Rental frustration

flhrci

flhrci

Final Approach
Joined
Jan 26, 2007
Messages
5,932
Location
Groveport, OH
Display Name
Display name:
David
The FBO has three planes out for maintenance, two DA-20's and an Evektor sport leaving two 172's to rent. Now someone has blocked out one of the 172's for the next 96 hours taking it right up to my reservation at noon on Friday. That reservation was not there last night. The other one costs more for the 180hp engine. All I want to do is practice some maneuvers.

Go figure that the plane will be there when I get there.

I have seen this done before around here. Drives me batty.

/rant off

David
 
I hear you barkin', big dawg. You might look around for a flying club that has a trainer. I found one with a 172 that I used to finish up my PPL, and now I'm working on getting checked out in the 182.
 
Suck it up, get the 180 and practice some hammerheads.
 
Any more serious about a Pitts now? :)
 
DaleB said:
I hear you barkin', big dawg. You might look around for a flying club that has a trainer. I found one with a 172 that I used to finish up my PPL, and now I'm working on getting checked out in the 182.
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Did the same thing
 
I am on a same boat.

1 172 is wrecked. Almost fixed but "fedex keeps breaking parts"
1 DA40 had a propstrike. They expect 2-3 months downtime
2 152's used for training nonstop

That leaves the FBO with 1 172 which is impossible to rent on a weekend due to plane's owner blocking out everything every weekend. I was able to squeeze one reservation on November 25th. That's about month and a half since I flew last time. Going to have to do 1 takeoff and landing before I take pax again, just to make myself feel more comfortable.
 
Meanee said:
I am on a same boat.

1 172 is wrecked. Almost fixed but "fedex keeps breaking parts"
1 DA40 had a propstrike. They expect 2-3 months downtime
2 152's used for training nonstop
Click to expand...

Been there. Over the summer the 182 had a prop strike (on a 10 hour old engine), the 172 had a hangar incident then a major OH, the only thing available for a while was the Arrow I couldn't fly. Really gets on your nerves.

Maybe the RV kit was an over-reaction... maybe not. :D
 
DaleB said:
I hear you barkin', big dawg. You might look around for a flying club that has a trainer. I found one with a 172 that I used to finish up my PPL, and now I'm working on getting checked out in the 182.
Click to expand...

There are a few around but I feel it hard to justify monthly dues for only flying once a couple of months. Might do it anyways.

David
 
It always amazes me that nose dragger airplanes have prop strikes.

Why would a prop strike take an airplane down for 2-3 months? At most it should be one month or less. The flight school is not placing the priority in the right place to get those birds back online.

As to the "owner" blocking his own C172 every weekend for rent on the leaseback. The flight school loosing a few renters to other schools or FBOs would solve that problem. The school should tell the owner that is just not working out and terminate the lease. Unless it is booked solid all week, then the owner is making money and he does not care to **** off a few pilots.

Solution, find a partner or two and buy your own C172. They're cheaper than new trucks.
 
While waiting to take off from Addison, I watched a DA40 coming in to land. It suddenly snapped noseup, struck the tail on the runway, then immediately flung the nose down and if it didn't strike the prop, got REALLY close. Don't really know why that happened, it was weird to see it do that. Maybe someone who knows DA40s could comment.
 
BillTIZ said:
It always amazes me that nose dragger airplanes have prop strikes.

Why would a prop strike take an airplane down for 2-3 months?
Click to expand...
In the one case I am familiar with...

182 gets major overhaul; it's down for over a month due to workload, moving it across town to and from the shop, etc.

While still in the break-in period, a guy lands long (WAY long) and runs off the runway onto the grass. No big deal, right? Shut down and call the FBO for a tug, or get out and walk the path to make sure the ground is OK so you can taxi, right? No, he turns around, taxis back... but doesn't see the depression at the edge of the runway, drops the nose wheel in, prop strike. Cracked crank. Another month or so of down time.

:dunno: It takes work, but you can do it if you try.
 
N801BH said:
Hang in there.... The RV will turn out to be the best thing you ever did in your life..:yes::yes:
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I'll reserve that spot for my lovely wife... followed by the kids. But I think it's going to be...

awesome.

