Club Management Issue

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?

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?


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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?

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

"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

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

"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

"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

"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

"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.