Do students at DAB get charged by the Hobbs time?

Fearless Tower

Fearless Tower

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Fearless Tower
Flew into DAB the other day for the first time and was quite surprised at the view on final. I counted no less than 14 airplanes (all GA trainers) in line waiting to take off (7 on each side of the runway). Place looked like ATL or CLT during a push.

If those kids are getting charged by the Hobbs time, how are they getting any actual flight training for their money???


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Sounds like a sweet deal for the FBO, based on tach hour they must be killing it!

I'd wager they market it as "international airport experience, just like that airliner you'll be flying in no time" lol

Sadly kids don't know what they don't know, others they'd all be getting their hours in some rural field in tailwheels or gliders for a fraction of the cost.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Flew into DAB the other day for the first time and was quite surprised at the view on final. I counted no less than 14 airplanes (all GA trainers) in line waiting to take off (7 on each side of the runway). Place looked like ATL or CLT during a push.

If those kids are getting charged by the Hobbs time, how are they getting any actual flight training for their money???


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I don't know the answer to your question, but I wish I knew you were in town. I would have bought you lunch.
 
James331 said:
Sounds like a sweet deal for the FBO, based on tach hour they must be killing it!QUOTE]

.
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ERAU owns the planes James, but the FBO probably does make some coin on fuel I would guess
 
JOhnH said:
I don't know the answer to your question, but I wish I knew you were in town. I would have bought you lunch.
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Thanks for the offer, but I wasn’t in town very long. Just flew in to pick up an Aircoupe that I flew to it’s new owner in Kansas.


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Phoenix East Aviation is based there too. Plus there are quite a few other flight schools in the area that use KDAB for practice to get students used to larger airports, and for various IFR approach types. We took the Bo to DAB recently for some avionics work (ADSB upgrade; they have a good shop by the way). Departure wasn't bad at all. It is really just a matter of timing.
 
JOhnH said:
...for practice to get students used to larger airports, ...
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That's normally the line, but real world there isn't much to it, towered ops are towered ops, have the airport diagram and ask for progressive if needed, no need to sit for long periods of time at plane and CFI running over $200hr Hobbs, while the plane is sitting and barely running the tach (MX goes off that) and just sipping fuel, bad deal for the students, good deal for the big name schools
 
James331 said:
That's normally the line, but real world there isn't much to it, towered ops are towered ops, have the airport diagram and ask for progressive if needed, no need to sit for long periods of time at plane and CFI running over $200hr Hobbs, while the plane is sitting and barely running the tach (MX goes off that) and just sipping fuel, bad deal for the students, good deal for the big name schools
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As I said, it is really a matter of timing. I have been in and out of DAB dozens of times and rarely sit behind more than one or two planes waiting for takeoff clearance. I usually have to wait longer at the little class D where I am based.
But as my current sig line says, "there are always exceptions".
 
Yes they get charged by the Hobbs. And some schools rig the Hobbs to run off the master switch, not oil pressure switch.
And no solo touch and goes, always full stop and taxi back. No wonder it takes 60 hours to get your PPL...
 
Probably hobbs. FRG is similar. I’d its a nice, clear weekend day, you’ll be waiting for 30 minutes before you can take off.
 
My bird is based in DAB. And the amount of Hobbs I waste on the ground drives me nuts sometimes! But I’ve learned the tricks to get in and out of dab quick. They do a lot of intersection departures and tend to give non flight training based planes the open ones since we don’t spend as much time during the run-up covering instruction and such. On a normal basis it’s fine. But when it’s a 16/34 Operation only my taxi times are very high.

But like an airline airport I know the banks of the riddle flight department as far as arrival and departure banks and I just plan on leaving about 20 minutes prior or after their bank and it’s no issue.
 
I spent over 15 minutes holding short of the runway waiting for release to get out of there. It was quite the show. I saw students do things to 172s that made me cringe. Cessna sure did build strong landing gear....
 
Fearless Tower said:
Makes me appreciate having learned at a sleepy non-towered field (UUU).
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Yep. The one one good thing is you were always alert and had your head on a swivel. You got pretty good on the radios pretty quickly. UUU is a cool little airport. It does get pretty busy in the summer.
 
JustinD said:
My bird is based in DAB. And the amount of Hobbs I waste on the ground drives me nuts sometimes! But I’ve learned the tricks to get in and out of dab quick. They do a lot of intersection departures and tend to give non flight training based planes the open ones since we don’t spend as much time during the run-up covering instruction and such. On a normal basis it’s fine. But when it’s a 16/34 Operation only my taxi times are very high.
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My colleagues and I have been working with FAA and the airport management to address this stuff. We had a nice solution that the FAA nixed because officially they don't want to encourage intersection departures. But some other ideas are on the works.
 
Ken Ibold said:
My colleagues and I have been working with FAA and the airport management to address this stuff. We had a nice solution that the FAA nixed because officially they don't want to encourage intersection departures. But some other ideas are on the works.
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Which is kind of silly to discourage intersection departures when 7L at DAB is over 10,000 feet long.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Flew into DAB the other day for the first time and was quite surprised at the view on final. I counted no less than 14 airplanes (all GA trainers) in line waiting to take off (7 on each side of the runway). Place looked like ATL or CLT during a push.

If those kids are getting charged by the Hobbs time, how are they getting any actual flight training for their money???


