough info to get a good answer, but I'm curious about something:

How good/bad a ratio is 10 owners to 1 Cessna 177B Cardinal? I don't have any info about how much the others fly.
 
My club has 105 members and 6 airplanes. It's not too bad really. But I'm speaking of my renting experiences in the winter. I have yet to fly this spring.

That is 17.5 members per airplane.
 
It really depends on how often people fly.

If all 10 pilots have day jobs and want to fly on the weekend, it can be kinda tight to schedule.

If you have a good mix of weekday and weekend fliers, it can be good.
 
Seems to me that a guideline I once heard was 8-10 members per plane. That takes into account the average that folks fly, as there are always some members who fly a lot and some who fly little.

It will, of course, depend on the type of plane, as trainers are usually more in demand on a daily basis than XC birds, but XC birds are more in demand on weekends and holidays. Also, 10 pilots and one plane is not as flexible as 100 pilots and 10 planes. But as an overall guideline, I think that gives you a pretty good idea of how available the plane(s) will be -- less than 8:1, pretty easy (although maybe not financially viable); more than 10:1, tough.
 
Joe Williams said:
Probably not enough info to get a good answer, but I'm curious about something:

How good/bad a ratio is 10 owners to 1 Cessna 177B Cardinal? I don't have any info about how much the others fly.
Click to expand...

That one gets the usual aviation answer of "it depends". If there are fair rules for scheduling and use, 10 to 1 should work pretty well but you will probably have several weekends when the plane is gone the whole time if multiday x/c is allowed. The club I used to be involved with found the "ideal" ratio was between 12 and 13 to 1 but they had a good mix of airplanes with two 172s and two to four retractables. That usually meant that at least one of the 172s would be available for training flights every day. Obviously the more planes in the pool the more members per plane can be tolerated all else being equal, but the mix of x/c vs hour long local flights will also be a huge factor, especially when there's only one plane.

Your best bet is to examine past and future schedules to determine usage and availability as well as taking a close look at the scheduling/usage rules. And find out how literally they enforce those rules.
 
Joe Williams said:
How good/bad a ratio is 10 owners to 1 Cessna 177B Cardinal?
Click to expand...

Not bad at all. We're 15:1, and I can almost always find at least a few hours in something on short notice. If you want the plane for a full weekend, you need to grab about 2-3 months out. This is where having the IR (and staying current) is very helpful as you have a much better chance of actually using that airplane when the time comes.
 
Bill Jennings said:
Not bad at all. We're 15:1, and I can almost always find at least a few hours in something on short notice. If you want the plane for a full weekend, you need to grab about 2-3 months out.
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That's the rub with a single-plane club. One squawk can ruin everyone's day, and annual time has got to suck!

Our club is 10:1 (I guess 30:3 is actually more accurate in this case, right?) and it's exceedingly rare that I can't get *a* plane. I may not be able to get *the* plane I want (and that's where 10:1 differs greatly from 30:3) but I can get something. Availability is generally excellent, I can usually schedule a full-weekend trip only 3-4 weeks in advance (AND get the plane I want), I can schedule weekend chunks of 2-3 hours 2-3 weeks out and get the plane I want or 1 week and at least get a plane. Weekdays I can almost always schedule on my way to the airport and get it, maybe only have 2 of 3 available during the evenings but still, I can fly!

FWIW, our 3 planes total about 800 flight hours per year; Annuals are staggered (Last year: 1 Archer in Jan, other Archer in Apr, 182 in Sept.). Also, availability is good enough we're considering going to 35:3 to bring in some extra dough.

Joe, whatever you decide... Good luck!
 
flyingcheesehead said:
FWIW, our 3 planes total about 800 flight hours per year;
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Geez, our planes are on the go. The Archer and 182 average 40-45hrs/month each, and the Skyhawk books 15-30hrs/month.
 
Our club has 50 members and 4 planes. Typically a third of the members never fly a club plane during the course of the year. I love them, they help subsidize my hangar and insurance expenses without competing for cockpit time. I think there have been about 1 or 2 times in the 6 years I've belonged where I couldn't get "something" to fly. Might not be the plane I had in mind for that day, but something was available. Very helpful having the high performance and complex endorsements as that makes all 4 available to me (C-172H, C-172N, C-182P, PA-28R-200). I amost never get locked out of the Arrow. The 180hp C-172N is our most popular plane, and now with the addition of the Garmin GNS-430 it is likely to become more so.

Anyway, a long answer to your question, Joe. 12.5 members per plane seems to work fine for us.
 
Bill Jennings said:
Not bad at all. We're 15:1, and I can almost always find at least a few hours in something on short notice.
Click to expand...

Like other clubs, we may have 45 members on paper, but maybe 12 guys fly regularly. Those 12 do rack up a lot of hours, though.
 
I was looking at forming a club and talked directly with AOPA's primary insurance underwriter. He gave me some VERY good information about how they determine rates, optimum plane-to-pilot ratio, etc. Unfortunately, I don't have those notes here with me at work, but if anybody is interested, I'll find it...

He even told me how to "guesstimate" the premium fairly accurately.
 
Bill Jennings said:
Like other clubs, we may have 45 members on paper, but maybe 12 guys fly regularly. Those 12 do rack up a lot of hours, though.
Click to expand...

Bill,

Now you've done it... Ya got me curious. :D

Of our 30 members, 23 were members for all of 2005. The hours distribution looks like this:

hours: number of members
1-10: 5
10-20: 8
20-30: 4
30-40: 1
40-50: 2
50-60: 1
60-70: 1
70-80: 0
80-90: 0
90-100: 1. And yes, that would be me. :D 93.12 tach hours. I think I'm getting a good deal! :yes:

At the other end of the spectrum, one full-year member got only 1.01 hours (at a cost of about $1500/hr!) but he's only in the club for when his homebuilt is down.

For the stastistics geeks, the median was 17.82, the mean was 26.43, and the standard deviation 22.27.
 
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