Rental policy

Have you considered the possibility of something failing AFTER you've
departed? Stranger things have happened. Everyone is assuming that the
pilot is departing in an unairworthy plane. Alternators can fail. Birds
can strike the wing or windshield. Quit reading more into this than
there is.

Dave

Bill Denton wrote:

The lawyers would starve on this one!

This only applies if the pilot knew about the problem before taking off...

"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...

"If the PIC determines that the plane needs repair before being
flown, and the PIC has flown the plane away from its home location, the

PIC

must remain with the plane for three (3) days while the plane is being
repaired. The PIC is responsible for all costs of his own lodging, food,
travel expenses, etc. during this three day period. If the PIC elects to
leave the plane during this three day repair period, you are responsible

for

the smaller of $5 per mile or $1000 for an FBO staff member to retreive

the

plane."


I've never seen something like that before. I wouldn't fly there.


It shouldn't really affect you in any case. If you take off in
a plane you know needs to be repaired, you are violating
the FARs as well as the rental policy. Just fly legally and
it won't apply to you.


"if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to be afraid of"

Suppose you take off in a good airplane, land in Kalazazoo, and the vacuum
system dies. Not your fault. You didn't take off (to Kalamazoo) in a

plane

that you knew needed repairs; in fact it didn't. But now you're there,

and the

lawyers eat you.

Run, don't walk.

Jose




--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

Actually, if you had the two-cents worth all of us have thrown in you could
afford your own plane!


"Robert" wrote in message
...
Thanks to everyone for their interpretations. I think I'll just check out
some more FBO's .... I'm sure someone else has comparable rates without
these types of restrictions.

Now if I could only afford my own plane.......

Robert

"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...

"If the PIC determines that the plane needs repair before being
flown, and the PIC has flown the plane away from its home location, the
PIC
must remain with the plane for three (3) days while the plane is being
repaired. The PIC is responsible for all costs of his own lodging,
food,
travel expenses, etc. during this three day period. If the PIC elects
to
leave the plane during this three day repair period, you are responsible
for
the smaller of $5 per mile or $1000 for an FBO staff member to retreive
the
plane."


I've never seen something like that before. I wouldn't fly there.


It shouldn't really affect you in any case. If you take off in
a plane you know needs to be repaired, you are violating
the FARs as well as the rental policy. Just fly legally and
it won't apply to you.


"if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to be afraid of"

Suppose you take off in a good airplane, land in Kalazazoo, and the
vacuum
system dies. Not your fault. You didn't take off (to Kalamazoo) in a
plane
that you knew needed repairs; in fact it didn't. But now you're there,
and the
lawyers eat you.

Run, don't walk.

Jose




--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

Actually, if you had the two-cents worth all of us have thrown in you
could
afford your own plane!


Yeah, but, if he bought his own plane, flew it somewhere and something
broke, he would have to stay with it for three days and pay all the costs of
repairing it, getting it back, transportation if he had to go back and
forth, and any other expenses that might come up. He wouldn't even have the
protection of the FBO limit on having to stay with the plane only three
days.

Think how unfair all that would be!

--
Roger Long

"Bill Denton" wrote in message
...
[...]
The problem is that you haven't the slightest idea what the intent of this
section of the agreement is. It is saying that if you are aware of a
problem
with the aircraft, yet you fly the aircraft anyway, and that flight
exacerbates the previously existing problem, necessitating a repair before
the aircraft can returned to it's base, you will be responsible for costs
associated with that repair.

Your "between the lines" circuit appears to be working overtime.

I will see your initial misinterpretation (that the language only applies to
problems that existed prior to leaving home base), and raise you your new
misinterpretation: you are now claiming that this language specifically only
applies to situations where the problem actually got WORSE after you flew
the airplane?

Sheesh... that's about the most bizarrely, "constructive" interpretation of
a contract I've ever seen. You've managed to invent two new clauses where
there's no language in the contract whatsoever to suggest them.

As I said, the language in the rental agreement
is not the best in the world, but this is how that would be interpreted.

