At the beginning of January, I sold my 1/6 share in the Arrow group. Reluctantly I might add, as the group wanted to admit three new members and with only two shares for sale, was about to vote to expand to seven members. Well, 1/6 is my minimum share, I would have preferred 1/5 or even ¼, so this was going in the wrong direction for me, so I put my share on the table subject to a good offer.
Unfortunately, I got a good offer, so accordingly, sold my share. This left me going back to club rental. My first full rental was towards the end of January, when I rented the club Arrow 2. I flew to Kemble to check on possible shares over there (didn’t see any), then bimbled around to the north of Gloucester at 8000’ VMC on top just for the hell of it. Bottom line is about 1.5 hours airtime for a charge of £GBP265 – OUCH!
I am certainly not panicking and I am very keen to ‘get it right’ and not simply opt for the first vaguely suitable share that presents itself. I had set myself a target of ‘end of April’ to either find something or consider doing it the hard way – forming a group of like minded individuals then buying a plane.
What I was looking for was:
- Good touring aircraft capable of taking two large guys, sensible baggage and sensible fuel (could be two or four seat).
- Not too fussed if CAA or PFA type.
- Some short-ish field capability
- ¼ to 1/6 maximum share
- Share cost up to £15,000 max, monthlies of £150 max and hourlies £70-ish or less
- Established, experienced and stable group
- Good paint, airframe and engine
- Fuel burn say 30-40 lph
- Good availability for one or two ‘big trips’ a year, three weekends and some weekend all day UK bimbles
Yes, of course it is an impossible list (or is it?) and I knew I would either have to compromise somewhere, or try to form a group of like minded people (i.e. do it the hard way).
Well after an intensive look at what is on the local market, I came up with a wide variety of possibilities:
- 1/6 share of an RV6 based Gloucester (established group)
- ¼ to 1/6 share in a Cessna 172 based Gloucester (owner starting a group)
- ¼ share in a Jodel C140D based on a farm strip (established group)
- ¼ share in Robin DR400 based on a grass strip (established group)
- ¼ share in Beech Bonanza based Gloucester (owner starting a group)
- Grumman Cheetah based Kemble
- Other misc shares greater than 1/6th based Gloucester and elsewhere
Quite a lot you might think, but of course the devil is in the detail.
I looked carefully at the RV6. Wonderful aircraft, cheap to run and would be excellent fun to fly, but I simply could not make it work for the two person touring weight I needed and go further than 20 minutes in the air. So a reluctant no.
The Robin was based at a grass strip which was out of use when I visited due to waterlogging (bad sign) and was an eye-watering £30,000 for the share, so err…no.
The Jodel was a ‘late entry’ and potentially very interesting. Excellent range and load lifting capacity. Interesting type, very cheap to run on a farm strip. Slow compared to what I was used to but do-able. Downside was that the engine was on-condition with no appreciable engine fund, the value they indicated for the aircraft seemed very high to me and although I didn’t see it, I knew it had been recently recovered, but may have ancient avionics. So an over-priced aircraft where the engine could go at any time in need of an avionics upgrade…. I would guess that I could discuss price as it seems unrealistically high at the moment, but there are rather a lot of other risk factors, so probably no.
Anything based at Kemble for me would have to be ideal in every other respect to justify the 40-45 minute journey time I would incur, so no.
Buying a smaller share in a PA28 Archer or similar based at Gloucester – no, I want more of a plane not less.
Try to form a group (N-reg?) of like minded individuals? Yes, if I had to, but would take quite a while.
I spoke to the chap who owned the Beech Bonanza and went for a flight. We got on very well and the plane is in great condition for a 1959 vintage. It is relatively low hours TTAF and TTE 200 hours, so new engine. The mechanics that service it confirmed it condition. Excellent paint, leather interior and modern avionics. Lovely plane and fun to fly, a real performer. The issue was that it was right at the top end of my financial pain threshold and threshold at which the wife would go nuts! Love the plane, but would have a serious impact on the wallet.
The Cessna 172 has an excellent paint job (recent respray) and looks good. The engine is low hours. The interior was OK although the avionics were VFR (bit of a pity as I want to keep my IMC rating up). Flew nicely enough, but of course basic Cessna performance. So a tourer and a reasonably priced on at that, but would need some money spending on the avionics. My wallet loves the plane, but it isn’t fair to compare the visceral reaction to flying the Bonanza to flying the C172.
So after some late discussions regarding group rules and how we get from A to B, I decided to go for the Beech Bonanza. I am in the process of working with the current owner (who would then become the 75% shareholder with two further shares to sell) to get the group set up and all the relevant changes made and paper signed. We have agreed all of the major ‘stumbling block’ issues and now merely need to work through the detail where neither of us is particularly precious about one way or the other. So barring disaster, I would expect to be ‘in the group’ by the start of March.
The owner and I see eye to eye on most things and want to keep the shares at a maximum of four experienced pilots to give maximum sense and feel of ownership (rather than a large number of shares, where you feel more like putting a deposit down in order to secure reduced hourly charges on a ‘club’ type aircraft).
This is a serious touring aircraft and not really suitable for recent PPL’s. So we are after experienced pilots who want to do some serious touring in a lovely aircraft you can be proud of.
After all, there can’t be much wrong with an aircraft that they used to call ‘the fork-tailed doctor killer’ and in which Buddy Holly crashed and died can there?
