How do schools rent for multi-day XCs?

[taxiway_matthew]

Just a question here, if I wanted to do a multi-day behemoth of a cross-country, as build-up for my CPL hours, say Vancouver - Regina, or even further, in a school's C150 or something similar, how would they charge you? Surely an hourly rate for a trip like that would be silly, so how does it work?

Thanks

[iflyforpie]

Depends on the school. Some are really tight with their aircraft, either because they are booked, because they are greedy, or because they don't trust you.

They will usually set out a minimum per-day charge for the amount of time the aircraft is away
(typically between 2-4hrs).

[Grey_Wolf]

Depends on the schools policy.

Some schools will have a policy that resembles this:
A Minimum day rate, or whatever you flew; whichever is greater.
For Example 3 Hours in Winter (Oct 15-Apr 15), or 4 in the Summer.

No School wants it's aircraft gone all day only to put an hour on it. So they charge what it would normally accumulate in terms of revenue to the person taking it for the night.

I did a 3 day xc and ended putting 9.6 hours on the aircraft. Worked out nicely for the 300 NM CPL XC requirement.

Hope that helps.

[ogc]

I know the school I currently attend use to have a 6 hour per 24 policy.

Something similar to that seems pretty common.

I dont think they allow full day rentals anymore, due to an incident. so I am going to have to try and find another place or school to try and organize that.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I dont think they allow full day rentals anymore, due to an incident. so I am going to have to try and find another place or school to try and organize that.

Sigh.....It is pretty hard to actual learn how to operate aircraft if the FTU doesn't let you go anywhere. I would find a more enlightened establishment for your future flight training because it sounds like your school is not doing very much to prepare you for flying commercially.

[Ralliart]

There shouldn't really be any set "policy" in this manner.

It should be a base by case judgement, made by the CFI.

If I was the CFI, I'd look at your overall experience, maturity etc, the proposed route and duration, the weather etc.

Then assess if the flight would be beneficial for you, if the company schedule can allow it or be made to work it out, etc.

There are many variables, but it really should be something doable if your flying with a common sense school.

[MichaelP]

My policy when I owned my own flying business was to let people go.
There were weeks when the weather was really bad while France enjoyed brilliant flying weather, and so I preferred to have the aeroplanes bimbling around there for a few hours rather than no hours at home.

It's always a problem here... As far as I am concerned aeroplane rental does not make much if any money, employing instructors as value added does.

Here the policy is four hours per day, but that comes from the fact the policy was copied when we started. I put the kibosh on many of the policies but didn't get everything.
But if you 'talk to Michael' with an outline of the plan we'll come to an arrangement.

Here we try to use the C1 Eclipse for long cross country flights, it's fast and very economical while swallowing that awful 100LL stuff.
The DA40-180 is also available and has done a fair number of long flights as well.
We have not imposed the four hour business for these aeroplanes yet.

The Katanas are a different story.
They go out cheap and they fly 100 hours a month each. These are our primary training aeroplanes and we can't let them go for long. I've got two more on the way and wonder whether four of these aeroplanes will be enough for next summer!

Then there's the SportStar. Everyone who flies it likes it, you can take it almost anywhere, it was front cover and centre spread in a few magazines on the beach at Vargas Island.
We put it out at $99 an hour, but only limited hours can be used for CPL/ATPL requirements, and none of the cross country time counts! This is stupid as it is an aeroplane!
It's for people who fly for fun, and that's only a small minority here, a pity really!

[FlaplessDork]

Some guy walked off the street last year wanting to rent for a long XC and I let him go after a checkout with one of my instructors. He got stuck due to Wx, he flew through cloud and FZDR, got calls from the towers, got lost and he never called us for flight following like he was supposed to. All things we had discussed before he left. I had to call all the FBO's and FIC's to try to find our A/C.

It was a nightmare.

We don't rent to people of the street anymore unless that have done a fair bit of flying with us beforehand.

I believe he came to us from ZBB...

[MichaelP]

I believe he came to us from ZBB...

Perhaps a phone call to the previous school/club would help in these matters, like getting a reference for a job!

There is a whole world of difference between the renters of the 1980's and the renters these days.

But I have to say, I picked up my aeroplanes from some odd places where they had been abandoned... Precautionary landings were not unknown in Britain's fine summer weather!

