is the biennial flight review the right way to go?
on one of the threads someone asked me the question something along the lines of ...
"if a biennial flight review costs you $680 for two hours with an instructor, is that really a problem?"
as a private owner I don't normally bother to amortise my costs totally on a per hour basis but the last time I did it it was $55 per hour all in.
what I do is count my fuel costs and oil and if I have that in the wallet I go flying.
21.5 litres an hour fuel burnt at a perth price of $1.54 per litre is just under $34 per hour.
$680 biennial cost divided by $34 an hour is the equivalent of 20 hours local flying. I haven't rigged it, it just worked out that way.
I also looked at a flight Perth to Gawler just north of adelaide.
home to kalgoorlie, 300 nautical miles
kalgoorlie to forrest, 345 nautical miles
forrest to ceduna, 297 nautical miles
ceduna to port pirie, 238 nautical miles
port pirie to gawler, 90 nautical miles.
total distance 1270 nautical miles.
I normally cruise near 120 knots but for preliminary flight planning I plan on a cruise speed of 110 knots, that way I can ignore a headwind up to 10 knots.
at 110 knots I get a flight time of 11 hours 36 minutes.
so a 2 hour biennial with an instructor costs more than a flight across australia for me.
I know which scenario would get me more experience and hone the skills for the $680.
if I use just perth prices for fuel the biennial amounts to the cost of a flight across to gawler and back. obviously the fuel costs in the outback will be higher but a biennial is a significant waste of money.
btw last night my son said "what are you complaining about? every two years I have to have 5 biennials."
... and people wonder why aviation in this country is dead.