Flying Club Maintenance Officer?

[Chris Spierings]

I'm a member of a local flying club which has ~30 members and 3
aircraft. A number of the club's long standing members have moved on in
the last year or so and now its time for some of the other folks to step
up and take the reins.

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.

Could anyone share information on the arrangements they've been
associated with in terms of overseeing aircraft maintenance. If its in
a club setting even better.

I hoping the experiences of the group will give us more options than
asking one poor soul to bear the burden of all of this on their own.

Thanks

Chris Spierings

[Roger Long]

3 planes? You could easily spend that much time doing the job right.

I would urge you to take this job. You might want to suggest to the club
that each plane have a M.O. or "crew chief" if time is a problem. This
would spread the load around and provide backup.

Flying a plane you manage will make you a better and safer pilot and enrich
your flying experience enormously. There is a certain comfort in knowing a
plane's innards and history intimately when you are really depending on it.
I put a lot of time in for our one plane club. It isn't a lot more time
though than I would spend if I owned it individually and it makes it "my"
plane in a way it could never be otherwise.

If you take the job, I'll be glad to give you advice and help, both
mechanical and political. I'm interested in promoting contact and
information sharing among flying clubs.

Check out our web site and email me privately:

http://baldeagleflyingclub.org

--
Roger Long

[Paul Tomblin]

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/

--
Paul Tomblin,
Remembering Julie Zipper and the other 3030. 09/11/01
http://xcski.com/~ptomblin/3031_Flags.html

[[email protected]]

On 11-Sep-2003, Chris Spierings > wrote:

> 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.


Unless this time includes some "owner-operator" maintenance like oil
changes, or your fleet includes something exotic, 20-30 hrs per week to
"ride herd on things" seems really excessive. I doubt that my co-owners and
I collectively spend more than 1 hr per week on average to see to it that
routine and unanticipated maintenance gets done on our Arrow. Maybe the
problem is the FBO that is doing your maintenance. In our case, when we
need maintenance we call the chief mechanic at our FBO and he sees to it
that the plane is serviced as requested. Squawks are communicated between
the owners by e-mail, but we could also do it by postings to the plane's web
site.
--
-Elliott Drucker

[Roger Long]

It isn't just the maintenance. In a typical club, just about everything
that happens on the ramp will fall into the MO's lap. With a few co-owners
communication is easy. With 20 - 30 members there is a lot more
communication required. The PIC has a very high level of responsibility for
the condition of the aircraft when the wheels leave the ground. It isn't
practical to let 30 members go through the logbooks so keeping them informed
and up to date on AD's and other maintenance issues so they have a basis for
fulfilling their responsibility is a big part of the job.

Owner's are also far more responsible for the maintenance of the aircraft
than many (or most) realize. It isn't sufficient to just call the shop and
tell them to do whatever needs to be done and put the plane back on line.
The MO should be up to date on things like AD's, independently verifying
that the shop is doing what is required, checking logbook entries, etc.
This takes some time.

The owner / operator is responsible for the maintenance. The shop works for
the owner / operator. The owner / operator is required to supervise the
shop.
--
Roger Long

[David Megginson]

"Roger Long" m> writes:

> It isn't practical to let 30 members go through the logbooks so
> keeping them informed and up to date on AD's and other maintenance
> issues so they have a basis for fulfilling their responsibility is a
> big part of the job.

That's an interesting national difference -- in Canada, the first step
of every flying lesson I took, from my intro flight on, was going
through the journey log to check for airworthiness. The big items
were compass swing, ELT check, and last inspection, but we also had to
look for snags, deferred defects, etc. They didn't have us check for
AD's. When you sign out a plane from the dispatch desk at my flying
club, you always get the Hobbs board and the big blue journey log
(usually falling apart to some degree).

Nowadays, I just keep my Warrior's journey log in the flight bag.


All the best,


David

[Roger Long]

It isn't really a national difference. Strictly speaking, every club member
here should read through the logs also. In the real world, it wouldn't mean
much to them though.

The words "Maintenance Officer" don't appear in the regulations. The fact
that there is one does not change the PIC's responsibility one whit. The
PIC is delegating part of the job to the MO but remains just as responsible.
The PIC better trust the MO and be sure he is doing the job. If there is an
incident or a ramp check, telling the inspector "Oh, we have a maintenance
officer and he takes care of all that stuff." isn't going to demonstrate
that the PIC was able to fulfil his responsibility. Being able to pull out
a book carried in the plane and show summaries of AD compliance, next
required maintenance times, etc. may not meet the strictest interpretation
of the regs but should usually be sufficient in the real world. If it's
backed up by evidence that the owner's supervise and verify that the MO is
doing his job and the MO supervises and verifies that the shop is doing
theirs, they will probably be satisfied that there is not a pattern of
disregard for the regulations. They'll still nail you on some obscure
little point that you missed if the want to. If they think you are trying,
they'll be less likely to want to.

