Flying Club Maintenance Officer?

On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 20:34:54 +0000 (UTC), (Paul
Tomblin) wrote:

In a previous article, Andrew Gideon said:
Tony wrote:
Our club uses www.myfbo.com for scheduling, billing and mx tracking.
The owner has been great in customizing. And it's not very expensive.

Has anyone compared this to schedulemaster.com? My club uses that, but I've
seen a little of myfbo too as a local FBO uses it. I don't know either
well enough to compare, though.

There appears to be a "unbiased" comparison at
http://myfbo.com/myfbo/comparison.htm
ScheduleMaster is "Online System S". Actually, ScheduleMaster has some
new features that aren't on that list.

One thing I'd have to investigate before we considered moving to myfbo
from ScheduleMaster is how easy it is to use from a touch tone phone. Our
members do a lot of that.

For what it's worth, our club uses Yahoo Calendar for aircraft
scheduling. Each plane has a username (its tail number) and a
password. Members sign into the Yahoo calendar function with the
aircraft ID and reserve and cancel time that way.

Not a good idea for a large membership with a lot of churn, but for
us, with eleven members, two planes, and a fairly high price to buy
in, it works fine.

Don

Paul Tomblin wrote:


There appears to be a "unbiased" comparison at
http://myfbo.com/myfbo/comparison.htm
ScheduleMaster is "Online System S". Actually, ScheduleMaster has some
new features that aren't on that list.

Much is left unclear. For example, what is the difference between "tracks
maintenance" and "schedules maintenance"? And just how does "projects when
aircraft maintenance will be needed" work? Does this project against
average daily usage, or something else?

It does make myfbo look more attractive (big surprise, eh?), but I wonder
what features it's not listing.

One thing not discussed on that page is how scheduling rules are expressed.
The club to which I belong just changed from one type of policy (a certain
number of bookings) to another (a certain number of points, with different
bookings having different point "costs"). This is likely unimportant for
an FBO, but I doubt we're the only club to use this sort of thing.

Schedulemaster has no problem with this. Yet this is a feature not on the
list at the above URL.

- Andrew

In a previous article, Andrew Gideon said:
Much is left unclear. For example, what is the difference between "tracks
maintenance" and "schedules maintenance"? And just how does "projects when
aircraft maintenance will be needed" work? Does this project against
average daily usage, or something else?

Well, it also says that it tracks aircraft usage. One thing our club is
considering is buying an extra cost option from ScheduleMaster so that
when a person comes back, they enter their tach hours before and after
into SM as well as the paper slips we have now, and that would simplify
our billing. But if myfbo does that already, and uses that information to
say, issue a warning that an oil change is due or whatever, so much the
better.

One thing not discussed on that page is how scheduling rules are expressed.
The club to which I belong just changed from one type of policy (a certain
number of bookings) to another (a certain number of points, with different
bookings having different point "costs"). This is likely unimportant for
an FBO, but I doubt we're the only club to use this sort of thing.

Our club has some even more complicated rules.

If you're a student pilot, you can only book the Warrior, and you can have
as many booking as you want on the system.

If you're a regular pilot, you can only book the Warrior up to 14 days in
advance - so the students get first crack at it. Also, you can only have
6 bookings on the system total for times beyond 14 days from the present,
but unlimited bookings within 14 days.

We asked, and ScheduleMaster provided that rule for us.

I've got to say, though, that looking at myfbo's demo site, their
scheduling page is ugly as a mud fence.

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Make backups before you try something new or interesting or experimental
or radical or if the day has a "y" in it.
-- Chris Hacking

The mx tracking in MyFBO is entirely customizable. You enter the
task, AD, part or whatever and what interval you want to assign to it.
Then on the mx due screen you can see what is projected to be due
based on the schedule of the aircraft. Squawks can be entered be the
member at checkin time which are emailed to me immediately.

There are also a number of statistical report to track how much
utilization a plane has with billed time and reserved time. We love
it.



Andrew Gideon wrote in message ...
Paul Tomblin wrote:


There appears to be a "unbiased" comparison at
http://myfbo.com/myfbo/comparison.htm
ScheduleMaster is "Online System S". Actually, ScheduleMaster has some
new features that aren't on that list.

Much is left unclear. For example, what is the difference between "tracks
maintenance" and "schedules maintenance"? And just how does "projects when
aircraft maintenance will be needed" work? Does this project against
average daily usage, or something else?

It does make myfbo look more attractive (big surprise, eh?), but I wonder
what features it's not listing.

One thing not discussed on that page is how scheduling rules are expressed.
The club to which I belong just changed from one type of policy (a certain
number of bookings) to another (a certain number of points, with different
bookings having different point "costs"). This is likely unimportant for
an FBO, but I doubt we're the only club to use this sort of thing.

Schedulemaster has no problem with this. Yet this is a feature not on the
list at the above URL.

- Andrew

I hear you Paul. With our club, it is always the same 6-8 people that
do everything. Everyone else benefits in a club of 70.