David, as to the club thing... you just have to run the numbers. In my case the rate was about $18 an hour less than renting from the FBO, once you figured in the sales tax (which the club doesn't have to charge). Monthly dues are a pittance. That saved me a lot finishing up my training. The buy-in was not too bad, and if/when I leave the club I get it back -- whoever gets my membership buys it from me. So it worked out well from a money aspect as well as giving me access to a little nicer trainer, AND a couple of bigger/faster planes. The FBO doesn't even have a rental 182. You just have to figure out if it works well for you. I got lucky.
 
DaleB said:
In the one case I am familiar with...

182 gets major overhaul; it's down for over a month due to workload, moving it across town to and from the shop, etc.

While still in the break-in period, a guy lands long (WAY long) and runs off the runway onto the grass. No big deal, right? Shut down and call the FBO for a tug, or get out and walk the path to make sure the ground is OK so you can taxi, right? No, he turns around, taxis back... but doesn't see the depression at the edge of the runway, drops the nose wheel in, prop strike. Cracked crank. Another month or so of down time.

:dunno: It takes work, but you can do it if you try.
Click to expand...

Sigh. You can't fix stupid.
 
flhrci said:
The FBO has three planes out for maintenance, two DA-20's and an Evektor sport leaving two 172's to rent. Now someone has blocked out one of the 172's for the next 96 hours taking it right up to my reservation at noon on Friday. That reservation was not there last night. The other one costs more for the 180hp engine. All I want to do is practice some maneuvers.

Go figure that the plane will be there when I get there.

I have seen this done before around here. Drives me batty.

/rant off

David
Click to expand...


Im glad that I am a plane owner and don't have to deal with that.
 
Gubbins said:
I think many plane owners start out as frustrated renters :D
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Well I can honestly say that in large being a lurker of this forum helped me make the decision to buy instead of rent. Along with the 172 for rent @ 150$ an hour plus 50$ CFI charges.

So thanks POA.
 
Jhernandez04 said:
Im glad that I am a plane owner and don't have to deal with that.
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Wait until you're right in the middle of your instrument training and your steering bungee snaps. It'll be a Saturday, right before a holiday weekend. Then you, your hometown A&P and where you live now's entire maint. dept search for a part which Cessna isn't making because they're switching manufacturers. Oh, from Cessna (if you want the 2 days to 6 weeks for them to contact you) the part is over $5,000. So you call every junkyard you can Google and finally find one for $2,000... plus overnight shipping because you've already canceled 3 lessons in a row and have 3 more scheduled for this week. And of course, because you're an owner you can't just pick another one out of the fleet. Yeah, you can guess how my week has been. :mad2:
 
Z06_Mir said:
Wait until you're right in the middle of your instrument training and your steering bungee snaps. It'll be a Saturday, right before a holiday weekend. Then you, your hometown A&P and where you live now's entire maint. dept search for a part which Cessna isn't making because they're switching manufacturers. Oh, from Cessna (if you want the 2 days to 6 weeks for them to contact you) the part is over $5,000. So you call every junkyard you can Google and finally find one for $2,000... plus overnight shipping because you've already canceled 3 lessons in a row and have 3 more scheduled for this week. And of course, because you're an owner you can't just pick another one out of the fleet. Yeah, you can guess how my week has been. :mad2:
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And here we have one really big reason I'm not spending my RV money on a Cessna.
 
DaleB said:
And here we have one really big reason I'm not spending my RV money on a Cessna.
Click to expand...

Stuff will still break. You'll still have downtime. You have the luxury of being an experimental though.

I knew getting into this I was going to have some issues to work out. It's been flown more (and harder I'm sure) in the last 6 months than in the last 6 years. It's been flown 150+ hours in 6 months vs 20 hours a year.. This is the first really expensive problem though. Despite the frustrations at times, being an owner is very rewarding.
 
BillTIZ said:
It always amazes me that nose dragger airplanes have prop strikes.

Why would a prop strike take an airplane down for 2-3 months? At most it should be one month or less. The flight school is not placing the priority in the right place to get those birds back online.

As to the "owner" blocking his own C172 every weekend for rent on the leaseback. The flight school loosing a few renters to other schools or FBOs would solve that problem. The school should tell the owner that is just not working out and terminate the lease. Unless it is booked solid all week, then the owner is making money and he does not care to **** off a few pilots.

Solution, find a partner or two and buy your own C172. They're cheaper than new trucks.
Click to expand...

FBO only has backleased planes. So they are at the mercy of the owner.