Obviously that's how it would be interpreted by at least one person.
However, there's no way it would be interpreted that way by anyone who
matters (that is, a renter, a lawyer, a judge, or a jury).

Pete

There was a discussion on the r.a.owning group recently that discussed a
situation in a flight club that was similar to the one that this FBO is
clearly trying to protect itself from...

There is one mistake in your example. You would be charged $1,000, not
$1,800, for retrieval. Whether or not it is fair depends on the full story
- was the repair scheduled to take 3 days? Longer? Shorter?

The way it is written now, it seems like if the repairs are expected to
take 5 days, you would still have to stay for 3 or be charged, which is
unreasonable. But if the repairs are expected to take 2 days, and you
decide you have to be home before then, quite frankly, you probably should
be charged.

The bottom line is it may not be unreasonable to expect that if you take a
plane out and it needs a repair, you are still responsible for getting the
plane back to the FBO after the repair has been completed.

I'm not sure why you need to stay with the plane, though. I think they are
trying to avoid the repair being completed after you leave, and you not
getting back there for 2 "wasted" days to bring it back... Or maybe they
are trying to say that if the repair will take more than 3 days, they will
take back responsibility. I could read it either way.

I would have worded it something like, "If repairs will take 3 days or
fewer, renter is responsible for returning the plane to the FBO within 24
hours of repair completion. If the renter cannot fly the plane back
himself, he will be charged for all time and expenses for the FBO to
recover the plane, to a maximum of $1000. If the repairs will take longer
than 3 days, FBO will recover the plane at its own cost. Either way, renter
is responsible for all costs of his own lodging, food, travel expenses,
etc. should he be choose to remain with the plane while it is being
repaired."

Of course, I am not a lawyer, so there may be problems with the language
that I put up. But I think that's the general idea of what they are trying
to do. There also will be an issue if the FBO wants to send a pilot who is
not commercially rated to recover the plane...

A policy that forces you to "stay with the plane" seems less reasonable,
And the calculation for the cost of the retrieval that they have used seems
like it could go either way...

Maxing out at $1,000 may be to your favor, depending on rates and all. I
wonder if they have some sort of insurance that covers this situation, and
the deductible is $1,000. If you fly 350 miles away, and two instructors
fly out together in another 172 to pick up the plane, figure 6 hours round
trip for each instructor, 6 hours round trip for the extra plane, and 3
hours for the return flight home for your plane. At $40/hr instructor time,
and $100/hr plane time, you're talking about $1280, which quite frankly,
you probably should be fully responsible for...

In many ways, the policy seems fair. And if the FBO is responsible for the
maintenance of the planes, it may never really be a big issue... The
biggest inconvenience that I ever had for a repair was a gash in a tire
that I found on preflight at 4:30pm, and all maintenance guys at the field
were gone, so I had to wait until morning to get it changed. If a cylinder
blows, or there is some major electrical malfunction, I think it's gonna be
more than 3 days to fix... The biggest risk might be if you get caught at
4:30pm on a Friday and they won't work on it until Monday, or if they have
to order a part...

I suspect if you get the plane back as soon as possible after repairs are
done, whether or not you stayed with it in between or not, no one is going
to care.


"Robert" wrote in
:

I received my private last September, and have rented a Cessna 172 from
the same place I completed my training at ever since. Recently, I've
been looking for a new place to rent because the 172's at my current
FBO are old and always down because something broke yet again.

I went to a different FBO yesterday to ask about getting checked out in
a plane there. Initially they looked like a great place to rent
from... at least until I took a look at their rental policies and
procedures. I really didn't like one of them, but am wondering if it
is "just me" or if it is a normal policy with most FBO's.

It says "If the PIC determines that the plane needs repair before being
flown, and the PIC has flown the plane away from its home location, the
PIC must remain with the plane for three (3) days while the plane is
being repaired. The PIC is responsible for all costs of his own
lodging, food, travel expenses, etc. during this three day period. If
the PIC elects to leave the plane during this three day repair period,
you are responsible for the smaller of $5 per mile or $1000 for an FBO
staff member to retreive the plane."

