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Changing lives.

Just food for thought -- how often will you really fill 3 or 4 seats? If it's just for an occasional vacation trip, you might be better off keeping your 7 and renting something larger when you need the extra seats. I know it's hard to think of renting when you're an owner, but sometimes it makes sense.
 
How to rent a 4 seater for a trip?

Our RV-4 fills 90% of our mission requirement and we can only afford one airplane so we keep the RV-4 even though we wish we had a 4 seat airplane for family trips. So how do you rent a 4 seat airplane for those trips? The FBO will rent me an airplane but not if I want to take it anywhere. So what are you guys doing that always say to rent the 4 seater, what kind of deal do you guys have and how do you make it work?
 
The FBO will rent me an airplane but not if I want to take it anywhere.

What? I've never heard of FBO not renting for the purposes of a X-country. Now I've seen plenty of limitations based upon ratings and such, but never an outright prohibition.

The biggest impediment that I've seen has been scheduling and aircraft availability.
 
What? I've never heard of FBO not renting for the purposes of a X-country. Now I've seen plenty of limitations based upon ratings and such, but never an outright prohibition.

The biggest impediment that I've seen has been scheduling and aircraft availability.

They will rent it for CC but if you?re going to keep it for the day or a weekend they require something like 4 hours minimum per day so it costs $400 per day for the old Cessna 172
 
That's pretty typical and reasonable too. Remember you are taking their income generating asset out of service while it's in your possession. Without these types of rules, you would probably never be allowed to take the aircraft on a cross country.

Yes, its expensive when you do the analysis on a single trip. However, I'm willing to bet it's probably less expensive than upgrading your RV-7 to a RV-10 if you only need it a couple times a year.

I'm on the other side of that curve. I've got RV-10, but only usually fly with two people. But you sure can haul quite a bit of baggage when you aren't flying with four! :D
 
I ran into the same issue. The local FBO had a 3 hour/day minimum, so if you wanted to take it for several days you'd pay quite a bit. Of course they rented Cherokees, so you'd rack up a few days' worth of time just getting somewhere.

I joined a flying club that had no such restriction, and the wet rates on the club planes were much lower too. The down side was a minimum $100 per month or so expense for dues and minimum flying time. Of course I was building then, so it was the only flying I did and was pretty reasonable. Doesn't matter how you do it, it's going to be expensive.

If I were not LSA-limited now, I'd be talking to other E/AB owners to see if we could work out some sort of airplane sharing arrangement. Maybe a 10 owner somewhere near you would like to borrow a 4 for some cheaper solo time or occasional acro.
 
There's lots of options...

Clubs work well... some have low dues, reasonable rental rates, and usually no daily minimums. The time you fly in a club plane to stay current will also give you some time to offer rides to people who are less "experimental" in nature.

Throw in some availability to fly while you're off line for maintenance or annual, maybe a plane you'd be more comfortable in IFR, etc... loads of reasons.

Once you know what "most of your flying" is, how many "need more" flying you expect you can get out the old excel worksheet and find the answer.

But remember, if you're going to go with club/rental for the bigger need flights, fly that plane often enough to be proficient. We're not talking about having smart car and rushing over to the rental desk when you need a suburban.
 
My usage

Just food for thought -- how often will you really fill 3 or 4 seats? If it's just for an occasional vacation trip, you might be better off keeping your 7 and renting something larger when you need the extra seats. I know it's hard to think of renting when you're an owner, but sometimes it makes sense.

Everyone has a different mission. For the past 4.5 years I have the following usage:

- 24.2% Solo
- 31.9% Dual
- 17.8% with 3
- 25.4% with 4

That is a total of 43.2% of my flight time with 3 or more. And as mentioned before, when flown with 1-2 I sure have a lot of room for bikes, luggage, beer, etc.!

Also note a significant number of the solo and dual flights were one leg on the way to pick up people from school, or bring folks back from fly-ins etc.

Take a close look at your projected missions to see how often you need more than 2 seats.

TJ
 
My .02 on the rental idea.

At the prices most FBOs require for X-country rentals I cannot help but think that OWNING a second 4-place airplane might be cheaper than the rental route. Finding a quality 172 or some other such reasonably priced older 4-place airplane would surly be comparable to the type of airplane one would rent at an FBO. There would be no schedule problems, you could maintain control of the quality of the aircraft, you could have a great trainer airplane for the up and coming new pilot in the family :)cool:), if you wanted to create your own club made up of close trustworthy friends you have a vehicle ready for the endeavor. I see an awful lot of positives and few negatives for someone doing this who may be contemplating renting a 4-place a few times a year. To me it is like owning your own home vs renting, or perhaps more to the point, going to a laundry mat vs owning your own washer and dryer.

Anyway, food for thought.

Live Long and Prosper!
 
I see an awful lot of positives and few negatives for someone doing this who may be contemplating renting a 4-place a few times a year. To me it is like owning your own home vs renting, or perhaps more to the point, going to a laundry mat vs owning your own washer and dryer.

The key is useage. How often will it fly? To use your examples, if you had a vacation home you only used 4 times a year, you would rent, not own. And if you only did your laundry 4 times a year you wouldn't own a washer!
 
Yeah, I think your son's made a pretty awesome and very thoughtful statement, and maybe you need to keep that plane for more than just practical reasons. He got his pilot license yet? :)
 
I agree with you choosing to go to a 4 place. I'm nearing 64 and am just now finishing up a switch back to a 2 place. My wife and I started 45 years ago with 2 place planes switching to 4 place as raised our kids; a 4 place which we used extensively for hundreds of family trips, creating memories that we all cherish as adults. Although I flew the 4 Mooney's we owned mostly solo or with one passenger it was worth ever penny for those memories we created as a family.
 
Sell THAT plane! Have you lost your mind?:confused:.....Go buy a 182 and use for a few years. Trust me, it wont be long until your back down to just needing two seats!...Then your gonna wish you had it back!
 
What's the problem?

Nice video! But, I can't understand the thought of selling the plane for a four-seater. (It looks like you have a family of five?) if you want only four seats, buy another 2-seater. You could pick up a nice -4 or -6 and train a new pilot for less than the cost of a -10 (albeit, probably not less than a worn Skyhawks). If the spouse won't help out, rent for a couple of years until the 14 year old is ready to become PIC. Your plane is obviously a valued family member and disposing of it should not be taken lightly!

Oh yeah.....you might also need to move to an airpark where having hangar space for two planes doesn't cost anything. :cool:
 
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The key is useage. How often will it fly? To use your examples, if you had a vacation home you only used 4 times a year, you would rent, not own. And if you only did your laundry 4 times a year you wouldn't own a washer!
Yes, I would agree with your statement if the only thing to consider were the dollars you would pull out of your wallet to pay the gate keeper to enter the game. However, as I stated in my post, there are other positives besides monetary that could tip toward owning vs renting. Just as there are other positives of owning a washer/dryer vs laundry mat (i.e. using the washer just after a roughneck ran his work coveralls through it).

The point of my post was to say that there are other motivations to consider that do not have to do with money. If one were to include those then perhaps owning would be better than renting in the long run.
 
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