building up hours

rating and instruct primary students. For the students' sake it helps
if you like teaching but it's not required.

Based on what I read alot of here in the groups and on some message
boards I frequent, there seem to be far too many instructors only in
it for the "hours", and the students that they are mentoring are just
bumps in the road, who are more of an aggravation then anything else.

Not the kind of instructor I'd want, personally.

My current instructor has mentioned to me in the past that he is
indeed on his way to becoming an ATP (Only after I prodded him about
his future plans, he certainly didn't just blurt it out one day) and
I'm cool with that... Hey, if he can build hours at someone else's
expense, that's cool with me...all the power to him. If I ever
decided to go that route, I'd probably do the same thing... (Although
I enjoy teaching others as well..but anyhow).

However, the difference is that my instructor seems to enjoy
instructing, sharing my milestones and seeming to get some amount of
satisfaction from it as well. He's cheery, seems to genuinely enjoy
what he does, and makes the best of things while he progresses through
what is clearly just a stepping-stone in his career.

IMHO, that's the difference between a good instructor, and someone who
is just instructing for the hours, and little else.

We pay around $1.10 per litre - doing a rough calc at the kiwi $ being 70 US
cents and 4 litres to a US gallon, we're paying the equivalent of $3.08 US
Dollars per US gallon - How does that compare to what you're paying?

We get a lot of English and Japanise students coming through - apparantly
we're about 1/3 the cost of what they pay over there (so they tell us).



"Roger" wrote in message
...
On 14 Apr 2005 04:42:09 -0700, "Denny" wrote:

You just can't beat New Zealand
****************************************

Well yeah, but you have to learn a new language...

And if car gas is any indicator, (It was well over twice what we pay
when Joyce was there in Feb.) it'd be far more expensive than in the
states.

However they are trying to cripple GA with paranoia and charging non
nationals extra fees and going through extra security checks. Other
than the hassle I'd bet this is still the cheapest by far. Of course
if you fly in the mid west you can fly hours and not see the scenery
change.

If the scenery changes you know you have either hit the Rocky
Mountains, Smoky Mountains, Gulf of Mexico, or Canada.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 21:58:57 +1200, "Cockpit Colin"
wrote:

We pay around $1.10 per litre - doing a rough calc at the kiwi $ being 70 US
cents and 4 litres to a US gallon, we're paying the equivalent of $3.08 US
Dollars per US gallon - How does that compare to what you're paying?

When she was there in Feb. it was $5 US equivalent a gallon and we
were around $2.00 plus change. It spiked at $2.40 and is back to
$2.19.

Avgas varies widely, with the local price being $3.13 and a 20 mile
hop will bring you to $2.60. So, you are far closer than I thought.

Our local FBO has small tanks which are leased from the fuel company.
They wouldn't put in large ones as they said there wasn't enough
sales. Of course he has to pay a premium per gallon for less than a
full load and on top of that he has a flowage fee and taxes. The
other airport is county owned and operated. They have large tanks, no
extra tax or flowage fees.

Flying a bit farther to HTL they are even cheaper. Again, it's a
county owned system with large tanks.

OTOH go to some of the larger airports and it can be really expensive.
You can find major differences between FBOs on the same field.


We get a lot of English and Japanise students coming through - apparantly
we're about 1/3 the cost of what they pay over there (so they tell us).

When Joyce told me about the price of car gas I figured the other
prices would also be high and comparable to Europe.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com



"Roger" wrote in message
.. .
On 14 Apr 2005 04:42:09 -0700, "Denny" wrote:

You just can't beat New Zealand
****************************************

Well yeah, but you have to learn a new language...

And if car gas is any indicator, (It was well over twice what we pay
when Joyce was there in Feb.) it'd be far more expensive than in the
states.

However they are trying to cripple GA with paranoia and charging non
nationals extra fees and going through extra security checks. Other
than the hassle I'd bet this is still the cheapest by far. Of course
if you fly in the mid west you can fly hours and not see the scenery
change.

If the scenery changes you know you have either hit the Rocky
Mountains, Smoky Mountains, Gulf of Mexico, or Canada.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Aircraft hire charges are probably a better comparison - In NZ Dollars (inc
GST) for a PA38 or C152 you're looking at around $140.00 per hour max
(around USD 98) - you can get hour builders for, say, 20 per hour less, but
they tend to be a bit cruddy.

Personally, I've always made the effort to share the cost equally with 3
other friends - how does USD $28 per hour sound for a C172 - or USD $60 per
hour for a light twin sound

When she was there in Feb. it was $5 US equivalent a gallon and we
were around $2.00 plus change. It spiked at $2.40 and is back to
$2.19.

I'm not sure if I'm reading you right - you're saying that your wife saw
pricing in New Zealand equivalent to USD $5 per gallon? If so, that doesn't
add up - that works out at around $1.79 NZD per litre - hell, we even sell
it to the stock car boys (at a big profit) for $1.65. I was the one
responsible to setting hire rates on club aircraft during Feb - off memory
our buy rate dropped from 1.145 per litre to 1.105 - tax needs to be added
to that, but it's deductable for us, so no net effect. Multiply by 4 to get
US gallons and multiply by 0.7 for USD and that's the component cost of the
fuel in the hire rate.

"Montblack" wrote:

Baaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh


......old old old jokes.

If you're driving in Alabama, how do you tell if you're near Auburn U.?

If you stop and get out of your car, the sheep will back up to the
fence.

Being a Georgia DAWG, I really really enjoyed that joke! :0

Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech
"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...

"Montblack" wrote:

Baaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh


......old old old jokes.

If you're driving in Alabama, how do you tell if you're near Auburn U.?

If you stop and get out of your car, the sheep will back up to the fence.