Cost Effective Time Building - Tulsa, OK

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Pierce Warren

Filing Flight Plan
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Jan 1, 2021
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Pierce-Tulsa
Hi everyone. Brand new to this forum but love what I see. I’m in Tulsa, OK and looking to see if there is anyone around here who is interested in building some time? Or knows anyone with an airplane that needs to be flown more? (Wishful thinking of course). Ive got PPL.

Also, any opinions on joining a flying club? There’s a nice club here in Tulsa with a couple planes but I did the math and to make it worth while instead of renting from the flight school, I’d have to fly 70 hours this year to just break even...all the clubs rent the planes dry but it ends up not being that much less expensive when you factor in the dues and gas. Thoughts?!
 
I usually fly out of KRVS but I physically live in Mid town so I can access Skiatook, sand springs, or South relatively easily.
 
Pierce Warren said:
Also, any opinions on joining a flying club? There’s a nice club here in Tulsa with a couple planes but I did the math and to make it worth while instead of renting from the flight school, I’d have to fly 70 hours this year to just break even...all the clubs rent the planes dry but it ends up not being that much less expensive when you factor in the dues and gas. Thoughts?!
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Looks like you're doing the right thing by "running the numbers" and looking at details. Most people say it takes about 100 hours/year flying to break even on owning your own plane, and a club is somewhere between buying your own and renting from an FBO, so 70/year sounds like it might be the case. The other advantages to a club (if the cost is otherwise pretty similar) are that generally they're more friendly toward overnight trips (but check the policies of both) and have fewer primary students booking hours here and there tying up planes. Also often have wider variety of planes.

Disadvantages are that there's less financial incentive for a plane to be "up" all the time, and more rarely in-house maintenance, so clubs will more often have a plane down for a month waiting in line for an annual or something to get fixed (again, depending on the players and personalities), and that because they're often less "business-y", whether you get along with club members makes a bigger difference in your life than if you get along with the desk staff at an FBO or flight school. But again, that can all vary by the exact situations.
 
mcmanigle said:
Looks like you're doing the right thing by "running the numbers" and looking at details. Most people say it takes about 100 hours/year flying to break even on owning your own plane, and a club is somewhere between buying your own and renting from an FBO, so 70/year sounds like it might be the case. The other advantages to a club (if the cost is otherwise pretty similar) are that generally they're more friendly toward overnight trips (but check the policies of both) and have fewer primary students booking hours here and there tying up planes. Also often have wider variety of planes.

Disadvantages are that there's less financial incentive for a plane to be "up" all the time, and more rarely in-house maintenance, so clubs will more often have a plane down for a month waiting in line for an annual or something to get fixed (again, depending on the players and personalities), and that because they're often less "business-y", whether you get along with club members makes a bigger difference in your life than if you get along with the desk staff at an FBO or flight school. But again, that can all vary by the exact situations.
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I definitely had that thought regarding the overnight trip situation. That is the big upside of the club but then again, I don’t think I’m going to be reaching that 70 hr/yr mark. At least not right now.

Good point regarding the maintenance on the plane. I bet after it being down for a month, everyone wants to get in it so scheduling is probably a nightmare for clubs with 1 or 2 planes.
 
Yeah....gosh, I wish I had an answer. I live on a private airport. I'm building an RV9A (should be flying mid Feb 2021), I own a C-150, my brother has an RV9A, we have a C-172 and a Rans S6S together. We don't usually have a scheduling problem.
 
Pierce Warren said:
...I don’t think I’m going to be reaching that 70 hr/yr mark. At least not right now.
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Not to be nit-picky, but are you really time-building or just looking for a good deal. I once bought a 100-hr block from a school in one of their lesser used planes with caveat that daily mins did not apply I had priority over anybody else. That block was deeply discounted and I went through it pretty quick since I was committed and only doing XC flights.
 
Marshall Alexander said:
Yeah....gosh, I wish I had an answer. I live on a private airport. I'm building an RV9A (should be flying mid Feb 2021), I own a C-150, my brother has an RV9A, we have a C-172 and a Rans S6S together. We don't usually have a scheduling problem.
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That’s a sweet line up you got there. Those RV9’s are awesome. I bet it fulfills that need for speed!
 
TCABM said:
Not to be nit-picky, but are you really time-building or just looking for a good deal. I once bought a 100-hr block from a school in one of their lesser used planes with caveat that daily mins did not apply I had priority over anybody else. That block was deeply discounted and I went through it pretty quick since I was committed and only doing XC flights.
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I’m looking to do BOTH. Right now I have about 100 hours TT, 40 hours PIC on and off. I was considering getting an instrument rating but right now I’d rather spend the money on getting more consistent experience in the cockpit, solidifying my skills and of course learn more and more from real world flying. Then potentially jump into instrument down the line. So yeah, I’m looking to build time, experience, build my skills, and maybe make some new friends that share a passion for the same thing. If there’s a place that I can do all of that for better than a flight school or club, than great.

Block time here at KRVS is $3 cheaper per hour if you buy in blocks of 10 hours...so I would have to fly almost 40 hours before I got a “free” hour. Not that cool of a deal to me. But I’m sure there are places out there that have great deals.
 
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