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Been like that at DAB with the riddlers since the 70's.
 
Traffic at DAB wasn't the only problem. When I was instructing out of ORL in the 80's and early 90's the "ER" (Emery Riddle) tail numbers terrorized local airports, too. Was up at SFB with a student one day doing T&Go's when one entered the pattern, actually right in front of us while on downwind, turned base, did a T&G then departed. He was close enough for me to get a tail number. Never made a radio call. SFB is and has been a towered airport since forever. Upon returning to my office, I called ER flight dispatch, got on the line with the chief CFI and told him my story. He was very appreciative of the info. We had lots of stories about the ER students!
 
Fearless Tower said:
I spent over 15 minutes holding short of the runway waiting for release to get out of there. It was quite the show. I saw students do things to 172s that made me cringe. Cessna sure did build strong landing gear....
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No doubt! I can imagine those airplanes get abused day in and day out.
 
old cfi said:
Traffic at DAB wasn't the only problem. When I was instructing out of ORL in the 80's and early 90's the "ER" (Emery Riddle) tail numbers terrorized local airports, too. Was up at SFB with a student one day doing T&Go's when one entered the pattern, actually right in front of us while on downwind, turned base, did a T&G then departed. He was close enough for me to get a tail number. Never made a radio call. SFB is and has been a towered airport since forever. Upon returning to my office, I called ER flight dispatch, got on the line with the chief CFI and told him my story. He was very appreciative of the info. We had lots of stories about the ER students!
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"Emery" Riddle? ;)
 
Fearless Tower said:
I spent over 15 minutes holding short of the runway waiting for release to get out of there. It was quite the show. I saw students do things to 172s that made me cringe. Cessna sure did build strong landing gear....
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And they make a neat "sprong" sound when ya bounce them just right...
 
What I don't understand is, Daytona Beach has a busy airport with a lot of student pilots, and this thread makes it sound like that is a BAD thing?
 
JOhnH said:
What I don't understand is, Daytona Beach has a busy airport with a lot of student pilots, and this thread makes it sound like that is a BAD thing?
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The fact that there are a lot of pilots learning to fly is a great thing. But having too many schools at one airport can be problematic.


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Fearless Tower said:
Flew into DAB the other day for the first time and was quite surprised at the view on final. I counted no less than 14 airplanes (all GA trainers) in line waiting to take off (7 on each side of the runway). The place looked like ATL or CLT during a push.

If those kids are getting charged by the Hobbs time, how are they getting any actual flight training for their money???


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I flew out the other day at high noon. You are not kidding about the amount of ERAU planes alone! I saw at least 14 Cessnas stacked like a WWII carrier deck next to the runway. There were another half dozen or so DA-62s waiting on the opposite side. I saw maybe two ERAU guys leave in the 10 minutes we sat waiting for our flow time. The CA, a Riddle grad, said that was a sloowwwww day....

Clearance Delivery was like listening to someone drag their nails across a chalkboard with all the IFR student calls. I finally had to call Ground and tell him to have C/D contact me instead of me trying to call. C/D broke in about 30 seconds later, told everyone to can it, and read off my clearance.

After all that mess, I was thankful for my podunk college airfield in the middle of BFE Arkansas. If worked together we could get five planes in the pattern with a dozen or so landings in an hour.
 
Speaking of this topic I went up tonight to do some laps around the pattern to keep my single engine night passenger carrying currency up, with riddle on spring break, it was me and only one other plane up, was a rare, nice and quiet day in the loop at daytona!
 
James331 said:
Sounds like a sweet deal for the FBO, based on tach hour they must be killing it.
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Hmmm. Ummm. Been a while since you posted this, but Tach hour would be slow at idle...

The FBO would want Hobbs with 14 airplanes waiting in line to take off. Not Tach. :)
 
denverpilot said:
Hmmm. Ummm. Been a while since you posted this, but Tach hour would be slow at idle...

The FBO would want Hobbs with 14 airplanes waiting in line to take off. Not Tach. :)
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No, the school is paying for tach and charging hobbs.

Perhaps I could have worded that a little better though
 
For most flight schools plane costs are driven by tach but revenue is driven by Hobbs. For a sleepy airport where there’s not much time on the ground it doesn’t make much difference but at busy airports yes students/renters get screwed paying full rate to just sit there.

Tach time or “Hobbs” meters that only measure time above a certain RPM (and thus effectively measure flight time) would be far more fair, but of course most flight schools and rental outfits are more interested in making money than being “fair.” They are a business so it’s to be expected.

The proof is in the pudding. Nearly all rental outfits I’ve seen use Hobbs while nearly all equity clubs I’ve seen (where there’s nobody making money) recover costs from members using tach.
 
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old cfi said:
That's what you get for not having spell check. For the purest out there -- Embry Riddle.
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If you’re going to correct him, get it right.

It’s ‘Embry-Riddle’

ERAU instructors take points off if you omit the hyphen....
 
Fearless Tower said:
If you’re going to correct him, get it right.

It’s ‘Embry-Riddle’

ERAU instructors take points off if you omit the hyphen....
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He wasn't correcting anyone. He was fessing up to his own mistake.
If you are going to chastise someone, get it right! :D
 
I lived there for a few years their is so much traffic that someone pays for a billboard to rally people to restrict traffic at new Smyrna claiming they get more landings than oia. Tons of these kids are from other countries by the way.


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