Group Booking Hobbs Time - Etiquette?

[Okavango]

Hi. I'm now a member of a group and took the aircraft today where someone ealier in the day had booked time to the last Hobbs unit when it was pretty much on the next figure. Is the general etiquette to book the last full unit and overall it'll average out? Not sure whether to drop this certain someone a note.

[FREDAcheck]

Well, I tend to find (in our group) mistakes more likely than deliberate meanness, as witness the fact that people often over-charge themselves! What is the last digit on the Hobbs meter? In our plane we book by tacho time, and the last digit is 1/100 of an hour, and I'm not going to get hot under the collar about rounding up or down by about half a minute. Maybe someone inadvertently wrote down the time before stopping the engine...

[BIGJ91]

In my long established group we pay clock time chocks to chocks so people aren't tempted to skimp on the run up and run down and we record the hobbs time simply as a cross check. This also means that the pilot who goes for fuel isn't paying for that taxying time (that can become annoying if certain people rarely bother to refuel the aircraft) There is obviously a certain degree of trust in this though it's more common to find members overcharging themselves but frankly if you're having to worry whether members are clipping the group of a minute or two your group probably has bigger problems than that.

[Heliplane]

I know that the convention at a lot of flight schools is to record the higher number if any part of it is showing. That is generally fair if it is applied consistently.

We use tach time in our group and I always check the reading on the tachometer before I start the engine - for example, our maintenance organisation has a key and will taxi the aircraft to their hangar which usually takes up 0.1 or 0.2 on the tach. Similarly, a returning pilot might fill in the paperwork at the fuel pumps before taxiing back to our stand and miss 0.1 of taxi time.

I actually think that paying only for airborne time is generally more conducive to proper operational technique - if one is not charged for time on the ground, it is much more likely that people will allow the temperatures to warm sufficiently before runup and take-off and similarly to have a chance to cool down more slowly after landing but before shut-down (particularly important on a clod winter's day).

[Okavango]

Yes - thanks - I agree with all this and I think paying for airborne time would be ideal, but I guess it's at the discretion of the owner. To answer the question - the meter is on 1/10ths, so a unit is roughly £10. I don't want this to come across as mean, I just want to understand whats the norm. I usually pay for the next unit, on the understanding that it will always average out and it starts the next persons day (and my own) on a good note. However, if everyone doesn't comply then it ain't fair.

[Lister Noble]

If I were you,I'd ask the group what the normal procedure is.
I fly in a group using tacho time and have never had a problem with other pilots using wrong numbers.
I think if the number showing is not definite,we all tend to round up to whatever is showing at the bottom ,ie next number up.
In our case a 1/10 hour is £4.00 so not a big deal.
Lister:)

[BIGJ91]

"At the discretion of the owner"?
What sort of group is it? I'm curious as I'm a great believer in group flying but there seem to be several variations. In ours we all own an equal share and the group is democratic with a proper constitution but I have come across groups dominated by one person, sometimes the founder.

[Okavango]

Hi - nothing sinister - it's a non equity group so the owner quite rightly makes the call.