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#121
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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? |
#122
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My comments are made without reading the other posts, so I apologize if
it duplicates any responses. Unfortunately, if the Club has not specifically addressed this issue in its policies or by-laws it can get pretty interesting. The club that I am a member of, Bay Area Aero Club in the Houston area has the rule that a Pilot who leaves an aircraft "out" and returns without the aircraft is responsible for 100% of the costs of recovery, but is given first dibs at the effort (within reason.. same day, next day or offering to buy commercial fare for the recovery pilot to fly out). In out club, the owner bears 100% of maintenance costs. In the event of an incident or accident (in motion or not, certain deductibles apply). Maintenance does necessarily require bringing your own mechanic cross country, so this was a MAINTENANCE decision by the owner, and in my situation/setting, the travel time, parts and labor costs would be 100% the responsibility of the owner. The owners made a CHOICE to ferry their own mechanic by air rather than drive them or use local labor. There was an A&P on field who would have been there the next business day. I would have a hard time charging that to the pilot. Maintenance costs are part of the owner's cost of owning planes, regardless of where they occur. The next part gets muddier in my eyes... A club CFI is ferried out, with a "student" to recover the plane and bring it back. Ordinarily, the cost of the plane flying back, plus the costs to travel TO the aircraft are the responsibility of the pilot who left the aircraft. More than 50-75 miles in my mind justifies air travel and the expenses associated with it. But, the student is reaping the benefit of club instruction from a club instructor performing a ferry flight, for free.. and also not having to pay for his scheduled lesson in the other plane that he DIDNT get... this just doesnt strike me as kosher. The "student" who came along on the recovery should contribute in my mind an amount NOT TO EXCEED the amount he would have expended had he and his instructor NOT gone on the ferry flight. In other words, he gets to log 182 time, even if he only pays the 172/warrior price that he WOULD have spent otherwise. IN MY OPINION, the student shouldnt get a free ride at the expense of the guy who landed out. Looking at the numbers you provided, $175 in fuel costs (for Mark) for a "several hundred mile trip" is quite a bit of fuel.. thats 60-70 gallons of fuel for a roundtrip.. what did they take? a light twin? a Cessna Caravan, or a Malibu running flat out? Was this more economical than using another club airplane for the roundtrip? Was the whole situation handled as economically as it could have been? Again, if they took a BIG, gas guzzling plane so they could ferry the mechanic and tools, this factor should be addressed and partially PAID for by the owner. I feel that in this situation, the pilot who left the plane should reasonably be responsible for the costs of getting a pilot TO the plane, any tiedown or fuel costs associated with leaving it out, and NORMALLY the wet rate cost of returning the aircraft. Because the aircraft was used for instruction on the recovery leg, this complicates things in my eyes, since the "recovery leg" becomes a "revenue leg". The people who performed/received the instruction should bear SOME of the cost of the flight, out of principle. I am guessing that because there is no clear direction on this in the clubs P&P that there WILL be hurt feelings. There may be people who quit, or are kicked out of the club, and some of these costs may be unrecovered, becoming an expense of the club. The lesson here is the club needs to come up with some concise guidelines as to what is and is not expected of owners, renters, and recovery pilots when dealing with recovering a plane that "landed out". The club needs to establish guidelines regarding what is reasonable and what is not with regards to costs and economy, as well as what constitues a revenue flight and what does not, and all the gray areas in between. My club doesnt go into such detail on many of these issues, but as a whole we have managed to deal with such situations pretty fairly. I have landed out twice since I joined nearly 4 years ago. One time I ferried the owner out in a Mooney the next day to recover his plane.. and I paid for the mooney and the Owners Grumman's flight time. The other time, I wasnt charged a dime, despite promising the owner and reminding him through the club treasurer I would be responsible for flight costs back to base (both situations were less than 1 hour flying time away). The by-laws and SOP's for the club I'm in can be found at www.bayareaaeroclub.org . Good luck Dave Geoffrey Barnes wrote: First off, I'm not directly involved in this situation, but I am trying to gain an understanding on how other FBOs and flying clubs deal with something like it. One of our club members was flying our 182 -- which the club leases from the two gentlemen who own it -- and had what appeared to be an alternator failure. I'll call this person "Paul" to keep things straight. Anyway, "Paul" landed at an airport several hundred miles away late on Sunday night. There is an A&P at the field during normal working hours, but not on Sunday night. Rather than wait, Paul decided to rent a car and drive home, leaving the 182 behind. On Monday, our club A&P cashed in some favors with a client of his, who we'll call "Mark". Mark agreed to take the mechanic to the remote airport in Mark's personal aircraft. If it