What your fleet reserve should actually be
Clubs without a reserve do not fail gradually. They fly the trainer until it is finished, discover the replacement costs several times what the last one did, and have the conversation in a single evening. This is the arithmetic that avoids that evening — and it is not the arithmetic most reserves were built on.
The club, per year
Per member, per year
Per member, monthly
The working, line by line
Every intermediate figure, because a treasurer is going to check this against a spreadsheet before taking it anywhere.
| Replacement cost in years (inflated at %) | |
| Trade-in value then, inflated on the same basis | |
| Net required at replacement | |
| Existing reserve, compounded to then | |
| Still to be raised | |
| Annuity factor at % over years | |
| Annual contribution |
If your reserve was sized by dividing, it is short
Three things are missing from that division and all three point the same way: the replacement inflates, the trade-in inflates from a much smaller base so it does not cancel, and each year's contribution only earns a return for the years remaining rather than for the whole period. The shortfall also compounds, because the missing contributions are the ones that would have been earning longest.
Your fleet
The two numbers your committee will argue about
What "we'll look at it next year" costs
That delay is longer than the time you have, so there is nothing left to calculate — which is itself the answer.
| Year | Opening | Interest | Contribution | Closing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Contributions land at the end of each year, which is how clubs bill and is the conservative assumption. Paying at the start of the year would add one year's interest to the closing balance.
What this assumes, and what it can't know
The replacement price is the input that matters most and the one we refuse to supply. Get it from a dealer as a delivered cost — aircraft, trailer, instruments, shipping and import — not a brochure list price. Most trainers are priced in euros, and the exchange rate has recently moved the number more than the manufacturer has.
Inflating the trade-in on the same rate as the replacement is an assumption, and a debatable one. A forty-year-old trainer's resale value is not obviously tracking the price of a new glass ship. It is shown as its own line so you can argue with it; setting it to zero is a defensible conservative choice.
This funds one aircraft, not a fleet. A club with a trainer, a single-seater and a towplane has three of these running at once, on different clocks. Run it three times and add the results; the towplane is usually the one that has been quietly ignored.
Interest on the reserve is nonmember income. If your club holds 501(c)(7) exemption, investment income counts toward the 35% test — the same allowance your introductory flights draw on. Once this fund is built it will be throwing off about a year. Put that into the nonmember income calculator and see what it costs you in rides.
It says nothing about whether you should replace the aircraft at all. Refurbishment, a different type, or operating a smaller fleet harder are all real answers, and the right one depends on things no calculator holds.
Not yet reviewed by anyone but us. If you run a club's books and one of these assumptions is wrong, we would genuinely rather hear it than not — tell us and we'll credit you here. This is a budgeting estimate, not a quote. Every club sets its own rates and they change; check with the club before relying on a number.
The reasoning behind this
Why the 2-33 fleet ageing out is a structural problem rather than a scheduling one, what actually replaces a primary trainer, and how to have the conversation before it becomes urgent.
Read: replacing the club trainer →