Trapped obligations

[pilotads]

Does this sit right with you. A club cross hired an aircraft, got stuck by weather and decide to leave the aircraft (about 4 hrs flight time from base where it was desperately needed the next day) and caught a rpt flight home never to be heard from again leaving on a message sorry the weather is bad and we can’t bring the plane back

I always thought unless it was an emergency you had the responsibly to return a hired aircraft especially when you knew the aircraft was needed. I should also ad that the weather was nasty but still legally able to make the trip home with a bit of a diversion from a straight line track

[Bendo]

It's sad but you have to write these things into the conditions of hire in this day and age, when people are quick to hide behind the explicit terms of the contract rather than do the morally correct thing.

:ugh:

[Capt Claret]

I should also ad that the weather was nasty but still legally able to make the trip home with a bit of a diversion from a straight line track.

That may well be the case for you ("still legally able to make the trip home") but perhaps not for the hirer, who's ability or confidence may not have been adequate for the conditions.

However, the hirer should, in my view, bear the cost of returning the aircraft to its home field.

[scrambler]

I am with capt claret on this one.

[pilotads]

the decesion of not to fly was with the pilot in command and I respect that no one other than he can accuratley state the conditions of the day. By saying it was illagaly able to fly I'm pointing out that maybe the pilot was just too lazy to return the plane. It was an instructor who should have been more than able to fly in the conditions stated in the area forcast but as we all know they are not actual conditions and they could have been far worse.

[AirSic]

I'm no "visionary" nor am I full of experience...aviation wise,

But surely CDF (common Dog ....) would dictate that if it was I whom hired the a/c, then it is my responsibility to get the thing back to base.

I can understand that if the pilot didn't feel confident to return the a/c then he/she made the right call...but, I'm with CC!!!


Pay up!

[Phil O'Rupp]

Very poor form on the part of the hirer, and even worse if there was an instructor on board. I've been caught in marginal weather myself and agree with the decision to land and wait it out if you're not comfortable in the conditions - good move.

However,
and caught a rpt flight home never to be heard from again leaving on a message sorry the weather is bad and we can’t bring the plane back

Who do they expect to foot the cost of retrieving the plane (sounds like an 8 hour return trip and and 2 pilots time) not to mention the loss of income for the club and its instructors if it was booked for training flights? And no follow up phone call the next day???? How do they even know someone got the answering machine message. Some people are so rude it's unbelievable.

[Zhaadum]

Fair enough not flying in ****e wx beyond your ability/legality...but..

Hirers should be responsible for returning the aircraft whichever way it is done, with or without the hirer on board.

I know of a hirer who paid upfront for 50 hour block in a Arrow 4 to fly around Australia. He left Sydney and got as far as Ceduna when the engine driven fuel pump failed. He conducted a deadstick landing into Ceduna (he did not use the standby electric pump, possibly as he trained on Cessna's without one...) THEN he took off again without a LAME inspection!!! He got as far as Forrest before it failed for good. The flying club had to fly an LAME from Sydney to Forrest to fix the aircraft plus a pilot to fly the aircraft back. If the pump failed and he landed in Ceduna it could have been fixed easily and no problems. He was very irresponsible in taking off again without getting it looked at and so incurred all costs. Lucky not to have killed his pax and himself.:eek:

The hirer had only used about 20 of his 50 hours, but got no refund and so the morale of the story? Get payment up front for at least an estimated cost of the hire.

So charge their credit card for the retrieval mission.

He won't do that again anytime soon. Also let all the local flying clubs know who he/she is so they wont allow them to hire their aircraft in the future.

Z.:ok:

[AirSic]

There is a C72 cross hired through the RACWA that has a restriction;

"Not to be flown out of the state under any circumstances"

The owners of the a/c got caught in the past and had to spend a small fortune retrieving the a/c...or had insurance premium increase?. Not sure of the finer details...except that they will not waiver the condition for anyone.

Pity

[Islander Jock]

Unfortunately this is all part of the risk you take when hiring out aircraft particularly for long trips away from home base.

As a hirer of aircraft, I can say from experience that there is a lot of good advice in the previous posts. As Bendo says, if it's not in the contract, the punter will try and get away with it. We have a fairly simple clause that is signed by hirers to say they are responsible for the aircraft at all times whilst it is under their control. That applies to both in the air and on the ground. To really cover yourself you would need something similar to what appears on a hire car contract. It would take you a couple of hours to read and comprehend everything in there. But at least then, you would then not be left at the mercy of hirers with no sense of a moral obligation. I thiink most reasonable people would accept it as their responsibilty to return the aircraft to place of hire.

On a smilar note; I recall one hire a few years back where the pilot and rich daddy took away a 6 seater being charged on tacho. In the very early stage of their trip they noticed that the tacho clock was maybe 5 - 10% fast. They continued to log the tacho time in the MR but expected us to discount the cost based on their watch times :ugh: . Never mind that we had to pay the owner and he had to have maintenance done on the times in the MR.

[Squawk7700]

By any chance, was this a flight possibly from Melbourne to a location that could have been Maitland?

[poteroo]

Unfortunately, in this day & age, many 'consumers' resort to legal escapes from their own stupidity or dishonesty. Contracts just have to be employed to stymie them.

In regards to disputes over Hobbs/VDO or tacho time, owners need to remember that there are many ways & means to vary/disable/slow/tamper with the time measurement instrument. To defeat this, it's a smart move to instal a parallel Hobbs unit, or airswitch unit, somewhere in the aircraft where the hirer would never suspect. This successfully exposed some cheats in WA - many years ago.

happy days,

[VH-XXX]

I was speaking to someone at my work recently who said he has a friend that used to fly out of Essendon. He said when he last went flying with him 2 years ago in a twin he clearly remembered nursing the "dashboard" of the aircraft in his lap as they taxiied out to the takeoff point holding a couple of wires in one of his hands. The pilot had him hold the panel and after a certain period to re-attach the wiring / plumbing to the VDO's etc. They carefully unscrewed the dash before they left to facilitate this.

Scary thing is that so many people do this and it never gets picked up. Don't get me started on R22's!

It's unfortunate reality that if there's nothing in the contract about returning the aircraft, or extenuating circumstances, then I'll go out on a limb and side with the hirer on this one.

When you hire a car you are responsible for a one-way drop off fee, so the contract for the aircraft should state something along the lines of the hirer being responsible for the return of the aircraft and when not able to return it is financially responsible for the time requried for a planned flight plus full economy RPT fair to the destination, etc. You'd be *crazy* not to put that in there.

Unfortunately, Flying School beware on this one. Said club should have known better.

[Sunfish]

From memory, the contract RVAC uses requires the hirer to take "all reasonable measures" to return the aircraft at the specified place and time. Abandoning it somewhere does not sound like the actions of the proverbial "reasonable man" to me.......At the risk of thread drift, I'm not sure if there is such a thing as a "reasonable woman" in law:}

[pilotads]

By any chance, was this a flight possibly from Melbourne to a location that could have been Maitland?

No it wasn't and i don't think i should say where it was left. they know who it was and i hope they read this and have a bit more respect next time