How does a "dry rate" work?
Not so much from the point of view of renting an aircraft on a dry rate but assume you have a group of 5 people and an aircraft which has fuel totaliser and is reasonably capable?
Assume person A wants to go flying, they find the aircraft half full of fuel but want to fly longer than half tanks, so they fill it up with fuel from the local field (which is expensive) and full speed to the destination. They return, having filled up again, this time with cheap fuel, and travel at a more leisurely pace (LOP) for the return journey.
The next time the aircraft goes out is with person B, sees that the tanks are half full but is only going out for a local flight, so doesn't fill it up at all?
etc etc.
How do you work out how much to charge person A who filled up with expensive fuel and who flew flat out outbound but fill up with cheap fuel inbound and flew LOP? And for person B, they didn't fill up at all, so are they charged fuel at the cheap rate (there is some still in the tanks, in theory) or are they charged at the more expensive rate?
The reason I ask is that it came up in a new group that we are planning to form in the next few months or so and the aircraft's performance could vary quite dramatically depending on whether its flown flat out (say 60 litres / hour) or LOP, say 40 litres / hour?
It seems to be an admin nightmare! The two obvious answers are (a) charge a wet rate, which is hugely unfair on those flying LOP and filling up with cheap fuel or (b) charge a fixed fuel rate per litre and just use that as the basis for calculating litres used? - but again, it doesn't take into account fuel cost, so those who fly to say, the Channel Islands, regularly, get no benefit of the cheap fuel?
Is there any fair way of doing this?