I posted an ad in the aircraft for sale section but have gotten very few responses so I'll try here.

We are a 2 year old partnership of 4 people operating a Piper Warrior (PA28-161)

Three of us are "9-5'ers", the 4th is now gainfully employed after completing his required ratings and time building.

We are looking for a student (or perhaps two) to join the partnership, preferably with a PPL already but we can accomodate ab initio training. The "9-5'ers" are only flying about 100 hours per year (evenings and weekends) and we would like airplane utilization to be higher than that. In the range of 200hours+ each year...

The benefit to the student of joining a partnership like this is multi-fold:

1.) You have almost unlimtied use of the aircraft Monday-Friday, 9-5
2.) Cheaper than renting. Our hourly costs are in the range of $125/hr (wet) which includes everything (insurance, tiedown and reserves for both maintenance, engine and prop)
3.) Your instructor is also cheaper. Insurance dictates you must hire a Class 3 or better instructor however it is still cheaper than whatever an FTU will charge - and you have full range to choose whomever you may like
4.) You will get an experience owning an aircraft and get a far better understanding of the machine, the maintenance and yes, the documentation
5.) Opportunity for long cross countries (we have gone to Florida, twice)
6.) You can pair up and go on road trips to network

Overall, if you were to fly from mid-PPL to CPL/IFR, you would save in the order of $15,000 and have far better flexibility and scheduling. ($2000 saved on instructor versus the FTU rate, and at least $13,000 saved on aircaft rental ($165/Hr+HST= $188/Hr vs $125/Hr times 200Hrs to do IFR/CPL)

The 1/4 or 1/5 share would cost you in the range of $8000-10,000, which you would sell once your training is done for about the same value

If interested or would like more details, please email dcabrown@hotmail.com

This is a great opportunity for the right person.

To clarify, the $125/hr above INCLUDES FUEL. It is the wet rate.

What are you comparing your prices too? How much do you think that instructor would charge to come up with that $2000 savings figure?

niwre wrote:What are you comparing your prices too? How much do you think that instructor would charge to come up with that $2000 savings figure?

I was wondering that too, right now for an average PPL that's all the instructor costs for the whole thing. So in your estimate the freelancer is, well, free?

Had a guy in almost the same situation approach me to do his PPL. I started with what I charge and his response was "well that is pretty steep, I only want to pay half that".

"Have a nice day" was my response. He ended up hiring one of the resident fired F*uck up class 3's I alluded too on my freelance thread, and he got exactly the level of instruction he paid for.

$70/hr vs $50/hr x 100 hours instruction if you are going all the way through CPL/IFR (as i mentioned above)

70$/hr seems steep for FTU rates, though on the other hand, $50/hr for a freelancer who's worth his salt for CPL/IFR work is pretty cheap.

$70 for an FTU??? That's horrible, most charge in the $50-$60 range. The good freelancers I know charge a range of $70-$100+ depending on what you are asking for. As for you pros???

1) An FTU can give you good access on the weekends too.
2) Renting a Warrior wet is pretty cheap $135-$145 (wet) and the FTU usually does the grunt work for you which has value
3) See Above
4) If my students does not have a good understanding of the machine/maintenance program (ours or theirs) and all documents they don't go for their flight test.
5) Many schools and clubs do those long cross-countries too
6) Clubs/Schools/FTUs help all sorts of people to network

Most CPL cantidates need to build maybe 100 hours of solo pic time. Forget the instructor component here.
Given that GST now applies to rentals, 125 wet is cheaper than the what, 180 or so after tax rates at an FTU?
That's a 5k savings... But you have to somehow come up with the 10k up front as well.
On the plus side you don't have to deal with silly FTUisms....

I'd say get all your instruction at an FTU, and build the pic time on your own.

FTU rates for instructors around the GTA are $65 plus HST so $75/hr

Warriors at ykz go for $147/hr plus HST so $170/hr

CYKZ FTU charges $60/hour for instructor last time I checked. I heard a rumour there is a warrior there going for about $100/hr block and a 152 for $50

Also to sell your share afterwards can be difficult, not really a simple hop on/hop off as you please. Buying block time would be much better than becoming an equal share owner in my opinion.

Likely not a rumour, but Clearly $100 block for a warrior is the dry rate...

Add in 7gph(26.5Lph) of fuel at $1.9/L and you
You get an all in rate of $150...

Delta, looks like it's time to offer 4 or 6 sets of 50 hour dry rate blocks per year for $4850.

Then maybe all the complaining here about your partnership share offerings can stop. Put any extra revenue into your maintanence fund until you and your partner can afford to trade the plane in on a shiny new one.

Thanks beef for the suggestion. I had given it some thought but we'd prefer someone interested in the full aspect of ownership and not a student whos gonna trash our plane and then walk away cause they have no vested interest (im sure students would learn to lean better with each continued warning from the ame on fouled plugs!). I get partnerships are not for everyone and the aspect of selling your share on the flipside is a valid concern.
That said, If i were a hiring manager, a cpl with an idea of how to own and operate a machine, what can go wrong, documentation etc. would stand out from the crowd...

Just my 2cents tho

I would need to look at you plane and logs before I could suggest it's a good or bad idea to buy a share in it.

Maybe a couple other posters should have thought that.

You could try a somewhat thorough interview with references etc. before selling blocks of time.


You might get a bad partner even if they buy a share. My inlaws own all their vehicles and I'm allways appalled at the beating they administer to the poor machines. All the while saying things like, "We don't seem to have much luck with cars." I think the poor vehicle was the unlucky one.

Deltawidget wrote:FTU rates for instructors around the GTA are $65 plus HST so $75/hr

Warriors at ykz go for $147/hr plus HST so $170/hr

I must confess I didn't consider the dreaded HST. It certainly makes a good case for going west to learn to fly.