Club Management Issue

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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