This varies for me. Typically a flight a week or every other week. I belonged to a club which is the most cost efficient. I mean it was CHEAP...$68/hr wet for a 172 in 2015. Currently its still only $77/hr. But there were 65 members (sharing 4 planes) of which yo didn't see more than about 10 at the monthly meetings. It felt more like renting. I prefer the pride of ownership even though it will be much more expensive. I’m in my mid 40s. Ideally I would like to partner with a retired gentleman who could enjoy flying weekdays and let me fly weekends. I respect, enjoy being around and like to learn from the older and wiser crowd who have lots of good life lessons to pass down to the younger generation. It would be fun getting together to change the oil on our plane and do whatever maintenance we felt comfortable doing together. OK now I’m dreaming a little
I am what you're looking for, but 1000 + miles separates us. Don't know about the older and wiser part, new to aviation here.
Everyone wants to fly weekends, do the $100 burger social runs. That's prime time for fly ins, everyone is off of work.
If I run the numbers, to own, with hangar, insurance, registration, property/luxury tax here in CA, about 10 hours a month or more, might be break even point. I might want to fly that much when first learning and after getting my sport pilot license, but I question how long I will sustain flying that many hours per month.
What I originally thought was a form of transportation is so weather dependent, that its really just a very expensive hobby, going flying. I've been helping a buddy with everything on his RV-12 now for 16 months, through 2 inspection annuals, service bulletins, maintenance, you name it, and I won't kid you, it's a very, very time consuming hobby to keep and maintain an Experimental plane. You lose a gearbox on a Rotax early, due to wear and tear, and the parts add up fast to fix anything on a Rotax. Just a lot of different procedures with a Rotax compared to a Lycoming or Conti.
Floats on Carbs getting heavy and sinking, Carb synching, inspecting prop hubs, Dogs wearing in the gearbox, Belleville washers, lead from 100LL fuel in the clutches and ring seats, etc. Only the spark plugs are cheap. Inspections for chaffing hoses, cracks in aluminum inspections everywhere you can imagine, and some tough to get at unimaginable places too as you get old and less flexible.
If you're mechanically inclined, great, but I don't know too many AP's at the local airport that know much about RV-12s, if you have to pay to get it worked on.