Originally Posted by
mikewil
No one is saying they expect an instructor to take a financial hit from changing the way in which time is recorded for billing purposes. You can still pay your instructor from engine start to shutdown even if you aren't charging the student on that basis.
A pre-determined air switch rate which approximates the 'average' Hobbs recorded time would yield the same result to your bottom line (and what you pay your instructor), whilst not making every lesson a lucky dip for which student will get a raw deal due to ground based delays.
So the instructor is charged by the hour logged (ie hobbs time) and the aircraft is charged by airswitch time? (the new rate will be more than current hourly rate but calculated so the school will average the same income for hour the aircraft is being used).
It certainly could be done. Would be a bit of a pain in the bum to administer but certainly could be done.
Some issues:
1. you would need pilots to make sure they brought back both hour times from the aircraft after each flight (so the school can work out your hire charge and record the time for paying the instructor and so the student/pilot/instructor can enter the correct time in training records and log books). Not a real biggie but the back of my hand only has so much real estate
2. Your invoices would list the air-switch time, you should not log what the invoice says (good reason to fill in your log book after each flight rather than leaving it a while and using invoices so actually a positive incentive I guess)
3. You *will save* some money on a log book hour if you have a delay on the ground - eg if you are slow doing checks, get held up by others/ATC, (what I assume is the problem you want to solve).
4. You will however *pay more* for the same log book hour if you are efficient doing your checks and don't get held up by others/ATC. Then again you are paying for 'quality' airtime so this not necessarily a problem for you.
5. You will have to *pay more* when you do nav or longer flights, you are being charged at a higher airswitch rate and the percentage of the flight spent on the ground when doing navs drops a lot so you will pay more for nav training, CPL hour building etc than you would now (potentially several hundred dollars more per flight).
I can imagine the arguments from nav or CPL students building hours asking why they get penalised for doing nav flights or being polished and efficient getting into the air.
Personally I still would say you would be wiser to look at another aerodrome if you are regularly spending 24 minutes/hr on the ground rather than ask a school to create a messy charging system that penalises those doing longer flights but you could always discuss it with your school.