[ywgflyboy]

My school had a 3 hour per day policy. Of course there were times the aircraft I would take sat on the ground for weeks on end because it was a constant speed prop and too expensive to do training in so I would just call day before and say "hey the arrow hasn't been up in a few weeks and its not booked for another 2, can I take it?" How could you say no to letting it go?

Think it is all a CFI/owner judgment call.

[FlaplessDork]

I believe he came to us from ZBB...

Perhaps a phone call to the previous school/club would help in these matters, like getting a reference for a job!

There is a whole world of difference between the renters of the 1980's and the renters these days.

But I have to say, I picked up my aeroplanes from some odd places where they had been abandoned... Precautionary landings were not unknown in Britain's fine summer weather!

If you call me asking about a student I'd tell you politely to screw off. FOIP issues. Now if a student takes his PTR with him its his choice to show it to whom he wishes.

Maybe write clearer comments in the PTR, like this guy is a moron in a polite way...

BTW, he flew 172's so he wan't from your school...

[Big Pistons Forever]

I sympathize with Flaplessdork's "renter from hell". It speaks to the challenge of trying to determine a persons competance based on usually one checkout flight. Part of the problem IMO is a tendancy or checkouts to be looked as a nuisance and given to the junior instructor or whoever happens to be around. Looking back at when I was a full time instructor I think the hardest flights I did were the checkouts, particularly as a junior instructor. I got no real guidance from the CFI and had to make value judgements on how good was good enough more times than I was comfortable with.
They got a lot easier when I occasionally did them as a senior instructor. I used the TC flight test form and I used to fill out the form (in pencil), including all the flight manoevers, by the end of the runup. I usually did not make many changes because with experience you could tell a lot just by how the renter got in, started, and taxied the aircraft. There are no easy answers and I very much appreciate the amount of grief a lazy, stupid renter can cause, but a blanket ban on X-C flying especially for students building time between the PPL and CPL short changes the students in what IMO is a vitally important developmental phase. As a student I would not accept this limitation.

[MichaelP]

If you call me asking about a student I'd tell you politely to screw off.

Interesting attitude. I think all responsible instructors should work together...
I've had CFI's call me about students from places I have worked as they have transferred over.
Without condemning anyone a decent instructor can give a true appraisal that will help the new school in that student's training.
Of course equally it can save the new school from dealing with a student who has a history of not paying his bills...

A check out should be tailored to what the student anticipates doing and to the particular aircraft and location.
We have CSUs on our trainers and so I like to see a couple of flights to see that the person knows how to use it.
As for cross country rentals you can put in some restrictions if you sense 'trouble'.
I've had inexperienced renters fly with more experienced people as they build their experience.

The DA40-180 with it's G1000 has been rented to low time pilots. It's checkout is more involved though and cannot compete with a run around the patch in a common Cessna 172.
In the short term this is expensive, but in the long term the DA40-180 becomes more closely matched in price as the performance is better.

One of the benefits of being here is the need to give renters some mountain training before letting them loose.
Even renters who have done a 'mountain check' (I prefer 'mountain experience') flight can be tested with a demo canyon turn and with the renter briefing you on the ground as to how he/she has been taught to handle situations.

[FlaplessDork]

Interesting attitude. I think all responsible instructors should work together...
I've had CFI's call me about students from places I have worked as they have transferred over.
Without condemning anyone a decent instructor can give a true appraisal that will help the new school in that student's training.
Of course equally it can save the new school from dealing with a student who has a history of not paying his bills...

Giving out information on a student has alot of legal implications. Its just as bad as handing out someone's flight test results without premission. Same reason why most employers these days don't give out references. Put it in the PTR and its now in the students hands to give out the information and you've now your CYA'd. Just my opinion.

[MichaelP]

Slander is only slander when it is untrue.
If you give out the truth without emotion or embellishment then you can not be done for slander.
There is implication of course!
I'm not suggesting that 'personal' information be divulged, I would not be interested in someone's sexual orientation, just how he/she needs to be taught.
I suppose that like a 'reference' we can ask the student for permission to call the previous instructor/CFI.

The original reason I signed up for this forum was that a person on here wrote some libelous things about me.
I corrected these statements...
I saw the person concerned yesterday at breakfast!
This is a small community we all get to know each other, and I would not appreciate my fellows not giving me a warning!

[Shiny Side Up]

As for cross country rentals you can put in some restrictions if you sense 'trouble'.