maters, Mark is not a member of the flying club, but is friendly with several of our members and was willing to help us out. Once all of this was arranged, Paul was asked if he would like to go along on the trip, but he said he was unable to do so. So instead, one of our club CFIs and another club member ("Luke") -- who were scheduled to do some instrument training that evening in a different aircraft -- agreed to go along and fly the 182 back after the mechanic got things squared away. Despite it being a long evening for everyone, it all worked out pretty well. The aircraft is back, the repairs were fairly cheap, Luke got his instrument lesson on the way home, and nobody even missed a scheduled flight in the 182. But a debate is raging concerning the costs for getting everything done. Unfortuneately, the club does not seem to have any specific rules about this kind of situation. This lack of guidance from the club rule book rather suprises me, and I hope to fix that issue in the very near future. But for the moment, we need to make up policy as we go along. There are four different costs involved here. Our A&P charged us $100 for the travel time back and forth. The parts and labor to fix the 182 amounted to $70. Mark (the non-club member who flew everyone down there) would like to be reimbursed for his fuel costs, which are around $175. And the 182's flight home racked up about $270 in rental fees, about $225 of which would normally be sent directly to the aircraft owners. Under the terms of our lease with the owners of the 182, they are responsible for maintence costs, so the $70 to fix the plane seems to be pretty clearly their responsibility. All of the other costs are, with the club's lack of written policy, open to debate at the moment. What would your club or FBO do in this situation? --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.627 / Virus Database: 402 - Release Date: 3/16/2004 |
#123
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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? |
#124
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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 |
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"Geoffrey Barnes" wrote
But then again, maybe the split nature of the responses stems from the fact that there really ARE no consistent policies across FBOs and clubs for situations like this one. Exactly. This varies all over the place, and is dealt with in all sorts of ways - up to and including one plane I used to rent where the owner simply didn't want it ever going anywhere far from home. Realize, however, that the way you handle this situation will set a precedent. You (and I mean you as a club rather than as an individual) are setting policy, and you should think very carefully about the kind of policy you set because it will be hard to change later. The exact amount of Mark's fuel costs are still up in the air at this point, but I know for a fact that he has been warned to think very, very carefully about what he asks for. His thinking is still ongoing at this point, and I'll let him come to that decision on his own. Then you have already set a policy - you're not going to be readily forthcoming with fuel costs for owners who help you out in these situations. That's your decision to make - but realize this is going to get around, and in all likelihood this will be the last time an owner helps you out. Proper protocol in this kind of situation is to pay for all the fuel, and be grateful that you are really only paying 25-50% of the actual costs. Our original renter pilot, Paul, refuses to acknowledge any responsibiliby for any of these costs. Since the club had no standing policy on this question, there is no legitimate way in which the club can force Paul to pay it. Frankly, if it were me, I would have just paid for the return flight and avoided all the controversy about it. I also would not have left the plane stranded in the first place, and would have hung around until it got fixed. But Paul is pretty adamant and will not volunteer anything at all to defray these costs, and the club has no policies on the books which say that he has to. The ONLY reason that I (and I imagine many others) would choose renting/clubbing over ownership is exactly this situation - not bearing responsibility for maintenance. Being able to just leave the unairworthy plane and say "This is not my problem." That's the only advantage of renting/clubbing over ownership (either sole or shared) if you are flying enough to be proficient (CFI's are a special case here). So make the decision - do you want a club full of people who average 20 hours a year and a few CFI's? Be forewarned - a few years of this, and the standard of proficiency will be such that you are quite likely to find yourself an unattractive insurance risk. So either the club eats it -- essentially forcing 60-some other people to pay for Paul's decision -- or we pass it onto the owners and risk ****ing them off. You don't pass it on to the owners without their consent - not unless you want them to start carrying a reserve for such contingencies - at your expense of course. What I'm telling you is that either you will lose the airplane, or you WILL pay those costs, one way or another. I am sensitive to the idea that putting the renter on the hook for these costs may make induce some pressure for them to overlook mechanical problems. But the same could be said of a VFR pilot trapped under an overcast and facing the costs of calling in two IFR "rescue" pilots to retrieve the aircraft. The two situations cannot be separated from one another, or every cloudy sky will begin to trigger phone calls to the club office claiming that the planes won't start, and that the club should pay to get them home. I guess I don't see it that way. When the plane starts just fine, the renter is back on the hook for the rescue operation. I think the two situations are quite easy to separate. Whether you wish to separate them is a matter of club policy. Right now, you have no club policy. That's just dumb - you need one. What it should be is up to you (again, not you as an individual but you as a club) - as long as it's stated up front, nobody has a legitimate bitch. But push too much of the maintenance risk onto the club members, and you will lose the ones who are the most active and fly the most. They won't protest and quit in disgust - but pretty soon they will be owners and will have no need for the club. Michael |
