Considerations for joining flying club

Roy Smith wrote
In general, I would expect a club to have less restrictive rules than an
FBO

Let's just say this has not been my experience. Maybe that's why
there are not many clubs in my area (and none on my field). I think
clubs tend to form when the local FBO's get obnoxious.

Nobody wants other club members to
be reckless with the airplanes, and it is inevitable that within any
group of people, there will be different opinions on where "fun and
challenging" leaves off and "reckless" begins.

Of course the ones who think it's reckless are wrong

I'm actually about 99% serious about this. 99% of the time, when
someone says "that's reckless" what he really means is "I couldn't
pull this off consistently AND I don't want you to do it."

Here's what makes a club worse. At an FBO, one guy is boss. He has
his hot buttons, and those become rules. At a club, these things are
done by committee. There is compromise. Unfortunately, the
compromise usually turns out to be "I'll vote for your hot-button
rules if you vote for mine." That's how formation flights,
acrobatics, and such get banned.

You would think that there would be a healthy push back from the
people who don't like making rules, but they're usually not there at
the board meeting. They're too busy flying formation, doing acro,
etc.

My club used to have no rule about grass at all. A few years back,
somebody brought our Arrow back covered with grass stains. A discussion
ensued, and we ended up passing a rule forbidding landing any of our
retracts on a non-paved runway. Oddly enough, we don't require any
special checkout for grass.

See, this is exactly the kind of crap I'm talking about. Grass
stains? My god - do you really think tall grass is rougher on the
airplane than concrete dust? I pretty routinely operate my Twin
Comanche off grass. I know guys who base Barons and C-310's off
grass. An Arrow on grass is a non-event.

On the other hand, there ARE things to know about landing on grass.
Most of it has nothing to do with the actual takeoff and landing - dry
grass in good condition requires no special technique. But there is a
lot to know about asessing the quality of a grass surface before you
land on it, deciding when to abort a takeoff, etc. Given how pathetic
the FAA requirements are in this area, a special checkout would make
sense. Preferably from someone who has plenty of experience landing
fast, heavy, retractable gear airplanes on unpaved strips.

Most rules come about because at one time in the past, somebody did
something which other people considered unacceptable and they wanted to
try and prevent it from happening again. Congress does this, the FAA
does this, FBO's do it, and there's no reason to be surprised when clubs
do it too. It's the way life works.

Yup. Only at an FBO, it has to be something the owner found
unacceptable. The FAA is slow and bureaucratic - one incident is
rarely enough to make anything happen. Ditto Congress. Clubs,
unfortunately, tend to combine the worst of all worlds.

I would certainly urge anybody who is thinking of joining a club to read
all the rules carefully before joining.

As well as find out how difficult it is to make rules, and what people
in the club do. For example, if people routinely fly formation, it's
not likely that it will be forbidden. On the other hand, if you do it
and start doing it, the club weenies may well decide to forbid it - or
to make everyone get FAST cards, which is about the same.

Michael