Renting out a private aircraft?

[Alex335]

Or you could just rent to pilots who are able to fly. They aren't that hard to find, even today. I rent my aircraft out to a couple young guys and it's been great. They add value by keeping the plane flying often and I get my fixed costs covered, in return they get experience on a rare type. Win-win-win. I see so many planes around here wasting away to dust because their owners can't bear to see their precious baby flown by anyone else.

Don't fall for the delusion that there's something extraordinary about flying around in an airplane that isn't a C172. There's nothing difficult about flying a pair of TSIO-360s and frankly a ground briefing should be enough for most pilots.

What’s your process for vetting potential renters? Just follow the insurance requirements since they are in the business of managing risk, or any additional precautions dealing with new people?

I was worried mostly about the wastegate operation, thinking they would add additional risk if forgotten at a critical moment.

[ahramin]

What’s your process for vetting potential renters? Just follow the insurance requirements since they are in the business of managing risk, or any additional precautions dealing with new people?

I was worried mostly about the wastegate operation, thinking they would add additional risk if forgotten at a critical moment.

Following the insurance requirements is a good way of getting your plane rolled into a ball. Insurance companies do not care about the safety of your particular plane or operation, they care about properly pricing the aggregate risk of your kind of plane. They are in the pricing business, not the safety business.

I look at experience, skill, and decision making. What matters to insurance companies is experience on type. What matters to me is experience transitioning to different types. A 500 hour pilot with only Cessna 172 time is probably going to have a tough time transitioning to a new aircraft type and the more different the type the harder it's going to be. One of my renters had 100 hours but it was split between glider time and more than one single engine. That isn't much but it was enough for me to try them out.

Skill is not about how well the first takeoff or landing goes, it's about how well the second one goes. If the first one doesn't go well and there isn't a huge improvement by the third one they just don't have enough skill to transition to my plane in the time I have available. You also need to take a step back and realize that most of us soloed around 10 hours and we didn't crash. If a licenced pilot isn't ready for solo circuits after 5 hours in a strange new type then there's a problem somewhere. As soon as they can make it safely around the pattern, I send them for solo circuits immediately after. Once they've built up experience in the circuit, then we go out and work some more on upper air work, emergencies, and cross country skills.

Decision making comes down to a good attitude and experience as PIC in different operations and areas. If they don't have experience making weather decisions and planning a route in unfamiliar territory then it's high risk. My 100 hour renter needed mentoring in that area so cross countries were off limits until they had built up some hours on the plane. Once they were at the point where they didn't need large portions of brain power to fly, they were cleared for supervised cross countries which started with a full briefing on all their flight planning and ended with a debrief on what went wrong. After a month of two flights a week they were ready to self dispatch and take the plane where they wanted. At any given time my plane could be out flying and I won't know about it until the picture of the logbook comes back. The other day I landed at Courtenay Airpark and my plane was there which was good for me because I was short a headset and needed my spare. Last month my buddy broke down in Nanaimo and I didn't want to cancel an appointment so I sent a 20 year old kid and two tool boxes. That would be a $500 charter and it cost me $50 in fuel and the kid thinks we did him a favour letting him do the trip on our gas.

As for your wastegate, I just got back from watching Andy Findlay running around Reno at 75" of manifold pressure in the same plane he flies around in the rest of the year. I suspect 30 seconds of overboost during an unexpected go around is going to be less wear and tear than having your plane sit unflown for a month.

[photofly]

I nominate the previous for the AvCanada "best post of the year" award.

[Tubkal]

I’m the definition of ‘low experienced kid’. Early twenties and around 200 hours.

I’ve flown complex single and multi engine aircraft owned by individuals and performed safely. The checkouts were satisfactory and my relationship with the owners are friendly and filled with trust. I trusted their expertise on maintaining/operating their aircraft, and their knowledge about their machines and flying in general, and they trusted my proficiency and decision making. They knew that I was aware of the complexity of the airplane and they trusted that I will know to remember basic things that every pilot, regardless their experience, should be aware of (gear down etc.). Trusting your ability to trust someone is paramount for any rental endeavour you want to pursue. I would never rent out from someone that clearly doesn’t want to trust me and just judges me from the beginning from being a low experienced kid. I would feel uncomfortable and probably my flying skills will perish full of fear and anxiety. As they said above, I highly recommend not renting out your aircraft if you are not willing to make bonds of connection with your renters, get to know them and observe if they will be a good fit or not.

There is a market of fresh CPLs looking to build multi time. Lots of them may not be proficient enough to operate a light twin after a simple checkout, and they should be open for more time doing some dual before the release. Most of them will perform accordingly for safe operations, but maybe a few exceptions won’t, and usually it doesn’t have anything to do with experience. It’s just their attitude. I will personally think twice about choosing between a diligent, willing to learn, new pilot or an experienced pilot with attitude problems.

Maybe besides looking just at the experience, the pilot personality should be studied as well.

[rookiepilot]

I’m the definition of ‘low experienced kid’. Early twenties and around 200 hours.

I would never rent out from someone that clearly doesn’t want to trust me and just judges me from the beginning from being a low experienced kid. I highly recommend not renting out your aircraft if you are not willing to make bonds of connection with your renters,

Hmmmm. I consider myself a very low experienced pilot @ 1000 hrs. Anyway.......

It's not about being "judged". It's risk management, period, when considering renting a twin to a 200 hr pilot --- or many times that --- which the insurance co has a big say in of course.

Bonds of connection? That sounds exactly like the prospectus for the WeWork IPO (which is falling apart before it happens).