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In rec.aviation.owning Geoffrey Barnes wrote:
: First off, I'm not directly involved in this situation, but I am trying to : gain an understanding on how other FBOs and flying clubs deal with something : like it. snip We've heard a lot of how various clubs handle this, let me tell you how my FBO handles this situation. First, the FBO is a customer-driven, for-profit organization. They operate about 12 airplanes, 152's, 172's, warriors, arrows, and a dutchess. Weather: The FBO dispaches all flights (unlike most clubs), so presumably the weather is suitable for the flight. Maintenance: The FBO does routine maintenance, and has a pretty well maintained fleet. If the weather turns sour suddenly or the airplane has a maintenance issue, the renter is expected to not push it; the FBO wants them to leave ("abandon") the airplane at a reasonable airport and the FBO will arrange for their transportation back to the FBO. The FBO then arranges to recover the airplane. Sometimes these things are combined: 2 CFI's fly out to pick up a VFR-only pilot stranded for weather reasons. The renter's obligation stops when the airplane hobbs stops (unless the FBO deems the renter "unreasonable", which I have not heard of occurring). In one case, the airplane & pilot were weathered in for 3 or 4 days over 800 miles away. The pilot elected to stay with the plane, and the FBO picked up those expenses (hotel & meals). I cannot imagine how a corporation could operate any other way, in today's legal climate. I would think that a lawyer would hold the FBO responsible if the renter were required to arrange for transporting a mechanical'd or weathered-in airplane, chose to fly to save $$$, and had an incident/accident. The FBO is also a customer-driven business enterprise. If the customers thought they were getting a raw deal they have the option of not being customers anymore. -- Aaron Coolidge |
#127
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"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 |
#128
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"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 |
#129
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"Dave S" wrote in message ink.net... My comments are made without reading the other posts, so I apologize if it duplicates any responses. Looking at the numbers you provided, $175 in fuel costs (for Mark) for a "several hundred mile trip" is quite a bit of fuel.. thats 60-70 gallons of fuel for a roundtrip.. what did they take? a light twin? a Cessna Caravan, or a Malibu running flat out? Was this more economical than using another club airplane for the roundtrip? Was the whole situation handled as economically as it could have been? Again, if they took a BIG, gas guzzling plane so they could ferry the mechanic and tools, this factor should be addressed and partially PAID for by the owner. Actually $175 is 70 gallons (at $2.50) and presumably Mark is paying for a third on the flight out and all the fuel on the way back for a total of 210 gallons. Mark's plane must be turbine powered or a DC-3! Mike MU-2 |
#130
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"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
nk.net... A private pilot has at least 40hrs of experience and has passed a minimal checkride. The FAA does not want pilots with these minimal qualifications flying the public around. Part 91 maitenance standards are minimal too. The FAA does not want the paying public flying around in these aircraft. This is a hypothetical discussion, so what the FAA does or doesn't want really isn't the issue. My point is that the requirements for pilot qualification and maintenance should be based on risk and the perception thereof by the participants, and not upon other factors. This is correlated with, but certainly not exclusively based upon, whether the operation is considered 'commercial' or not. In fact, the existing FARs already make exception for 'commercial' operations which occur with (presumably) informed consent of the participants - flight instruction, which doesn't need to be pt. 135. It seems quite reasonable to me that "Mark", flying a pilot and A&P out to a help a stricken plane ought not be hampered by the FARs either. If he wants to charge money, so be it. I'd not attempt to regulate his reimbursement any more than I'd try to tell a CFI what to charge. It seems that too many people accept that 'commercial intent' should be the deciding factor, but don't really appreciate that what the rules should be doing (and what they for the most part do) is arbitrate risk. -- Dr. Tony Cox Citrus Controls Inc. e-mail: http://CitrusControls.com/ "Geoffrey Barnes" wrote in message ink.net... {tc says} Unless, of course, you're running an air taxi business which thinks it is loosing out. But as I said before, that is a _protectionist_ issue which shouldn't have anything to do with the FAA. |
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