So, basically, if I fly from Long Beach to Santa Barbara (class C
airport), and the plane has an electrical problem to due to fault of my
own, and I decide to squak the plane in Santa Barbara, I have to pay
someone about $1,800 to retrieve the plane if I can't stay with it for
three days while it gets repaired.

Is this an outrageous policy, or is it normal? I could see that I
would be responsible if I damaged the plane, or just decided to leave
the plane somewhere else, but its almost like they are encouraging
pilots to fly planes back home that shouldn't be flown just so they
don't get stuck with a bill.

Robert

"Tony Cox" wrote in message
link.net...
[...]
Anyway, we all agree that it only applies "If the PIC determines that
the plane needs repair". So don't take off if it does, right??

I would never launch in an airplane that needs something serious fixed with
it. I don't think the original poster is saying he would either. The point
is that the language implies that you could be on the hook for as much as
$1000 in recovery costs should the airplane break for reasons out of your
control away from the home base.

Avoiding the take off doesn't get the renter out of that requirement of the
contract.

Pete

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"Tony Cox" wrote in message
link.net...
[...]
Anyway, we all agree that it only applies "If the PIC determines that
the plane needs repair". So don't take off if it does, right??

I would never launch in an airplane that needs something serious fixed
with
it. I don't think the original poster is saying he would either. The
point
is that the language implies that you could be on the hook for as much as
$1000 in recovery costs should the airplane break for reasons out of your
control away from the home base.

Bah! This thread has surely gone on too long.

The language neither says nor implies anything of the sort. It says quite
plainly "If the PIC determines that the plane needs repair before being
flown, ...". Anything after the comma doesn't apply if the condition isn't
met. To spell it out, if the PIC doesn't determine the plane needs repair,
you're not obliged to stay the 3 days, pay the $1000, have your nuts cut
off or anything else that happens to be specified AFTER THAT COMMA.

Actually, as Bill pointed out, how does anyone know what the PIC
knew? You could take off with 1/2 a wing hanging off & you *still*
wouldn't have to worry about this clause as long as you didn't decide
that the plane needed repair. As I said before, a pretty useless condition,
from the FBO's point of view - except that it's obviously scared at least
one person from doing business with them.

Surely you must be yanking my chain ;-)

"Judah" wrote in message
...

I'm not sure why you need to stay with the plane, though. I think they are
trying to avoid the repair being completed after you leave, and you not
getting back there for 2 "wasted" days to bring it back... Or maybe they
are trying to say that if the repair will take more than 3 days, they will
take back responsibility. I could read it either way.

I read it that they want you to provide security. If you don't stay
with the plane for up to 3 days & someone steals the avionics,
you're on the line for up to $1000...;-)

"Shiver Me Timbers" wrote in message

If you take off in a plane you know needs to be repaired,
you are violating the FARs as well as the rental policy.

If anyone takes of in a plane that needs to be repaired this
armchair pilot and lurker says you are dumber than a
sack of hammers and a prime candidate for the darwin award.

My initial thought was the same, but upon re-reading it, it seems to be
saying that if you take the plane to a remote location and THEN determine
something is wrong, you have to stay with the plane. 'Cause if the PIC
knew there was a problem before taking it out, well, he's got bigger issues
than the FBO policy. But what if you fly someplace and, say, the alternator
fails while you're gone? You certainly don't fly back, but the FBO doesn't
want you just abandoning the plane there.

Not sure it's a good policy, but I think that's what it means.

-c

"Tony Cox" wrote in message news:Unxmc.10069

Well, if it wasn't broken when you took off, the clause
hasn't anything to say on the matter. Otherwise, who knows?
The clause says nothing about 'airworthiness'. Don't take
off when things 'need repair' and it won't be an issue.

It could, because the problem could develop while you have the plane.

For example: Flat tire, alternator failure, fuel filter failure, XPDR,
etc... all kinds of things can go wrong between the time you depart from the
home base and the time you return.

-c