My airplane statistics....

[asgcpa]

my LLC purchased the Cirrus 48 weeks ago. It was in the shop - 2 weeks for an avionics upgrade, about 1.5 weeks for a chute repack, 2 weeks for an annual, 3 weeks for miscellaneous reasons, so about 8 weeks total.

We've flown her 420 hours since purchase. We have 3 members of our LLC. Average of 10.5 hours a week. How does that compare to other non commercial planes out here?

 

[James331]

Semi commercial, my personal plane does about 75hrs a year.

 

[Ted]

420 hours is higher than most non-commercial GA planes. The fact that you have 3 members explains that, though, since 75-150 hours per year isn't uncommon. It seems like your members tend to fly closer to the 150 hour per year range.

200 hours or less is more typical.

 

[denverpilot]

I always looked at it this way... 52 weeks in a year and if I flew two hours every week as a private pilot that's 104 hours.

Which is why you see most non-commercial private pilots flying those rough numbers Ted gave. To hit 208 a year means four hours a week. 416 means eight hours in the air a week.

You probably see how that works.

In our co-ownership not everyone hits those higher numbers every year but usually at least one of us does.

This year since I'm splitting time on a rented twin for multi-engine training, I'll be lower than usual in the 182. One of the other co-owners is flying quite a bit, the other is pretty low this year.

Sounds like your co-ownership has multiple active pilots this year. It's not always that way, nor do I think from talking to others in co-ownership a and clubs, all that common.

Clubs can be eye opening when you're one of the folks looking over the books. 50% or more of the pilots don't fly and subsidize the others. Often way way way more than 50% don't fly.

I asked why once of the other officers in a club many moons ago as a young pup, and the best answer we could come up with was, "People like to dream that they're actually doing stuff, and dues are low enough that they just keep paying them. Initial buy in is also high enough that they think, 'If I fly this year I'll save by not leaving and coming back...'"

 

[asgcpa]

Interesting thing is I have about 150ish. One guy, a professional pilot partner, has about 35, and another has the balance.

The thing that's cool is there has never been issues with scheduling. It's working out great.

 

[James331]

Seems like many working pilots don't put all that many hours on their own/partner planes.

 

[Ted]

It's pretty rare to have scheduling issues with partners, unless their utilization needs are identical. When I was in the 50 person flying club with 2 planes, I think the combined use was under 500 hours per year.

 

[scottfromboston]

I'd say you're above average.

I was just doing similar statistics on my shared da-40 as I had owned it a year. We did a little under 300 between the four of us; two doing ~100, one ~60, one ~25...

Personally I did just over 100, including a burst of usage being a new owner and also having to get checked out (25h in the first month) and finishing up my IR (25h in one week). I expect my usage to taper.

We rarely have conflicts.

 

[denverpilot]

Agreed, even in our heaviest year we don't really have conflicts.

I think by the numbers you'd run into some weekend conflicts for sure at around five *active* co-owners, but if anyone had a schedule where they could fly on weekdays, that takes pressure off of the weekend warriors.

In clubs, the trick was always to rent the "unpopular" stuff. The 172 in a club I was in long ago, was always booked, but the 172RG and the Mooney M-20C were almost always wide open. They were both only a few bucks and hour more and a checkride away, and folks wouldn't bother getting the additional checkride. So that's how I ended up with 50+ hours of 172RG time back then. Flew that thing everywhere. Flew the Mooney around quite a bit too.

 

[Ravioli]

This thread reminds me I need to traipse out to the hangar and get some log book numbers for the billing

Clubs with varied experience levels and 'day jobs' end up working quite well. We have a couple members who fly charter for a living, and keep the membership for recreation. They might flight 20 hrs a year in our planes, but it's always on extended blocks of 10-14 days. Scheduling trade off for sure, but they pay their part of the fixed costs year round.