Anyone know of SR20 retals in Calif.
At Palo Alto, there is now an SR20A owned by OurPLANE, a fractional ownership group. B configuration, 2 blade prop, stormscope/skywatch. This is not a rental of course, but is sort of “halfway” between renting and full ownership. Happy 260SE driver that I am, I have nonetheless signed on for a low-level membership (target 50 hr/year). I plan to use it almost entirely for Angel Flights so that both the hourly use fee and even monthly fee may be “charitable.” A Wings Aloft CFI is scheduled to do some marathon training of the current owners this weekend; I am really looking forward to it.
I did a thorough cost analysis of the OurPLANE arrangement and compared it to the costs of flying my own plane. When you take everything into account, it is certainly far less expensive than sole ownership if you are flying 50-100 hr per year. Of course, sole ownership for a pilot who only flies 50-100 hr/year borders on being financially ludicrous anyway. However, even at 200+ hr/year it is still about 10% less expensive than owning one’s own plane. Beyond that there are potentially “intangible” benefits, such as not having to spend one’s own time looking after maintenance, procuring insurance, etc., or getting socked with an unexpectedly large MX bill. Potential drawbacks? Possible scheuling conflicts, whether the other “owners” take good care of the plane and keep it clean. Only experience will tell how it all adds up. So far I have been impressed with the OurPLANE folks and their intention/commitment to make it work well for their customers.
If there is interest I will be happy to provide periodic perspectives on the “fractional ownership experience.”
Kevin
I live in Marin and if I lived farterh south I would be very likely to sign up. I have spoken to OurPLANE about putting a plane in Marin.
The only concern I have is how many hours they “sell” of each plane. They say that participants can swap hours from one plane to another. So what happens if the guys in the 182 discover the Cissus is a lot more fun?
They have a heirarchy in their fleet. The SR20 ranks above the 182 in this heirarchy. Thus, as an SR20 “owner” I can fly the 182T (after an appropriate check-out) if the SR20 is not available, but 182T owners cannot “fly up” and use the SR20.
This past weekend OurPLANE brought in a Wings Aloft CFI to train the SR20 “owners.” I flew three tmes for a total of 7 hours. I like the SR20A with the new cowling. Oil cooling appears to have been improved as well. The plane is equipped with Skywatch, and I could imagine getting used to it. This unit’s called out traffic was reliably verified by ATC, and we actually saw the other planes only about half the time. It also called out a twin in the runup area next to us when he turned on his transponder! This particular plane seems to be a bit on the slow side, the best we could do was about 153-155 KTAS at 6000 feet @ about ISA + 10 deg F, but it doesn’t matter much to me. I consider myself very fortunate to be able to fly BOTH of my favorite planes, the Cirrus and 260SE!