Why not buy a multiengine airplane for time building?

jbravo65 said:
I checked into the time building schools and what I found was that they split you up with another pilot. One does the flying under the hood while the other acts as safety pilot. Supposedly both can log the time legally.
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It's in the FAR's. It's spelled out very clearly as FAR's go. There is no supposedly about it. If you're on a career path, it would be in your best interest to learn these regs by heart.


However, I was told that a lot of employers will only recognize the time you were actual pic and not just sitting right seat as co-pilot.
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I'm still waiting to meet this mythical guy who was on a great career path and then lost it all because he logged a couple of hours as a safety pilot. He's a legend. He's like the Pete Best of aviation.
 
Joe Gremlin said:
Are you gambler? ...ideal is to buy the plane outright instead of getting a loan so you can forgo the need to insurance on it.
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I heard a very rich man once say, "If you can't afford to insure your possessions, you can't afford them." So true! Insurance is only pennies when you consider the potential payout if you need it.

I remember being a renter and thinking I was throwing my money away every hour I flew. I've since owned 2 airplanes and I no longer feel that way. My last plane was a Seneca that I had on a lease-back. I was just barely keeping my head above water (meaning it was loosing money every month). Then one day a renter was out preflighting it and noticed a little oil on top of the engine. My mechanic looked into it and discovered there was a hairline crack in the case. When they opened the case to replace it, they found a crack in the crank shaft as well. $10,000 and 6 weeks later, the plane was back on the rental line. A month later one of the CFIs landed it wheels up.

Now, had someone come to me as the owner and told me they wanted to fly 100 hrs in a month (for example) I would've made them a sweet deal far below the hourly rate. Making a rental airplane profitable is all about volume vs time. The most volume of flight time in the lowest amount of days yields lowest amount of fixed costs per hour and generall higher profits. Go to your local FBO and ask them what deal you can get if you buy a 100 block of time.
 
Joe Gremlin said:
Are you gambler? There have been many people who have built their multi-time using the buy/fly/sell model. For some, it worked out great. For others? Not so much.

First off for the business model to work, you've got to buy/fly/sell within one year if at all possible. The most ideal scenerio is to buy the plane with a fresh annual, get your 100 or 200 hours out of it in the first couple of months and get it sold before you have to put another annual on it. Also ideal is to buy the plane outright instead of getting a loan so you can forego the need to insurance on it. Just don't bend it while you own it. If you can do it this way, and you manage to resell the plane at 98% of what you paid for it or better, then you can build multi time very economically.

But like I said, that's a big gamble. What if you end up toasting an engine a month after you buy it? What if the gear won't come down one day and you have to belly it onto a runway? What if the market tanks and you can't sell it within a year, and it needs an annual? Then renting suddenly becomes the cheaper option in all those cases. The thing that makes renting attractive for time building for so many people is that you know going in exactly what its going to cost you. With the buy/fly/sell model, you can only guess at what it will cost you and you need a whole bunch of ducks to line up perfectly in order for that number to become a reality. Renting is more expensive, but it's also the safer gamble.
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That will never happen.
 
Nihon_Ni said:
I heard a very rich man once say, "If you can't afford to insure your possessions, you can't afford them." So true! Insurance is only pennies when you consider the potential payout if you need it.
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Oh I agree with you. However, the fact remains that privately flown airplanes which are owned outright (no loan) are not required to be insured unlike cars which require insurance in most (all?) states. So skipping the insurance is something that certain owners choose to do in order to reduce their direct costs. I wasn't recommending it or saying its something that I would choose to do, only that its something which is done by some.
 
I am new to the Forum but looking to build multi time... Anyone in the Atlanta area looking to buy a multi for time building and needing partners?
 
I bought a 1961 Cessna 310 to build multi time in. I still have it and have considered selling it but I'm not all that motivated. It has mid time engines, pretty low time on the airframe, and has a pretty decent IFR panel including IFR GPS. I put a couple hundred hours on it and got my airline job and now rarely have the time, money, or desire to fly it when I'm home. Still fly it here and there to keep the dust off. I'm not actively selling it, but if anybody's interested, I'll always entertain offers.
 
jknight8907 said:
The FARs are not fuzzy at all about the safety pilot logging PIC. You can, and you should.
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This is an exerpt from a regional airline:

* The following types of experience/currency are not considered optimal and will be considered on a case by case basis.

--Banner Towing
--Balloon Time
--Traffic / Pipeline patrol
--Aerial photography
--Purchased block time
 
flyingmaniac said:
jknight8907 said:
The FARs are not fuzzy at all about the safety pilot logging PIC. You can, and you should.
Click to expand...

This is an exerpt from a regional airline:

* The following types of experience/currency are not considered optimal and will be considered on a case by case basis.

--Banner Towing
--Balloon Time
--Traffic / Pipeline patrol
--Aerial photography
--Purchased block time
Click to expand...


Am I missing where that says something about safety pilot time?
 
flyingmaniac said:
The "Purchased Block Time" is logged (most of the time) with two Multi-engine guys both logging PIC by one being Safety Pilot.

That's all.
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Okay. But just because "Block Time" is usually also Safety Pilot time, does not mean that Safety Pilot time is usually "Block Time". Probably the most common safety pilot situation is a couple of guys working on their instrument rating trading off playing safety pilot for each other.
 
jknight8907 said:
Okay. But just because "Block Time" is usually also Safety Pilot time, does not mean that Safety Pilot time is usually "Block Time". Probably the most common safety pilot situation is a couple of guys working on their instrument rating trading off playing safety pilot for each other.
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That might be a fortunate event, but I wouldn't think it would be for 50-100 hours of this. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe not.
 
You know comparing costs...wouldn't it be a lot cheaper just to get a MEI and Actually work for a few months to build the time?
 
flyingmaniac said:
This is an exerpt from a regional airline:

* The following types of experience/currency are not considered optimal and will be considered on a case by case basis.

--Banner Towing
--Balloon Time
--Traffic / Pipeline patrol
--Aerial photography
--Purchased block time
Click to expand...
The first line says this is an exerpt from a regional airline. It does not say its an exerpt from all regional airlines or even most. The screening policies for new hires are going to be different at every airline. There have been lots of pilots who put some combination of the stuff above in their logbook and managed to find themselves sitting in a part 121 cockpit. It ain't rocket science. You log the stuff they don't 'consider optimal' in your logbook in order to qualify you to get a job which will allow you to log stuff that they do 'consider optimal'. Once you get more of second than you have of the first, no one will care.
 
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