--
Roger Long
David Megginson > wrote in message
...
> "Roger Long" m> writes:
>
> > It isn't practical to let 30 members go through the logbooks so
> > keeping them informed and up to date on AD's and other maintenance
> > issues so they have a basis for fulfilling their responsibility is a
> > big part of the job.
>
> That's an interesting national difference -- in Canada, the first step
> of every flying lesson I took, from my intro flight on, was going
> through the journey log to check for airworthiness. The big items
> were compass swing, ELT check, and last inspection, but we also had to
> look for snags, deferred defects, etc. They didn't have us check for
> AD's. When you sign out a plane from the dispatch desk at my flying
> club, you always get the Hobbs board and the big blue journey log
> (usually falling apart to some degree).
>
> Nowadays, I just keep my Warrior's journey log in the flight bag.
>
>
> All the best,
>
>
> David

[Andrew Gideon]

Roger Long wrote:

> If you take the job, I'll be glad to give you advice and help, both
> mechanical and political. I'm interested in promoting contact and
> information sharing among flying clubs.

What's a good source of information (ie. what makes good reading material)
for someone interested in participating on the maintenance side of a club?

Andrew

[Roger Long]

I haven't found much. Stuff is scattered all over and I can' think of any
specific and comprehensive source.

A lot has changed with the advent of the net. You can research and read all
the AD's and most of the service bulletins yourself.

Thanks for an idea for my fifth aviation article.

--
Roger Long
Andrew Gideon > wrote in message
...
> Roger Long wrote:
>
> > If you take the job, I'll be glad to give you advice and help, both
> > mechanical and political. I'm interested in promoting contact and
> > information sharing among flying clubs.
>
> What's a good source of information (ie. what makes good reading material)
> for someone interested in participating on the maintenance side of a club?
>
> Andrew
>

[Andrew Gideon]

Roger Long wrote:

> Thanks for an idea for my fifth aviation article.

So where is it, already???

- Andrew

[Chris Spierings]

Guys,

This has all been good information and reading. I really appreciate the
input, keep it coming.

I think the time demands for our MO have stemmed from a number of things:

1. A very poor maintenance officer preceding him
2. Most of the recent squaks have been avionics related and if you go
and check on some of my old posts you'll notice that the local avionics
shop has some issues. Like newly installed Garmin 430s falling out of
the panel on rotation. Transponders not secured or hooked up. The
avionics shop is poorly run and does **** poor work in my book. I don't
get to control where the work is done in this regard.
3. He is a very conscientious guy

I like the concept of having a MO and assistant for each plane. I'd
love to be involved with the maintenance more. I know I don't have the
time to devote those kinds of hours to this every week.

If you've got other ideas please keep them coming. The guy who has
agreed to fill in for our retiring MO is a good friend and a great guy
but he doesn't have the time nor is he even in the Midwest (where the
planes are based) very much so I'm dubious about where things are going
to go.

Chris



Andrew Gideon wrote:

> Roger Long wrote:
>
>
>>Thanks for an idea for my fifth aviation article.
>
>
> So where is it, already???
>
> - Andrew
>

[Tony]

Chris,

I am the Operations Officer for our club of 4 aircraft,
www.glendaleflying.com. I am not a A&P, so it I had a learning curve.
I think it was a great move. I have learned more about ever system of
our planes than I thought I would. You will discuss issues with
mechanics, research regs, AD, SB and get some hands on experience if
you really get into it. You can get familiar enough to order your own
parts and save money that way as well. I have been very envolved with
the purchase of our 4th plane and buying a new engine for our Skylane.
I could have never done that on my own without the help of a lottery.

I have started to do all of our own preventative mx, which has saved
the club a lot of money. This all does take a lot of my time, but I
feel compensated with education. I feel very comfortable that if I am
stranded at an aiport away from home with a mx issue, I will be able
to have a good idea of what the problem is and the level of
seriousness it brings.

We originally has a crew chief for each aircraft as well, but I soon
found myself managing 4 people as well as 4 aircraft. If your help
isn't deticated things don't get done. I now have an assistant that I
can really count on to help keep thind supplies, make some calls and
ferry some planes.

If you take the position, enjoy it. Feel free to contact me further
if you'd like.

Tony
www.glendaleflying.com


Chris Spierings > wrote in message >...
> I'm a member of a local flying club which has ~30 members and 3
> aircraft. A number of the club's long standing members have moved on in
> the last year or so and now its time for some of the other folks to step
> up and take the reins.
>
> 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.
>
> Could anyone share information on the arrangements they've been
> associated with in terms of overseeing aircraft maintenance. If its in
> a club setting even better.
>
> I hoping the experiences of the group will give us more options than
> asking one poor soul to bear the burden of all of this on their own.
>
> Thanks
>
> Chris Spierings

[Montblack]

(Read this on your club's website - History. www.glendaleflying.com)

Glendale has always been based at Bowman Field in Louisville, Kentucky, at
one time the busiest airport in the country.