Personally, if you sense there may be "trouble" then they just shouldn't be rented the airplane. You won't be able to make up a long enough list of restrictions to keep them from doing stupid stuff with the airplane. Far too many renters in my experience take a very cavalier attitude to the well being of your airplane when its out from under your direct watchful eye. All in all its largely too much trouble. Generally I only make exception for commercial students, and then they are kept under a strict flight following regimen. Long story short, Its not worth the stress on my part.

[ogc]

I sympathize with Flaplessdork's "renter from hell". It speaks to the challenge of trying to determine a persons competance based on usually one checkout flight. Part of the problem IMO is a tendancy or checkouts to be looked as a nuisance and given to the junior instructor or whoever happens to be around. Looking back at when I was a full time instructor I think the hardest flights I did were the checkouts, particularly as a junior instructor. I got no real guidance from the CFI and had to make value judgements on how good was good enough more times than I was comfortable with.
They got a lot easier when I occasionally did them as a senior instructor. I used the TC flight test form and I used to fill out the form (in pencil), including all the flight manoevers, by the end of the runup. I usually did not make many changes because with experience you could tell a lot just by how the renter got in, started, and taxied the aircraft. There are no easy answers and I very much appreciate the amount of grief a lazy, stupid renter can cause, but a blanket ban on X-C flying especially for students building time between the PPL and CPL short changes the students in what IMO is a vitally important developmental phase. As a student I would not accept this limitation.

Yeah I am quiet annoyed with the fact that I will not be able to do long x country flights. I might be able to work something out though with the CFI the unwritten rule is apparently it can still be done as long as the school isnt really busy ie no weekends, which is fine with me, that place is a shit show on the weekends, I avoid it like the plague.

A quick comment on the calling another flight school business.

A simple rule we all know should cover that quite easily.

If you dont have anything nice to say dont say anything at all... Silence would be enough for me.

[Highflyinpilot]

Funny, reading this thread and people debating wheter it is a good idea to call othe people to find out information on them(competent, not so competent) makes me think of just last week, I was talking to one of the managers at my current work place and he mentioned just that,that if any one calls for a refrence on an individual he will not give out a reference as he mentioned it can have legal implications. although it is not aviation related industry it can definetly relate.


In fact come to think about it i beleive he mentioned something about it being illegal to give out a bad refrence due to defamation of character, now I dont know how the law works on this, nor do i care but just thought i would mention it.



P.S sorry to highjack this thread but it just seems funny to read this thread and be talking about the very same thing with one of the managers at my work place.

[MichaelP]

Too much is affected by 'legal implications' these days.

There is: "If you dont have anything nice to say dont say anything at all... Silence would be enough for me." and silence can imply many things.
But if you know someone has seriously dangerous habits then do we not owe it to the potential passengers of such a person for the new employer to know?
I suppose the credibility of the referer has to be taken into account, malicious gossip as is often found on AvCanada should be taken as such.

IMHO there are too many 'legal implications' that could be counter to safe flying operations.

Would a quick phone call have prevented this?:
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/51398

[Highflyinpilot]

You are right about the safety aspect and the fact that everything nowadays has too much a legal aspect tied to it, but it is what it is, you alone must decide what to do in such a situation.



on the original topic, having never rented a plane for multiple days, if a company says we charge 4 hour every 24 hours let say, and you agree, what happens if you are well on your way to your destination and you have to land half way to your destination due to weather, and end up being stuck there for 3 or 4 days, would you still have to pay the 4 hour a day min. charge? Im assuming so, but it would really suck to have to be paying daily charges when you cant even go flying due to the weather.


P.s I wish flying wasn't so expensive, i would love to be able to rent aircraft for multiple days, it sucks when 2 hours of flying in a months time can pay for my cable, phone internet and 2 cell phones(mine and my wifes) for the month

[MichaelP]

Another point to consider about long cross country rental is who will pay for the recovery of an aircraft left somewhere.

I've seen it happen a few times where weather has stopped someone, he/she has had to abandon the aircraft and take public transport home, and then that person has subsequently had to pay for someone else to go and pick up the aircraft.
We must allow sufficient time to cope with weather delays and be prepared to stay with the aircraft.

Nobody in their right mind would penalise a pilot for waiting out the weather, that 4 hour minimum charge can encourage 'get home itis' with disasterous results.

IMHO a four hour charge should be based on the 'profit' from that aircraft rather than the whole cost of operation including fuel and maintenance.

[Highflyinpilot]

"Nobody in their right mind would penalise a pilot for waiting out the weather, that 4 hour minimum charge can encourage 'get home itis' with disasterous results."


