0.8 Tacho Hour

[jamesivi]

Hello,
I recently pass my PPL, but, have moved away from my training airfield and am looking around the websites at the clubs at Southend Airport.
The have said "PRICE PER HOUR Excluding VAT (Prices are based on 0.8 tacho hour)"
What does this mean? Is that a price less vat for 60 minutes?
Does anyone fly from Southend and have any advice? Also landing fees, if for example you did two touch and go circuits and a full stop do you pay 3 landings fees?

Thanks in advance for your help and advice!

[dublinpilot]

Well...the only way you'll know for sure is to ring them and ask them.

But at a guess, I'd say that what they mean is this.....

Lets say that they charge £150 per hour on the tacho. Then they are advertising their hourly rate at £120 (0.8*£150) on the assumption that you will only use 0.8 of the tacho in an hours flying.

That would seem low in my experience, and quite misleading, but it's only a guess.

dp

[Zulu Alpha]

What it means is that if you run up 1 hr on the tacho they will only charge you for 0.8 of this (48 mins) at the hourly rate.
However, the Tach runs all the time you have the engine running so you are charged for taxiing, run ups etc.
Some places charge brakes on to brakes off, but as there is no meter then this relies on accurate measurement by the pilot.
The 0.8 is approx the time you will be in the air. ie if the tach runs for 60 mins then 48 mins will be flying brakes on to brakes off.
The tach runs slower when the engine is idling/taxiing so your 12 mins could be actually be almost double that.
ZA

[BackPacker]

There's a discussion about tacho calibration in another thread. But if their tachos are calibrated to max rated RPM, and you cruise at 0.8 of max rated RPM (let's say 2160 rpm cruise/2700 rpm max), then you will indeed accumulate 0.8 tacho hours for each hour of flight time. Plus, of course, the taxiing, runup and everything can be written in your logbook as flight time, but are done at very low RPMs. So getting 0.8 tacho hours to pay, for each 1.0 flight hour in your logbook doesn't sound entirely unreasonable for me.

For hour builders, it's the flight hours that count, not the tacho hours.

[modelman]

'Landing' fees

If Southend has full ATC ( like at Coventry),what you are actually paying is the 'approach fee'.If you initiate a go around from finals,then you will get billed as though you had landed.Same applies to t&g's.If ATC order a go around,then you don't pay.
I have never really thought about where the actual point in the approach is where you actually become financially involved,will try to remember to speak to the tower next time I am there.

MM

[Lucy Lastic]

I think not -

The engine logbooks are based on flight hours, but for the pilot you can book chocks to chocks.

In my friends group, they book flight time+10 minutes to allow for taxi time, and also to build up a little extras for the fuel used getting to the runway

[Whopity]

1 hours flying equates to 0.8 on the Tacho. So if the Tacho clocks up 0.8 you are charged for 1 hour!

[jamesivi]

Thanks for your help!