Really? When? More history please.

Very nice website, BTW. Enjoy looking at the trip photos.

--
Montblack


("Tony" wrote)
> I am the Operations Officer for our club of 4 aircraft,
> www.glendaleflying.com.

[Tony]

Sure thing.

Here is another link to Louisville Intl's website about Bowman Field:
http://www.louintlairport.com/HtmlFiles/Bowman/lia-9d.htm

Tony

"Montblack" > wrote in message >...
> (Read this on your club's website - History. www.glendaleflying.com)
>
> Glendale has always been based at Bowman Field in Louisville, Kentucky, at
> one time the busiest airport in the country.
>
> Really? When? More history please.
>
> Very nice website, BTW. Enjoy looking at the trip photos.

[RevDMV]

Nice site, but...

....85$/hr for a wet tach 182?! I have to stop reading non-Bay Area
club web sites I get too depressed.

[Robert M. Gary]

Chris Spierings > wrote in message >...
> I'm a member of a local flying club which has ~30 members and 3
> aircraft. A number of the club's long standing members have moved on in
> the last year or so and now its time for some of the other folks to step
> up and take the reins.
>
> 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.

Yes, I've done this job with just one airplane. It take a ton of time.
Between making sure the IFR cert, the ELT inspection, etc is done you
also are always on the phone making sure you are on the schedule for
annual, ordering small parts to save money, tracking down shipments,
sending off oil analysis, etc ,etc. Add to that any need to move the
plane for maintenance since few fields have all the different types of
maintenance available. I am 100% sure that a club with 3 planes could
take 20 hours a week. Perhaps each plane needs its own guy?
-Robert

[Andrew Gideon]

Robert M. Gary wrote:

> Yes, I've done this job with just one airplane. It take a ton of time.
> Between making sure the IFR cert, the ELT inspection, etc is done you
> also are always on the phone making sure you are on the schedule for
> annual, ordering small parts to save money, tracking down shipments,
> sending off oil analysis, etc ,etc. Add to that any need to move the
> plane for maintenance since few fields have all the different types of
> maintenance available. I am 100% sure that a club with 3 planes could
> take 20 hours a week. Perhaps each plane needs its own guy?

The club I just recently joined has a "captain" for each plane, as well as
the club's MO. I've no idea what is involved, but I'm hoping to learn: I
just volunteered as unskilled labor to one of the captains.

With respect to what you wrote above, cannot at least some of these be
simplified with automation? I mean: annual and 24 month inspections just
shouldn't be too tough with one of the many calendar/scheduling tools
floating around.

Those that involve tach time are a little tougher, in that they require
input from "outside" (ie. how much the plane has flown). As I understand
it, in our club we're to send finishing tach times to the plane captain via
email for this purpose. I expect a web application tied into billing in
the not-distant future.

Hmm...anyone know of freeware around supporting these activities?

- Andrew

[Tony]

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.

Tony


Andrew Gideon > wrote in message >...
> Robert M. Gary wrote:
>
> > Yes, I've done this job with just one airplane. It take a ton of time.
> > Between making sure the IFR cert, the ELT inspection, etc is done you
> > also are always on the phone making sure you are on the schedule for
> > annual, ordering small parts to save money, tracking down shipments,
> > sending off oil analysis, etc ,etc. Add to that any need to move the
> > plane for maintenance since few fields have all the different types of
> > maintenance available. I am 100% sure that a club with 3 planes could
> > take 20 hours a week. Perhaps each plane needs its own guy?
>
> The club I just recently joined has a "captain" for each plane, as well as
> the club's MO. I've no idea what is involved, but I'm hoping to learn: I
> just volunteered as unskilled labor to one of the captains.
>
> With respect to what you wrote above, cannot at least some of these be
> simplified with automation? I mean: annual and 24 month inspections just
> shouldn't be too tough with one of the many calendar/scheduling tools
> floating around.
>
> Those that involve tach time are a little tougher, in that they require
> input from "outside" (ie. how much the plane has flown). As I understand
> it, in our club we're to send finishing tach times to the plane captain via
> email for this purpose. I expect a web application tied into billing in
> the not-distant future.
>
> Hmm...anyone know of freeware around supporting these activities?
>
> - Andrew

[Andrew Gideon]

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.

- Andrew

[Paul Tomblin]

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.




--
Paul Tomblin > http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Last I checked, it wasn't the power cord for the Clue Generator
that was sticking up your ass.
-- John Novak

[Don Tuite]

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

[Andrew Gideon]

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

[Paul Tomblin]

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

[Tony Aldi]

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

[Tony Aldi]

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/

[Paul Tomblin]

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

[David Megginson]

(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

[Paul Tomblin]

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

[David Megginson]

(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