How do you get charged for your aircraft hire?
 

Morning ladies and gents.

I've recently moved over 120 miles and as such joined a new flying club. My last club charged rental from brakes off to brakes on which I've always seen as a fair way to do things. This new club however charges on the Hobbs meter which starts charging as soon as the engine starts (and appears to run slightly fast if I'm honest). It's already proved to be a costly difference with an average of £30 per hour more expensive. In fact it would work out cheaper for me to drive back to my last club and fly their aircraft. My issue with this is it encourages pilots to rush their checks, as well as completely not bother allowing the oil temp to come up.

I'm interested to know how most other clubs charge their hire? And what are your thoughts?

From a personal pov, if I was an owner and I rented my aircraft out I would much rather a pilot waited a couple of mins for the oil temp to rise before TO and I see no point charging them when the engine is happily sitting at circa 1000rpm with minimal engine wear. On top of this I begrudge paying for time that I'm not putting in my logbook...as we all know "logbookable" time is chocks to chocks.

What's ya thoughts??

For me, 'logbookable' time is from engine start time. Clubs charge whatever works to their advantage.

Which means that you are, of course, either embellishing your logbook, or damaging engines by loading them before they've warmed up.

I've seen just about every variation on aircraft charging - but logbook is chock-to-chock in every civilian regime I know of.

My favourite is to charge on tacho, as it scales to engine revs so that if the pilot treats the engine gently, he gets more hours, and the owner gets a better cared for aeroplane. That, to me, is a win:win.

G

We charge tacho on all our aircraft, except the one that has an airborne time meter. Tacho is the fairest way and cannot be "massaged" like chocks time. The club members, whether students or PPLs, pay far less per minute whilst taxying and are therefore less likely to rush. On the other hand, if they fly fast cruise (high rpm) they pay more per minute but are charged for less minutes because they get to the destination quicker. The biggest drawback for us is that the rates look very expensive to the uninitiated.....................

I have always used Hobbs or Tacho, whichever is fitted.
This makes it easy to keep track and to audit both pilot and aircraft logs,

I've been a member of three clubs, two of them charge wheels up to wheels down plus 5 mins either side, for startup, checks, taxy time n shutdown, regardless of how long you actually took.

The other club charge wheels up to wheels down plus five minutes, regardless of how long you run the engine.

Thank you for the replies, I would be more than happy with tacho charging as I personally think I am a mechanically minded pilot and always take care of the engine, whether that be airborne or taxying. I agree that brakes to brakes is open to being abused by some and as such the owner fits the bill which isn't fair but I certainly never did that before. Generally I'd always round up to the nearest 5 mins so if anything the owner was getting a good deal and I assumed that how most would do it. This Hobbs malarkey I feel is unfair, I am not pilot in command (for logbook purposes) of the aircraft for example when I stick the master on as park of my walk around so why should I fit the bill as the Hobbs merrily ticks over.

Any way I'm having a bit of a rant here, I've just done a type conversion on another aircraft which is known for having a slow Hobbs, you win some you lose some I suppose.

Cheers

GtE

Don't be ridiculous.

...and this is the biggest problem. I'd love to go back to charging by tacho for all the good reasons given but from a marketing point of view, it's a big 'no-no'. Great for a group but not for a Club selling flying training.

We're currently charging for the time shown on the ADF timer, as there is an avionics master switch and it comes on with that, so there is some warm-up time before charging starts and it's probably pretty accurate. We note the time to the nearest 5 mins anyway, for instance 45 mins if it says 47. Since we charge decimal, you only pay .7 for 47 mins, which is a pretty good deal!

Now we'll thread-drift into whether or not you should keep your logbook in actual mins or decimal!!

TOO

Or in other words, NOT, from engine start. Logging from engine start to engine stop, is logging more hours than you are entitled to. Fine for an operator to charge to that so long as everybody knows, although not exactly calculated to ensure a proper warm up time.

Which we all passed exams on once upon a time!

G

Actually the major costs are exhumed from wheels off to wheels on, this is what counts for engine hours and the fuel used while taxying is relatively low, so if working on cost that is how you should charge - but it seems to be generally accepted to charge chock to chock either by time or some sort of meter, be it Hobbs or Tacho.
Our aircraft shows airborne time on the Dynon which is very accurate (unless you are doing land and taxi back to the hold) so we use that.

What matters at a busy airfield is not to charge for taxying time or holding. That makes pilots rush, and leads to takeoff with engine not warmed, or, worse, mistakes.

