Club Management Issue

No, I don't think we need Ms. Cleo :-). Nor do I think that the owners are
"negligent". The owners are doing the "minimally required maitenance". If
they wanted to know whether the alternator was on its last legs, it is
pretty easy to check the bearings and the brushes wear predictably.
Basically my point of view is that if I am responsible for deciding what to
replace and when, then I am responsible for the outcomes. If I choose to
save money by not doing something and that decision results in a failure,
then I should be financially responsible.

Mike
MU-2


"Peter Clark" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 02:48:25 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote:

I agree that there are infant mortality failures that can't be predicted
and
the manufacturer is responsible for those. The owners could have replace
the alternator the day before but didn't. They are the ones making the
maitenance decisions so they need to live with the consequences.

This is where I must have missed something in the original poster's
set of facts. If the owners are doing minimally the FAA required
maintenance on the aircraft and the alternator was showing no sign of
problems when the pilot took off with it, how is the failure
automatically a result of the owner's negligence, which appears to be
your position? Are you somehow going to know to replace an apparently
perfectly good alternator the day before it shows signs of problems
and subsequently breaks down? There is no indication here that the
alternator was squawked prior to this flight. There is nothing in the
record that shows whether or not at the onset of the flight there was
an alternator light on in the aircraft, or whether or not the
voltmeter was showing normal things during the runup checks. I assume
that the pilot wouldn't take the aircraft out if it the light was on
or the voltmeter was showing wrong, right? It would not be airworthy.
So, are you expecting the owners to call Ms. Cleo and find out it's
going to break and then arrange to have it replaced before the pilot
picked up the aircraft? Until something is uncovered during
maintenance (there is no mention of lax maintenance here) or during
runup and then squawked (at which point the flight should not have
left the originating airport) the owner has no way of knowing to
replace something. I include in routine maintenance those things with
wear-lives that have listed hours-to-replace/rebuild even though they
might not be showing anything wrong at the time they're
replaced/rebuilt.

I'm just saying that if the owners had deferred fixing a known issue
with the alternator then yes, definitely negligence and not only their
issue, but they should be picking up 100% of all costs including food,
lodging, and rental cars - but if they did the required maintenance,
with no known issues deferred (and there is no evidence in this set of
facts to contend otherwise), I am having problems seeing how anyone
could contrive owner negligence into this scenario.


Mike
MU-2




"Peter Clark" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 23:33:45 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote:

I guess that I see it differently.

The owners are responsible for maitenance and they should be
responsible
when lack of maitenance causes a problem. It is their call whether to
replace things to insure better reliability.

Maybe I missed it but who said that the owners shirked any required
maintenance, or were lax in their maintenance here? Things break. I
lost an alternator control unit in a 2003 Skyhawk SP which was
delivered in December and only had 75 hours total time. How could
that possibly be due to bad/non maintenance?

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
nk.net...
[...]
Basically my point of view is that if I am responsible for deciding what
to
replace and when, then I am responsible for the outcomes. If I choose to
save money by not doing something and that decision results in a failure,
then I should be financially responsible.

I'll go one further than Mike's opinion here. IMHO, the question of whether
the owners chose "to save money by not doing something" is irrelevant.
Failures can happen even with the most detailed maintenance. The fact
remains that in any situation, the OWNER is ultimately responsible for costs
related to maintenance. Period. If the airplane is being rented to someone
else, that doesn't change anything. It is the owner upon whom any
maintenance-related expenses should fall.

Of course, a mutually agreed-upon contract that specificies something
different would change this. Renters are free to voluntarily commit to the
liability of maintenance-related costs if they want. But I don't know any
renters who would do so, and in fact one of the few benefits of renting is
that you don't have to deal with these costs, not directly (obviously, those
costs wind up built into the rental fees, but that means that no single
renter will wind up with some surprise expense, the bane of ownership).

Certainly no renter should expect to pay any costs that are not specifically
described prior to the rental.

Pete

On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 16:02:01 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote:

No, I don't think we need Ms. Cleo :-). Nor do I think that the owners are
"negligent". The owners are doing the "minimally required maitenance". If
they wanted to know whether the alternator was on its last legs, it is
pretty easy to check the bearings and the brushes wear predictably.

OK, so there's a document somewhere which tells me how many hours life
my alternator has from last time the brushes were replaced? I don't
know (is there a handy list of everything covered in an annual
somewhere?) - are the brushes and bearings routinely checked at 100hr
or annual inspections? I know that there's a wear indicator on my
vacuum pumps which I'll have swapped out with new at around 80% wear
indicated.

