How do you get charged for your aircraft hire?
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Ive just joined a club using hobbs. Ill see how it goes, but if its silly i'll just fly at very high power settings when i want to get somewhere.
Though if it works from battery master, what happens if you go off with a mate, land at farm strip say and depart by hand swinging it??
Though if it works from battery master, what happens if you go off with a mate, land at farm strip say and depart by hand swinging it??
Last edited by Camargue; 30th May 2016 at 21:38.
I guess hobbs is at its worst if you're the 1st up on a very cold winters morning and have 5 mins on the clock before you even move.
Depends how long you spend programming the route into the G1000 with the engine running
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Though if it works from battery master, what happens if you go off with a mate, land at farm strip say and depart by hand swinging it??
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Advanced time keeping
I did look at a few options when moving from the take off to landing charging via the log books.
The Hobbs run by the master switch just encourages people to rush, both checks and not letting the engine get warm before take off.
Hobbs run by an airspeed switch was an option but cost to install was an issue.
GPS glider loggers are an interesting idea but instatalation was an issue.
There was a very interesting option of a combined GPS logger that sent the flight info via the mobile phone network to the club accounting system, for this system the providers charged a small fee for each transaction, while being the best system technically and one that I would have fitted if I was running 20 aircraft the administration costs for three aircraft did not justify the cost. But as an aircraft owner the prospect of the charge for the flight being extracted by direct debit from the pilots bank account milliseconds after the master switch is turned off is very attractive !
In the end aircraft engine Tacho time won the day with those who use the aircraft consideratly being at a slight advantage with those flying at high power paying more, with no installation costs this seems to have solved the problems of HH:MM arithmetic errors by replacing it with decimal arithmetic.
The Hobbs run by the master switch just encourages people to rush, both checks and not letting the engine get warm before take off.
Hobbs run by an airspeed switch was an option but cost to install was an issue.
GPS glider loggers are an interesting idea but instatalation was an issue.
There was a very interesting option of a combined GPS logger that sent the flight info via the mobile phone network to the club accounting system, for this system the providers charged a small fee for each transaction, while being the best system technically and one that I would have fitted if I was running 20 aircraft the administration costs for three aircraft did not justify the cost. But as an aircraft owner the prospect of the charge for the flight being extracted by direct debit from the pilots bank account milliseconds after the master switch is turned off is very attractive !
In the end aircraft engine Tacho time won the day with those who use the aircraft consideratly being at a slight advantage with those flying at high power paying more, with no installation costs this seems to have solved the problems of HH:MM arithmetic errors by replacing it with decimal arithmetic.
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I pay block to block as measured and reported by me using my watch, to the nearest five minutes. On days when I forget to look at my watch I get the take-off and landing times from ATC (which are now shown on a screen in the club, you don't even have to phone them any more) and add ten minutes.
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We get charged airborne time (T/O and Landing) + ten minutes for taxy. This sometimes works in our favour if we are taxying and holding for 20 minutes but sometimes it doesn’t.
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We get charged airborne time (T/O and Landing) + ten minutes for taxy. This sometimes works in our favour if we are taxying and holding for 20 minutes but sometimes it doesn’t
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Cumbernauld is a good example of a short taxy back. You can be parked in less than a minute from touchdown. Prestwick on the other hand, you can spend five minutes just making your way back from the end of the runway to the apron.
Interesting how much - variation - there must be in operating habits, and assumptions.
When I rented here in the US, all flights were timed (for rental cost and logbooks) from the Hobbs meter.
I assumed (was told) the Hobbs ran on engine time, since it was used for determining time to next overhaul. But it didn't really matter. The difference between Master switch time and engine time amounted to seconds at most.
Hop in - master ON - lower flaps, check fuel gauges as flaps came down - master OFF. 20 seconds at most. Add one minute if you had to radio-call fuel truck for top-up. Do walk around with power off.
External checks and most internal checks done without need for electric or engine power. Master switch was turned on again just (10 seconds max) before starting. Never ran avionics off the battery alone - I wanted that juice for starting, plus didn't want the AV on during start in case of voltage transients. Logged Hobbs reading just before engine start.
Rentals were all "wet" - fuel included in hourly price. Once I started the engine, I was burning the owners' or club's fuel, and eating into the time before next overhaul. Perfectly reasonable I should pay for those, even sitting still. Or taxiing.
On arrival, engine shutdown and master switch OFF were virtually simultaneous. Click-click, click-click, click-click. Logged Hobbs time.
On general principle - if you are tying up a rental/club aircraft that could be rented to/used by someone else, you pay for the time it is not available to other customers. Doesn't matter if you just go out and sit in a cold cockpit for an hour - that's an hour it could have been earning revenue from someone else. Dog-in-the-manger principle. If I flew an overnight, I had to pay a "day-minimum" equivalent to 4 hours engine/fuel time, per day the aircraft was not available to others - careful trip planning meant I always flew at least 4 hours per day average over the trip, so it never actually applied.