Well let's hope not, although i have seen crazier things in life.

[Shiny Side Up]

what happens if you are well on your way to your destination and you have to land half way to your destination due to weather, and end up being stuck there for 3 or 4 days, would you still have to pay the 4 hour a day min. charge?

Here in lies the big problem with multi day rentals, and once again I'm always curious as to why people expect that when dealing with airplanes the rules are different than the rest of the world. I you went down to your local rental shop and rented one of their table saws for instance, do you think that they would make an exception because some unforseen circumstance prevented you from bringing it back? Does the video rental place? What about a car rental place? Yes, yes, airplanes have special considerations - the get-home-itis point is well said. My feeling is though that this is a risk you agree to assume when you take the airplane - and when people ask about multi day rentals I'm very clear on this. The question here is why does the PDM only come into play when the pilot wants to get home - renters (and we should be clear here that we're talking about non-student renters) never tend to consider this when leaving with the airplane. If there is such a thing, they have very strong "get-there-itis" when leaving that often they don't consider in the long term what the get home effort might entail or cost.

I've seen it happen a few times where weather has stopped someone, he/she has had to abandon the aircraft and take public transport home, and then that person has subsequently had to pay for someone else to go and pick up the aircraft.
We must allow sufficient time to cope with weather delays and be prepared to stay with the aircraft.

This is precisely the reason that multi-day rentals are such a risk. I stress the "WE" above as this onus should lie on the renter - just like it does in every other rental agreement above. If one is going to allow multi-day rentals, an additional stipulation should be the cost that will be incurred should a recovery effort need to be mounted.

Nobody in their right mind would penalise a pilot for waiting out the weather, that 4 hour minimum charge can encourage 'get home itis' with disasterous results.

The problem here being that renter pilots view them selves as being "penalized" for taking on a risk they assumed when they left. If they view it as a "penalty" then they aren't up to the task of taking on the responsibility of caring for one of your aircraft. In the end its all about being made accountable for one's decisions - something so many people are loathe to do these days.

By the same logic that the charge is a "penalty" should you pay for their hotel room and food when they get stranded too? Maybe their bus ticket home? Are these also "penalties" that a pilot should be spared just so he doesn't get a bad case of get-home-itis?

[MichaelP]

Very good points Shiny Side,

I think then that perhaps there should be a day rate based on expected average utilisation income over and above the direct operating cost of the aircraft.

For me this is a bit of an emotive topic because I believe people should be encouraged to go places in aeroplanes.
I have always been a member of flying concerns that have allowed me to go places in their aeroplanes.

In Blackbushe days I flew Condors for fun but the club also had over a period of time a Wassmer Pacific, a Rallye Club, and a Jodel Ambassadeur which one could go places in.
I flew to Ireland a couple of times and across France and into Switzerland, Belgium, and Holland for my one or two weeks summer excursions.
Then I joined the Tiger Club and flew across Europe in their (our) aircraft.

Did I get stuck for weather?
Many times, but I never worried about it, I'd walk to le village and drink chocolat chaud and eat pain au chocolat while I viewed the local scenery. (French girls know how to dress, look smart and attractive....).

So I try to do something the same here.
I encourage pilots to go off in the DA40, and the DA20-C1, as well as the little SportStar, these are go places aeroplanes and are not a part of the core training 'fleet'.

But then there's a different accent to most in the way students are trained here.
I try hard to get people to treat the aeroplanes with respect and care. This is not easy when you have pilots used to slamming doors on old aircraft at other schools!
We do much more cross country stuff than most, we do a genuine long cross country with our students and try to prepare them to go places in the future.
The golf ball rolling around the little valley being funneled into Hope is not enough. I want new PPLs to have the confidence to go to Victoria with a briefing.

So my view is taken on an individual basis, I use my judgement as to how far I'll let you take an aeroplane in my care.

[Big Pistons Forever]

One way to deal with the multi-day X-C is to treat it like a commercial flight. If Joe/Jane budding comercial pilot is time building they should treat the X-C not as a jollyy but as a serious use of an aircraft to get a (pretend) passsenger from A to B. Like good commerciall ops, there should be clear and unambiguos dispatch approval and every leg has to have a OFP submitted before takeoff. The thing that has to be absolutely clear is the destination and route of flight can be requested by the renter but it is approved by the school. In other words the plane goes where it is told, just like in real commercial operations. If there are weather delays the operator eats it, just like in real commercial operations.