Basically my point of view is that if I am responsible for deciding what to
replace and when, then I am responsible for the outcomes. If I choose to
save money by not doing something and that decision results in a failure,
then I should be financially responsible.

Personally, I believe the owners are responsible for the cost of
getting the aircraft itself fixed. Unless caused by the renter,
that's generally how it works - even with cars. That having been
said, if I was renting it and was unwilling/unable to wait until a
mechanic fixed it (course, I don't understand why they had to fly a
mechanic in - was there no repair facility at/near the airport the
aircraft landed at?) I'd expect to foot my own rentacar bills and
hotel bills to get back home. It's up to them to get the aircraft
back to the line once it's fixed. So, basically in this case I
believe that if the pilot couldn't wait until the next morning to have
an A&P look at it, he's on his own for rentacar, hotel etc (same as he
should have been if it was a weather issue). The owners are on the
hook for getting a pilot out there to fetch it, and paying for the
repair, which is the difference from weather abandoned - the
abandoning pilot should pay for retrieval if they weren't waiting if
it's weather-induced.

Mike
MU-2


"Peter Clark" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 02:48:25 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote:

I agree that there are infant mortality failures that can't be predicted
and
the manufacturer is responsible for those. The owners could have replace
the alternator the day before but didn't. They are the ones making the
maitenance decisions so they need to live with the consequences.

This is where I must have missed something in the original poster's
set of facts. If the owners are doing minimally the FAA required
maintenance on the aircraft and the alternator was showing no sign of
problems when the pilot took off with it, how is the failure
automatically a result of the owner's negligence, which appears to be
your position? Are you somehow going to know to replace an apparently
perfectly good alternator the day before it shows signs of problems
and subsequently breaks down? There is no indication here that the
alternator was squawked prior to this flight. There is nothing in the
record that shows whether or not at the onset of the flight there was
an alternator light on in the aircraft, or whether or not the
voltmeter was showing normal things during the runup checks. I assume
that the pilot wouldn't take the aircraft out if it the light was on
or the voltmeter was showing wrong, right? It would not be airworthy.
So, are you expecting the owners to call Ms. Cleo and find out it's
going to break and then arrange to have it replaced before the pilot
picked up the aircraft? Until something is uncovered during
maintenance (there is no mention of lax maintenance here) or during
runup and then squawked (at which point the flight should not have
left the originating airport) the owner has no way of knowing to
replace something. I include in routine maintenance those things with
wear-lives that have listed hours-to-replace/rebuild even though they
might not be showing anything wrong at the time they're
replaced/rebuilt.

I'm just saying that if the owners had deferred fixing a known issue
with the alternator then yes, definitely negligence and not only their
issue, but they should be picking up 100% of all costs including food,
lodging, and rental cars - but if they did the required maintenance,
with no known issues deferred (and there is no evidence in this set of
facts to contend otherwise), I am having problems seeing how anyone
could contrive owner negligence into this scenario.


Mike
MU-2




"Peter Clark" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 23:33:45 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote:

I guess that I see it differently.

The owners are responsible for maitenance and they should be
responsible
when lack of maitenance causes a problem. It is their call whether to
replace things to insure better reliability.

Maybe I missed it but who said that the owners shirked any required
maintenance, or were lax in their maintenance here? Things break. I
lost an alternator control unit in a 2003 Skyhawk SP which was
delivered in December and only had 75 hours total time. How could
that possibly be due to bad/non maintenance?

"Geoffrey Barnes" wrote in message
ink.net...
That's the way that my vote will probably go as well. Again, I agree with
every point you make but I still come down on the other side of the issue.

Obviously, I disagree. But as long as the club is clear about the policy, I
guess they can set whatever policy they want.

However, just keep in mind that, just as the private pilot renter would be
required by FAR to pay for the flight back, should he choose to stay with
the plane until it's fixed, the club can only legally bill back the cost of
having someone else fly the plane back if that someone else has a commercial
certificate. Otherwise, the person flying the plane back is required to pay
for the flight.

Pete

Peter,

I want to clarify and perhaps disagree with a point you are making...

If the recovery pilot is not a commercial pilot, but is doing the club's
bidding in returning the aircraft, I dont see the problem with the club
billing the FLIGHT TIME of the recovered airplane to the ABANDONING
pilot. The abandoning pilot would have had to pay the flight time to
return the aircraft if he had flown the plane home hisself. I am of the
firm conviction if you abandon a plane 3 hours from home, you should be
prepared to pay for the flight time (i.e. WET RENTAL RATE) of that plane
to get it home, and I dont see where a commercial certificate comes into
play.

Our club does not pay any kind of stipend to members who perform a
recovery, regardless of their rating.