BTW, How do you like your Lance? We have the same model and year.
Have you all ever considered any speed mods or a 3-blade for it? I
have just started looking into it and was wondering if you had any
experience with that stuff.

Tony
www.glendaleflying.com

(Paul Tomblin) wrote in message ...
In a previous article, Chris Spierings said:
One of the jobs that is open is the club maintenance officer. The last
guy to do it, did an outstanding job but spent 20-30 hours a week some
weeks riding herd on things and verifying that the fbo and its
maintenance folks did what they said they did and then did it properly.

Our club has a "V.P. of Maintenance" (VPM), but each plane has a
Maintenance Coordinator (MC) and Assistant MC. When there is a squawk on
the plane, the member who notices it must write it up on the squawk sheet
in our line shack, and phone the MC, and if he can't reach the MC he's
then supposed to try the AMC, then the VPM. As well, we enourage people
to also post the squawk to the club mailing list.

The MC is responsible for deciding if the squawk is something that needs
immediate attention or should be deferred to the next oil change or
annual. He also will make sure the scheduled maintenance is done on time
(like watching the tach hours to see if an oil change is needed, etc). He
is "compensated" for his time by getting to fly the plane out to the
airport where we get the maintenance done (which also warms up the oil for
the oil change). Some of the MCs are pretty pro-active and help to
organize log books and paper work, as well as organizing wash and wax
parties and installing and removing oil cooler winterization plates.

The VPM is responsible for approving high cost maintenance items, and for
reviewing all the bills that come back. He also is the single point of
contact for ADs and SBs, since we're an all-Piper fleet and most things
apply to more than one of our planes.

Our club, unlike many, doesn't do any of our own maintenance, mostly for
liability reasons, but also because we're a pretty lazy bunch. 50
members, but you only see the same 10 people rotating between the officer,
MC, AMC and Board of Director positions, and participating in wash and wax
parties.

http://www.rochesterflyingclub.com/

In a previous article, (Tony Aldi) said:
BTW, How do you like your Lance? We have the same model and year.
Have you all ever considered any speed mods or a 3-blade for it? I
have just started looking into it and was wondering if you had any
experience with that stuff.

The founder of the club and former head Maintenance Officer has been
agitating for a LoPresti Howl Cowl for the last 10 years, but the club
never went for it. Now he's agitating for a twin, but there is no
insurance company in the country that will insure a twin in a flying club
(except maybe for clubs that already have a twin and are grandfathered in,
but I wouldn't bet on it).


--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
"The surreality of the universe tends towards a maximum" -- Skud's Law
"Never formulate a law or axiom that you're not prepared to live with
the consequences of." -- Skud's Meta-Law

(Paul Tomblin) writes:

The founder of the club and former head Maintenance Officer has been
agitating for a LoPresti Howl Cowl for the last 10 years, but the club
never went for it. Now he's agitating for a twin, but there is no
insurance company in the country that will insure a twin in a flying club
(except maybe for clubs that already have a twin and are grandfathered in,
but I wouldn't bet on it).

The Canadian flying clubs I'm familiar with seem to have at least one
twin for ME training, but I more and more get the impression that
"flying club" means something entirely different on the two sides of
the border.

In Canada, a flying club (at least in my part of the country) is
essentially a non-profit FBO, and some of them date back to the 1920's
to 1940's (in the late 1920's, for example, our flying club founded
what later became Ottawa's international airport). Flying clubs
generally have a clubhouse, one or more employees, a few hundred
members, and a member-elected board, much like a country club (only
more fun and much cheaper to belong -- maybe USD 100/year in dues, and
typically no initiation fee).

In the U.S., it sounds like a flying club is more like a big
partnership.


All the best,


David

In a previous article, David Megginson said:
In Canada, a flying club (at least in my part of the country) is
essentially a non-profit FBO, and some of them date back to the 1920's
to 1940's (in the late 1920's, for example, our flying club founded

Oshawa Flying Club was founded on Commonwealth Air Training Plan cast-off
aircraft. Like Ottawa it's got a club house with a snack bar that appears
to be staffed on weekends, and a huge number of members.

In the U.S., it sounds like a flying club is more like a big
partnership.

I think there are US clubs like yours, but ours is essentially a big
partnership. There are two flying clubs at Greater Rochester
International Airport, ours which charges only a nominal initiation fee
($750) and Artisan which sells you a share (over $16,000 last time I
checked). Ours doesn't refund anything when you quit, and Artisan buys
your share back. They've also got a better plane/member ratio.

I've seen flying clubs in the US where there are members who own their own
planes which they make available to the club members as a sort of
lease-back thing.

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
It could have been raining flaming bulldozers, and those idiots would have
been standing out there smoking, going 'hey, look at that John Deere burn!'
-- Texan AMD security guard

(Paul Tomblin) writes:

I've seen flying clubs in the US where there are members who own
their own planes which they make available to the club members as a
sort of lease-back thing.

Yes, the Ottawa Flying Club has an Arrow on leaseback the same way.


All the best,


David