The fact one is only charged for the running time is itself a good deal.
When I rented here in the US, all flights were timed (for rental cost and logbooks) from the Hobbs meter.
I assumed (was told) the Hobbs ran on engine time, since it was used for determining time to next overhaul. But it didn't really matter. The difference between Master switch time and engine time amounted to seconds at most.
Hop in - master ON - lower flaps, check fuel gauges as flaps came down - master OFF. 20 seconds at most. Add one minute if you had to radio-call fuel truck for top-up. Do walk around with power off.
External checks and most internal checks done without need for electric or engine power. Master switch was turned on again just (10 seconds max) before starting. Never ran avionics off the battery alone - I wanted that juice for starting, plus didn't want the AV on during start in case of voltage transients. Logged Hobbs reading just before engine start.
Rentals were all "wet" - fuel included in hourly price. Once I started the engine, I was burning the owners' or club's fuel, and eating into the time before next overhaul. Perfectly reasonable I should pay for those, even sitting still. Or taxiing.
On arrival, engine shutdown and master switch OFF were virtually simultaneous. Click-click, click-click, click-click. Logged Hobbs time.
On general principle - if you are tying up a rental/club aircraft that could be rented to/used by someone else, you pay for the time it is not available to other customers. Doesn't matter if you just go out and sit in a cold cockpit for an hour - that's an hour it could have been earning revenue from someone else. Dog-in-the-manger principle. If I flew an overnight, I had to pay a "day-minimum" equivalent to 4 hours engine/fuel time, per day the aircraft was not available to others - careful trip planning meant I always flew at least 4 hours per day average over the trip, so it never actually applied.
The fact one is only charged for the running time is itself a good deal.
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Interesting, in the UK certainly the engine time is only counted from airbourne time, which can be significantly different from engine start to stop, especially if you only do short trips.
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At my flight school, most of our aircraft have air switch activated Hobbs meters. Start and finish meter readings are recorded in the aircraft tech log and the calculated airbourn time subsequently transferred to the Engine, Prop and Airframe maintenance logs.
When we fly aircraft which are not fitted with the air switched Hobbs meter, we simply record take off and landing times in addition to the brakes off/brakes on times used for personal flight time logging. Both sets of times are entered in the tech log, but only the take off to landing times are used to calculate airbourn time for the maintenance logs.
When we fly aircraft which are not fitted with the air switched Hobbs meter, we simply record take off and landing times in addition to the brakes off/brakes on times used for personal flight time logging. Both sets of times are entered in the tech log, but only the take off to landing times are used to calculate airbourn time for the maintenance logs.
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"Block to block time minus ten minutes." Over enough years and enough thousands of hours you can get a rule like that as accurate on average as you feel is necessary. If anyone really cares about the odd minute then ATC log the take-off and landing times.
Thank you all
- on the TANSTAAFL principle ("There ain't no such thing as a free lunch - or else the drinks in here would cost half as much") one presumes the clubs or renters simply charge a bit more per logged hour, to account for fuel use/engine wear expenses on the ground and not logged.
It's kinda like, who actually pays credit-card purchase fees - the shop, or you, via slightly higher overall shop prices?
If the OP's new club is double-dipping (charging the going rate per hour for "air time", AND charging it for ground time as well) - I understand some irritation.
- on the TANSTAAFL principle ("There ain't no such thing as a free lunch - or else the drinks in here would cost half as much") one presumes the clubs or renters simply charge a bit more per logged hour, to account for fuel use/engine wear expenses on the ground and not logged.
It's kinda like, who actually pays credit-card purchase fees - the shop, or you, via slightly higher overall shop prices?
If the OP's new club is double-dipping (charging the going rate per hour for "air time", AND charging it for ground time as well) - I understand some irritation.
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I would be surprised if your total taxi time (remembering to include taxi in) is much less than 10 minutes, I can be pretty quick but getting airborne in under 5 mins needs starting pretty close to the runway threshold, and at most airfields that will mean a longer taxi in, most people do well to taxi out, do the checks and get in the air in under 10 mins, so adding 15 mins to airborne would not be unfair - though of course this time does not count towards engine hours!
Airborne time is T/O to Landing (take time on line up and take time on leaving the active).
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my flying club do breaks on breaks off... I have always timed it after revieciving taxi information, just before I move off I note the time... Then I note the time after I have shut the engine down.
It's easier to use whole numbers so if I round the time up or down when I leave then I do the reverse when I shut down to even it all out.
It's easier to use whole numbers so if I round the time up or down when I leave then I do the reverse when I shut down to even it all out.