The prop-strike plane landed long, overran the runway, struck fence with a prop. Owner wants to do a complete engine overhaul. Was told that 2-3 months for that to complete. And I just paid good amount of money for transition. :mad:

The 172 is booked solid during weekdays. And on weekends, owner takes it up. I remember one day when he forgot to confirm the reservation on myfbo, and I was lucky enough to snag that spot. He landed, I gave my spot to my CFI. Owner was going ape****. He was running around screaming "who the f*** took my ***-**** plane!!!" for good 15 minutes. I told him that I did, he was ready to kill me. Only then, after FBO checked reservation list, they showed him that I had it reserved, he calmed down. But even now, he hates my guts.
 
Life's too short to deal with that. You need to find something else to fly. Wow.
 
BillTIZ said:
As to the "owner" blocking his own C172 every weekend for rent on the leaseback. The flight school loosing a few renters to other schools or FBOs would solve that problem. The school should tell the owner that is just not working out and terminate the lease. Unless it is booked solid all week, then the owner is making money and he does not care to **** off a few pilots.
Click to expand...

I suspect that all depends on the profile of the flight school. I've seen places that are entirely focused on weekday rentals for professional students and everyone likes to go home on the weekends. Weekend and evening renters are an annoyance, but who's going to turn away money?
 
Z06_Mir said:
Wait until you're right in the middle of your instrument training and your steering bungee snaps. It'll be a Saturday, right before a holiday weekend. Then you, your hometown A&P and where you live now's entire maint. dept search for a part which Cessna isn't making because they're switching manufacturers. Oh, from Cessna (if you want the 2 days to 6 weeks for them to contact you) the part is over $5,000. So you call every junkyard you can Google and finally find one for $2,000... plus overnight shipping because you've already canceled 3 lessons in a row and have 3 more scheduled for this week. And of course, because you're an owner you can't just pick another one out of the fleet. Yeah, you can guess how my week has been. :mad2:
Click to expand...

Yes, right now I am also having owner frustrations. My plane has been down for three weeks now because of a part that got shipped to the wrong address. I am hoping to have it back by Friday. Being an owner still wins out though! I remember too well being an incredibly frustrated renter.
 
Renting vs owning. There are pro's and cons either way. I don't know what to advise you. But I do know that many renters get checked out at more than one airport. A checkout costs money but it can be combined with a flight review, thus paying for itself in the long run. Also, try to reserve time slots 3 or 4 weeks in advance.
 
Z06_Mir said:
Stuff will still break. You'll still have downtime. You have the luxury of being an experimental though.
Click to expand...

Had the Velocity all packed up for Oshkosh one Friday afternoon - tent, table, chairs, food, the whole package. Pushed her out, loaded up my son and myself, walk around complete, buckled up and started through the checklist ... fuel pump was DEAD. Spent an hour or so running down potential issues and finally settled on the fact that the pump was dead. Looked at my son ... do we stay here and fix the problem or put everything back in the car and make the 8 hour drive.

We drove. I enjoyed the heck out of Oshkosh but missed having the plane. That said, if you can swallow the expense, owning is the only way to go. I would have been swearing at the "rental piece of crap, dang FBO takes crap care of the plane and all the other renter are beating the crap out of the plane and now I'm stuck, grumble, grumble". Somehow, when it's your baby that is sick, it is just not as upsetting. Just as disappointing, but not as upsetting.
 
So, I did not feel well this morning so I rescheduled my reservation until next Saturday. Whoever had the plane took over my 2 hour slot and extended the six hour slot that was after me into tomorrow. There are three slots with CFI's booked then it is booked all night until one reservation on Sunday. Then it is booked afterwards for 82 hours straight next week through Wednesday night.

It seems like someone is taking advantage of the airplane and keeping others from having access.

I expanded my 2 hour slot to three just in case. Not giving up that reservation if I can help it.

Pigging an airplane bugs me. It is hard to make a reservation a month out and know you can actually go fly. Life can get in the way as well as finances.

The next time I see the FBO owner, I might as him what the crap is going on.

Hopefully all the local FBO's will join Open Airplane and the it will be better.

David
 
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As good of an idea as Open Airplane is, it will drive rental costs up because they take a cut of it. Isn't the FBO charging a minimum amount of hours per day to keep the airplane overnight? And if you're putting 82 hours on an airplane in a week, and giving instruction in it won't that throw it into maintenance for at least a day to get a 100 hour?
 
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