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RV Partnership

T

tmpendergrass

Member
Hello Everyone,
I have been looking into purchasing a flying RV-6a. However I'm not sure that I could fly it enough to justify the fixed cost associated with owning an aircraft. So I thought I'd put this idea out and see if there's any interests from the socal/ orange county community. I'm still at least a 6 months out from purchasing so this is somewhat preliminary. Here are some numbers I've come up with for a 4-6 member partnership.

Cost of entry

I figure a 75k purchase price for a very nice -6a so based a 4 members that would for around a $20k buy-in price.

Insurance

I couldn't find a lot of good info regarding insurance for partnerships. So I'm going to generously estimate $5k per year for the entire partnership.
That works out to $104/mo for each of the 4 members.

Hangar/Tiedown

$200/month at KSNA.
$50/month per member.

Condition Inspection

I know this can very so I'm going to figure $3600 per year. This includes the inspection and repairs. Any extra goes into a rainy day fund.
$75/month/member

I figure $15/hour maintenance reserve for engine overhaul, oil, etc.

This all adds up to $230 per member, per month for fixed costs. This would get cheaper if we added more partners. All for a buy-in cost a little more than a new civic. Seems quite reasonable to me if we could make it work. Let me know if you have any comments or if you might be interested.

Thanks for reading:)
T
 
A few thoughts

1. In CA add in property tax, 1% of actual value, per year. If the hangar is leased from a city or county you'll have to pay the property tax on tbe hangar, too.
2. Talk to an insurance person. At some point (4? 5? 6?) you'll go from 'partners' to 'flying club' and rates will go up.
3. Initial purchase will be subject to sales or use tax. Here in Alameda county that's 9.5%!
4. If you change partners the new one will be subject to sales tax again! This can be avoided by holding the airplane in an LLC. This also provides some liability protection for a partner who was not the PIC, in the event of an accident. LLCs do have to pay some CA taxes. Talk to an attorney.
 
SNA operating expense considerations...

Tom,

We lived in the Laguna Hills / Dana Point area for 24 years. We left the area in 1999. The SNA hangar wait time (seven years) and rents were out of sight back then and it is probably no different today. I finally purchased a port-a-port at F70 and then a few years later moved into a hangar at Carlsbad. My hangar rent back then at Carlsbad was $450/mo, which was considerably cheaper than at SNA.

Just checking Foreflight, the current price for 100LL at SNA is $7.45/gal. Because of the commercial traffic and closely spaced parallel runways at SNA you will have to deal with a lot of departure delays and wake turbulence issues. SNA is a great location…but you will pay a premium to be based there.

You might want to take another look at your projected hangar and operating expense out of SNA.

Best of luck in your partnership search.

Regards,
 
TomVal said:
Tom,

We lived in the Laguna Hills / Dana Point area for 24 years. We left the area in 1999. The SNA hangar wait time (seven years) and rents were out of sight back then and it is probably no different today. I finally purchased a port-a-port at F70 and then a few years later moved into a hangar at Carlsbad. My hangar rent back then at Carlsbad was $450/mo, which was considerably cheaper than at SNA.

Just checking Foreflight, the current price for 100LL at SNA is $7.45/gal. Because of the commercial traffic and closely spaced parallel runways at SNA you will have to deal with a lot of departure delays and wake turbulence issues. SNA is a great location?but you will pay a premium to be based there.

You might want to take another look at your projected hangar and operating expense out of SNA.

Best of luck in your partnership search.

Regards,
Click to expand...

I could have worded that differently. $200/mo is the tie down price. I've also looked at oceanside with is a little farther but costs $500 a month for a basic hangar. SNA just built some shade hangars and I've heard they are in the $400/mo range.

SNA is a great location as it is only 15 mins from my house but it can get rather busy and fuel is silly expensive.
 
tmpendergrass said:
Condition Inspection

I know this can very so I'm going to figure $3600 per year. This includes the inspection and repairs. Any extra goes into a rainy day fund.
$75/month/member
Click to expand...

I think you're going to have a HUGE rainy day fund pretty quickly. SInce you're planning on buying the airplane instead of building, yes, you'll have to hire an A&P for the sign-off - but the partners can do all the work if you wish.
 
Tom....just a few more points..

I looked into a partnership some years ago, and you have options we don't ( LLC etc.) but I'll make a few observations.
You'll likely pay insurance based on the weakest partner, even if they only fly 5% of the time.
have EVERYONE get Mike Seager or similar transition training, even if the insurance co. doesn't demand it. You guys all need to learn to fly an RV, with some proficiency, in short order.
Find a good partnership agreement, and make sure it clearly states, and everyone signs off, on what happens when someone bends the plane, or wants OUT of the partnership. Getting in is the easy part!

sure the $3000 a year sounds like a fat maintenance account.....I'd bet that you'll only use a 1/10 of that on maintenance, and half on 'the next best thing'....take 4 pilots, somebody will want to add a TCAS, or a new comm, or GPS, or a 5th point, or smoke, or e-mag, or.......you get the idea. At annual time, the talk of upgrades to panel & gadgets always comes up! :)
 
I am in a 3 way RV6 partnership. We "pay" ourselves $25 an hour to fly; $9 for the engine (can never be touched except for overhaul) and $14 for all other mx. Your number seems a bit low; our covers the misc items too.

We schedule on google calender so everyone has on thier phones etc. Everyone has access to our BB&T bank account, everyone has a debit card and expenses up to $50 don't require group approval.

We were just quoted (today)$950 for full covereage, 65K, by Global, not bad for 3 named pilots.

Send me a message if you would like a copy of our agreement or our month Excel spreads sheet. This is my 3rd partnership and this one runs like a fine tuned machine.
 
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I moved my plane fron KSNA to Chino and couldn't be happier. Hangars for $250 per month no wait. Less activity and more interesting activity (warbirds, homebuilts), cheaper gas. Just a little farther drive from Mission Viejo, maybe 10 - 15 minutes.
 
SpyderMike said:
I moved my plane fron KSNA to Chino and couldn't be happier. Hangars for $250 per month no wait. Less activity and more interesting activity (warbirds, homebuilts), cheaper gas. Just a little farther drive from Mission Viejo, maybe 10 - 15 minutes.
Click to expand...

Need a partner? ;)
 
One more item on insurance.....

3 named owners/individuals is OK. Any one of the 5 major underwriters considers 4 named as a "club" and the premium reflects that.
 
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