A flying club or aero club is a not for profit, member run organization that provides its members with affordable access to aircraft.
Many clubs also provide flight training, flight planning facilities, pilot supplies and associated services, as well as organizing social functions, fly-ins and fly-outs to other airports and so forth. While flying clubs are home to those who pursue flying as a hobby, many commercial pilots also get their start at flying clubs.
Most flying clubs own and rent small general aviation aircraft. In North America and Europe the most popular such aircraft are the Cessna 152, the Cessna 172, and the Piper Cherokee. However some clubs also exist to provide access to more specialized aircraft, such as vintage planes, aerobatic planes, helicopters and gliders.
In Canada, however, the clubs can be fairly large non-profit operations, some dating back to the 1920s and operating at large airports as well as small. Canadian flying clubs often serve as fixed-base operators at their airports as well as flight schools and aircraft renters.
Famous quotes containing the words flying and/or club:
“Next week Reagan will probably announce that American scientists have discovered that the entire U.S. agricultural surplus can be compacted into a giant tomato one thousand miles across, which will be suspended above the Kremlin from a cluster of U.S. satellites flying in geosynchronous orbit. At the first sign of trouble the satellites will drop the tomato on the Kremlin, drowning the fractious Muscovites in ketchup.”
—Alexander Cockburn (b. 1941)
“At first, it must be remembered, that [women] can never accomplish anything until they put womanhood ahead of wifehood, and make motherhood the highest office on the social scale.”
—“Jennie June” Croly 1829–1901, U.S. founder of the woman’s club movement, journalist, author, editor. Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly and Mirror of Fashions, pp. 24-5 (January 1870)