Nathan Young wrote:
On Sat, 05 May 2007 12:21:27 GMT, Matt Whiting
wrote:

Mortimer Schnerd, RN wrote:
Dan Luke wrote:
Any of you folks who have been thinking about volunteering, now's as good a
time as any to contact AF and get started. We need more pilots and I know you
will find it rewarding.

You know, I wouldn't mind donating my time but I'm a renter. I can't afford to
just buy them trips.



You think owners have a less costly situation than renters? That is
truly funny! :-)

On a trip by trip basis we do.

The fixed costs are already sunk, so we get to fly for the cost of
fuel, oil. In my Cherokee that's about $40/hr, substantially less
than the ~$100/hr they want for renting the 172s at the local FBO.

Sunk cost doesn't matter. You have to apportion sunk costs to the hours
you fly somehow or you aren't calculating the true cost of flying. The
cost per hour of flying in a given year is total costs (fixed &
variable) divided by the number of hours flown that year.

Deciding to exclude a given flight from the equation is simply not
logical. Having an airplane is a prerequisite to even making the
flight, so saying that sunk costs aren't relevant is simply ludicrous.
If you hadn't paid those costs you would not be able to even make the
flight!

Matt