Pilots wanting to fly but who don’t have the resources to own and operate their own airplane usually find themselves renting from an FBO or training organization, joining a flying club or entering into some kind of shared ownership arrangement. Renting or sharing airplanes often can be a good choice for someone with varying needs, but experiences can vary and your operational priorities, to put it gently, may not be shared by the organization supplying the aircraft.
Whether it’s a traditional FBO, a flying club (for-profit or non-profit) or a partnership, when we enter such a domain for the first time, we have to believe that the people and the machines that we will find within will keep us safe. For the vast majority of the cases this is true. However, that’s not always the situation we encounter. Moreover, things can change over time, for the worse. Allow me to share with you some stories of when my well-being and priorities may not have been uppermost in the mind of those from whom I rented an airplane.
