You're right, Jack -- in fact, we had a lurker on these fora (yes' you're right about that too!) who is indeed an MBA student, who contacted me off-list to get further background info for his thesis.Jack Tyler wrote:Ham, if you were in an MBA program I'm betting that building your business plan would be worthy of a full semester's work.
Research is indeed the operative term here. I spent seven months in full-time research before I launched my flight school. That just scratched the surface.all that you need to consider and research.
Soon to be a thing of the past. My state mandated ethanol in all mogas last year; others will follow. As discussed elsewhere on these boards, most airframes are not authorized for ethanol, even though the Rotax engine is. And even with those that allow it, putting a solvent in your tanks is just not a very good move. So, you will probably end up having to go with 100LL.for LSA's that use mogas @ 5gph,
Not in my case. I pay around $200/month for a t-hangar. My insurance, OTOH, runs $5k/yr, and is my dominant cost.hangar rent is the single biggest annual expense.
I concur. I researched the used S-LSA market, and found a good many acceptable low-time candidates for typically 35% below new aircraft prices. The sweet spot seems to be a 3 year old airplane with 500 or so Hobbs hours. (Do not buy a plane based upon tach time; with the Dynon EMS, for example, you can program the tach to read anything you want it to, just by changing your estimate of "normal" cruise RPM in the setup screens.)-- Gut Hunch: Buying a brand new LSA is not a good move WRT any GA business plan today, especially if it is a S-LSA where prices are high due to multi-level distribution costs & profits.
Not for a flight school! FARs prohibit doing instruction for hire in an experimental.AND look at the experimental marketplace,
Not only can an E-LSA not be used for rental, or instruction for hire; it also costs more to insure. But worst of all, once the airworthiness certificate is changed from S-LSA to E-LSA, it probably cannot be changed back. Reason: the original manufacturer will not want to take back the liability! This destroys the resale value of the aircraft.-- If staying with the S-LSA choice, I recommend after purchase you shift the registration to the E-LSA class (an entirely viable option),
For an S-LSA, you can still get licensed to do all your maintenance and inspections. But, you need to take the 3-week course (currently available from Rainbow Aviation in Corning CA). And, if you're getting a Rotax-powered plane, also take the Rotax maintenance-level training, available from Lockwood, CA Power Systems, or Leading Edge Airfoils (and possibly others) as a weekend course.take the weekend repairman course, and set yourself up to do all your own maintenance (which I would think is essential to making your biz plan viable).
That's a good move, though as a retired educator, I can tell you that it's lots of work. Another approach is to be a guest lecturer in somebody else's course, where you can (subtly) plug your own flight school.One method he used for creating a student pipeline was to register a PPL Ground School course with the local school district for their Evening Education ('adult ed') program.
I agree. In my case, I've broken it up into two successive three-week courses, "pre-solo" and "post-solo", with a couple of weeks break in between for the student to review for and pass the FAA knowledge test (written exam). Not all students completing the first three weeks go on for the second -- my attrition rate is near 50%.Hoping you can wrap multiple students, every 6 weeks, into a full flight training + ground school curriculum is too much to expect,
I hope this thread is being archived -- could be useful to anyone contemplating getting into this business. Meanwhile, Hambone, we can talk via Skype (my username there is the same as it is here) while you're still in UAE. Then, when you get back Stateside, feel free to take a trip up this way and I'll show you my operation.
Safe skies,
Paul