In this particular recovery, though, there appears to have been
instruction (revenue) which muddies the whole who pays what issue.

In the two instances where I have left club planes out, my first phone
call was to the owner of the aircraft (they are very involved, actively
managing the planes) and letting them take lead on deciding how to
handle it. Our club's maintenance officer can only authorize up to $300
in maintenance without owner approval anyways, and as a general rule,
our club's maintenance officer's routine duties involve maintenance at
the base. Any situations that deviate from the norm fall back on the owners.

Dave

Peter Duniho wrote:

"Geoffrey Barnes" wrote in message
ink.net...

That's the way that my vote will probably go as well. Again, I agree with
every point you make but I still come down on the other side of the issue.


Obviously, I disagree. But as long as the club is clear about the policy, I
guess they can set whatever policy they want.

However, just keep in mind that, just as the private pilot renter would be
required by FAR to pay for the flight back, should he choose to stay with
the plane until it's fixed, the club can only legally bill back the cost of
having someone else fly the plane back if that someone else has a commercial
certificate. Otherwise, the person flying the plane back is required to pay
for the flight.

Pete

"Dave S" wrote in message
news
[...]
If the recovery pilot is not a commercial pilot, but is doing the club's
bidding in returning the aircraft, I dont see the problem with the club
billing the FLIGHT TIME of the recovered airplane to the ABANDONING
pilot.

The FAA does not agree with you. If the "abandoning pilot" were billed for
the flight time, then that means the pilot actually flying the plane would
not be paying for the flight time, and if that pilot holds only a private
certificate, that is clearly against the FARs.

Pete

Peter,

I have flown free of charge in someone elses plane, rental or
what-have-you for purposes of pleasure or mutual interest. Does that
count as a commercial operation too? Is my license in peril in your mind
because of that? (I'm a private pilot).

Dave

Peter Duniho wrote:
"Dave S" wrote in message
news
[...]
If the recovery pilot is not a commercial pilot, but is doing the club's
bidding in returning the aircraft, I dont see the problem with the club
billing the FLIGHT TIME of the recovered airplane to the ABANDONING
pilot.


The FAA does not agree with you. If the "abandoning pilot" were billed for
the flight time, then that means the pilot actually flying the plane would
not be paying for the flight time, and if that pilot holds only a private
certificate, that is clearly against the FARs.

Pete

"Dave S" wrote in message
ink.net...
I have flown free of charge in someone elses plane, rental or
what-have-you for purposes of pleasure or mutual interest. [...]
Is my license in peril in your mind
because of that? (I'm a private pilot).

Yes. If someone other than you paid for the direct operating expenses,
that's a clear violation of the pro-rata cost sharing provision in 61.113.
As far as the FAA is concerned, not being charged is the same as being
charged and being compensated at 100%.

That's assuming the owner of the airplane paid for those expenses. It
becomes even MORE problematic for the private pilot flying for nothing if
some third party pays those expenses, as is being suggested here.

Pete

Peter Duniho wrote:
"Dave S" wrote...

I have flown free of charge in someone elses plane, rental or
what-have-you for purposes of pleasure or mutual interest. [...]
Is my license in peril in your mind
because of that? (I'm a private pilot).

Yes. If someone other than you paid for the direct operating expenses,
that's a clear violation of the pro-rata cost sharing provision in 61.113.
As far as the FAA is concerned, not being charged is the same as being
charged and being compensated at 100%.

That's assuming the owner of the airplane paid for those expenses. It
becomes even MORE problematic for the private pilot flying for nothing if
some third party pays those expenses, as is being suggested here.

Pete, you're leaving out that a charity can pay 100% of the flight
costs...

Thanks.. sounds like we need our club to review things, and perhaps get
a letter of opinion from the FAA/FSDO and/or possibly change our SOP's.

In intent, I would like to say we dont want to violate the FAR's but at
the same time we want to hold our club members responsible for expenses
incurred by them leaving the aircraft away from its base. This sounds
like its going to be an interesting meeting this month.

Dave

Peter Duniho wrote:
"Dave S" wrote in message
ink.net...

I have flown free of charge in someone elses plane, rental or
what-have-you for purposes of pleasure or mutual interest. [...]
Is my license in peril in your mind
because of that? (I'm a private pilot).


Yes. If someone other than you paid for the direct operating expenses,
that's a clear violation of the pro-rata cost sharing provision in 61.113.
As far as the FAA is concerned, not being charged is the same as being
charged and being compensated at 100%.

That's assuming the owner of the airplane paid for those expenses. It
becomes even MORE problematic for the private pilot flying for nothing if
some third party pays those expenses, as is being suggested here.

Pete