GEG wrote in message ...
After one qualifies to solo, do you still
pay intructor rates during solo flights?
I would expect that during briefings and
debriefs, one woul.

But do oyu pay for the whole time you are flying?

Generally speaking, if you are consuming the instructor's time, you should
be paying for his time. This includes supervised solos, when the instructor
is (should be) monitoring your flight and is focused entirely on you.

In my experience, deviations from this norm occur when the instructor fails
to charge for time he actually invested. I've never heard of an instructor
charging for time that he didn't actually put in, but if you did run into
that situation, I'd look for another instructor, one who takes his job more
seriously.

Deviations in the other direction (not charging even though the instructor
is still working for you) are at the instructor's discretion, and you should
NEVER expect them. Personally, I think any time an instructor fails to
charge for time he actually puts in, he's simply devaluing all instructors'
time, and setting up poor expectations for students. Rounding down by 5
minutes isn't a problem, but an instructor who is regularly foregoing
quarter-hour or more chunks of payment is helping no one, not even the
student they might think they are helping.

A situation when I'd expect to pay the instructor for solo time would be
when I'm making a solo flight at the airport where the instructor has
remained, and the instructor is watching the flight and/or listening on a
handheld, and otherwise is still involved in the solo flight.

Situations where I wouldn't expect to pay the instructor for the solo time
would include flights away from the airport, be they local flights or
cross-country flights.

Regardless, I would expect pre- and post-flight briefings to be paid for, as
you suggest.

Pete