Our club has just changed from wheels up to wheels down, to tacho. Sadly because some people appear to have been creative with their timings, the tacho doesn't lie... The tacho tracks close to actual time at 65% but slightly faster at 75%.

The moment the engine starts I'm in control. I go thru' my checks and if satisfactory, with the needles off the stops, I taxi to the hold some five to six minutes distanr, I do have water and oil radiator blinds tailored to the season and relevant average OAT. By the time I get to the hold for my departure checks the temps are climbing nicely, By the time I line up, I'm almost at full operating temperature. The climb out does the rest.

A club I was once a member of used to use Trakfax. A box on the coaming recorded hours flown but only when it was plugged in. The connection was removed by the unscrupulous to reduce their hourly bill. It was beyond the intelligence of the committee to work out how to solve this.

Tim
 

You are correct, the primary reason for the change was that there had been some major mistakes in the tech logs with the HH:MM arithmetic that could have ( in one case ) resulted in the aircraft overrunning a maintenance check by 17 hours.

There had been very occasional incidents of tailwinds in both directions but these have been few and far between.

The fact that Lycoming recommend flight at 60 % power for longest engine life and the airborne time is very close to take off to touchdown times is at 65% power results in the aircraft being flown at the most economical settings for both the club and the renters.

Those who use higher power settings will pay more and the engine life vs actual time in the air will be reduced to take account of the reduction in engine life resulting from high power settings.

Every region in which I've held a licence, including the UK, defined 'time in service' (TIS) ie accrued time for the purposes of maintenance, as '...from when the aircraft became airborne until it next alighted'. Synonymous with 'wheels off to wheels on'. That period is the minimum amount of time that must be recorded to determine maintenance interval. Time accrued that does not involve flight is not considered for TIS calculation.

As long as whatever method you use accrues *at least* that time then it doesn't matter (to the Authorities) what method you use. They don't care if required maintenance is completed more frequently. However, the owner/operator should! Doing maintenance more frequently than is required makes the operating cost of the aircraft greater.

At a minimum recording time by the clock meets the rules. Tacho fudges the period because it is not strictly recording that which is required. It is arguable that, at continuous low power flight, the operator is not complying with the regulations. I know I've done numerous flights where the tacho showed less time accrued than the TIS. If tacho is used to track TIS in those cases then the rules are not being complied with.

I don't know why many operators don't make use of weight-on-wheels switches - when available - or fit an airswitch to activate a Hobbs recorder. It makes determining TIS sooo much easier.

Charging for the aircraft use is up to the operator. Any method that the users will bear is fair game, although using the same Hobbs that tracks TIS makes things easy. It also removes the price pressure of the user to rush warming & conducting pre-takeoff checks. If renting 'wet' then adding an allowance for fuel used during start & taxi takes care of the - slight - additional cost from that part of the plane's use. Admittedly the catch is that it adds motivation to run the engine hard, but a price penalty based on tacho difference soon stops that behaviour, as do excess fuel consumption surcharges.

Really? I can't actually find an FAA definition. 61.51 says a lot about logging flight time, but doesn't say exactly when it starts and stops. I was always taught engine start-to-stop. But on every airport I've flown from, the difference between this and chock-to-chock is negligible. It could be different, I suppose, if your tiedown was at the end of the runway. Realistically, you have to taxi to the runway, which is done at the same power setting as engine warmup, so you can do it as soon as the engine is running and you have done post-start checks. Similarly, once you've arrived at your parking spot, you don't wait long to shut down (except in a truly turbocharged aircraft maybe).

The helicopter is different, since you do full warm-up and cool down procedure before/after you move, and actually in the heli I log Hobbs time, which is controlled by the collective in the R44.

[Edited to add...] In fact it's in 61.1, and it does says "moves under its own power... until it comes to a halt" so it is strictly chock-to-chock. But for a normal fixed wing flight the difference is maybe a minute at most.

Our (Cubair at Redhill) aircraft use Hobbs meters attached to an air switch to record takeoff to landing time. We charge takeoff to landing plus 0.2 (ie 12 mins) to cover taxy time. This system has all the advantages mentioned above but also keeps the headline hourly rate comparable to organisations that charge block to block. Students and renters sometimes log more time than they pay for.

I guess hobbs is at its worst if you're the 1st up on a very cold winters morning and have 5 mins on the clock before you even move.

Or 15 minutes with some Rotax powered machines.:( I've seen a Eurostar on Hobbs cost more than a C172 on Tacho.