Flight Time Vs Air Time Vs Revenue Time

[Skids Up]

407 Driver ------ Good idea. If I got a Crew Leader or a Forestry Officer with me, I usuually get them to call that in and give HIS time off and down. That way, if "inacurracies" occur, I got him and his little black book for back-up.

 

 

Cap,

 

Excellent point. :up:

 

In this day and age it is important to have the up/down times established, either by your call if you are alone (ABC was off at 1234) and again landing (ABC was down at 1355) - however, just before you call you quickly look and see that the above times would give you 1 hour and 21 minutes - so you may want to be down at 1356 or 1357 which would allow you to come in at 1.4 instead of 1.3. Never could figure out why we should always take the hit for the customer...?

 

As 407D said, it adds up in a long "short hops" day. :shock:

 

Sometimes as we look at the customers requirements (BC & ALB MOF) ie shoulder restraints, radios, buckets (2), high gear, low gear, etc etc, maybe we should do the following:

 

If they want a helicopter (equiped the way they want it) then it is (round #'s on a jet box) $1000/hr, and that comes with a duly trained, qualified pilot, as defined by TC, not themselves, and then if they want someone with bucket, longline, torch, high altitude, bad weather, mountain course, or whatever, then the price goes up. For someone like 407D to take them to 12,000 and drop off a radio tech, maybe the jet box is worth 1500/hr.

 

They keep demanding more and more, and want to pay less, or now like Alberta is saying, we have to take our tent and stay in the fire camp - no more camps or motels.... :down: :down: :down:

 

Everytime we assume the position of bend over and tucking our ears in behind our ankles, it just gets worse and worse...

[ArniePye]

"Whatever goes in the aircraft logbook is the same as what goes in the pilot's flight record.

 

What is charged, or not charged, to a customer has nothing to do with it."

 

Thanks Over-Talk. You and damnmyneckhurts are obviously understanding the point and question I'm making. Thanks guys.

 

So when I bill for 8 hours where I'm charging for an hour of hot-fueling, I'll log 7 hours flight time (and air time) and suffer no longer from pre-mature timexing....

 

ArniePye

[lamanated]

as was mentioned,you have to intend to take off ,so you can taxi your 76 around from the compass rose back etc and log no air time as you didn't intend to take off..the only ship I know with any use of the Hobbs,no relation to Fred.. is the Robbie,and any other ship I have seen has the most inaccurate meter in existance..up and down is to within 6 minutes I beleive .so there is room for inaccuracies so you can check your watch with his,and yours Being the functioning and reliable timepeice,would be considered the legal one..as you are for ever looking at it and confirming dusk etc...from what a judge told me..

[ArniePye]

I see three separate issues here:

1) Satisfying the Customer

2) Adherinig to the CARS

3) Minimizing the hours you log while maximizing the hours you get paid for.

 

Obviously we need to accomplish all three; they are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

 

Typically the hours we charge are also the hours we enter into the Flight Time column of the aircraft Journey Log and into our personal log books. Some customers might not appreciate being charged more than what is logged.

 

If the hot fueling time I don't charge for doesn't count against my accrued flight time (i.e. when heli-logging or moving heli-drills), then why should the hot fueling time I do charge for, assuming that I'm willing to waive the necessity of always logging the same hours as what appears on the flight report?

 

As of yet, the chief pilot isn't sure he likes the idea of entering a lower flight time in the Journey Log than what appears on the flight report. He'd like a ruling from our local TC inspector. Problem is, I can't see any inspector sticking his neck out and challenging the common practice of duplicating the flight report hours in the Journey Log, as inconsistent as that is (logging hot fueling on some jobs but not on others).

 

ArniePye

[cap]

Arnie Pye ------

 

1) the TC Inspector is ONLY interested in the flight hours logged in the Tech and Journey Logs are truthful and give a correct indication of the times left on the various components. Once you have done that, then what you charge the customer he doesn't care about because it isn't part of his domain.....and that's the answer you are going to get from him because he his interested in the accuracy of those entries period.

 

2) Simply put, I'm interested in the times logged against the life of the components, so for any given 1 hr that the customer gets charged, the components will only have .9 of an hour logged against them. This is legal and is done throughout the industry. It's accounted for with two columns in the Journey Log......."Air Time" and "Flight time" and they are never the same and for the foregoing reasons. So the customer gets charged for 1hr, my Personal Log gets 1hr and the components get .9hr charged against them.

[Blackmac]

Cap: Without calling you dishonest and as a certified TC auditour. one of the first thing any good auditour does is check the invoices against the time logged in the log book.

 

The customer in actual fact should only be charged "Air Time" which is defined as the actual cost of operating the aircraft.

 

As you are aware on fixed wing most charges are on a fixed rate ie. mileage charge. This mileage is conferted to "Air Time" for entry into the log books.

 

Should a pilot sit for an hour with a 747 at Chicago O'Hare @ operating cost of $7000 an hour and you were paying for the charter would you pay in accordance with the following:

 

Flight Time which goes into the pilots log book, including the hour sitting on the ground, including the mileage rate.

 

OR the actual time from wheels up/skids up to down on the ground.

 

You can't have it both ways, it's called honesty.

 

In the log book the time between Flight Time and Air Time should not be all that great or the pilot is padding the log book.

 

Another reason for checking invoices for times charged vs entries in the log book, is some operators use lower "Air Time" to actually keep keep component times lower, thus lowering there costs.

 

Air Time in the log book is the same time you charge the charterer, so there should be no difference between the two.

 

Have a nice day and quit screwing people, maybe that is why the industry is getting such a bad rap.

 

Shades of James Bay and The Lash.

 

Don

 

PS: Remember the days of PO from Niagara, his aircraft used to get up to Baffin Island without any entries in the log books, of course flown by students who he was charging. Must be the same way Santa gets here, magic.

[widgeon]

this may not be relevant but I believe the US forest service pay for hours based on the collective activated hobbs meter which has to be installed on USFS capable helicopters.

 

This records elapsed time between when the collective is raised enough to raise skid off the ground to the time when it is lowered .

 

Do most helicopter engines have hour meters also ? , would these record the time between the start and shut down or only when significant torque is pulled ?.

[cap]

Blackmac ------ I'm doing exactly what I've been doing for 22 yrs and it was all ok'd by MOT on inspections. You'll also find that a host of companies do exactly the same and have also done so for many years. Ergo, there should be all kinds of people from MOT, going back over the years and people from the industry in the 'Crowbar Hotel" then. Do not forget also that there are TWO MOT's in Canada. On paper that's a stupid statement, but what applies down East is not necessarily allowed in the West and visa versa. THAT I know for sure because I was grounded at Buttonville Airport while taking an a/c from the West coast to Montreal. I was grounded for having a white lens on my strobe light and plywood bearpaws. Soon as they found out that it was registered in Pacific Region, they said "oh that's different. Those things aren't allowed down here, but they are on the Left coast". I could list a bunch of other examples, but that makes the point. I have though, seen a base threatened with charges from MOT because their AD's were not listed in numerical order in the back of the Tech Log and the Fire Extinguishers were 6" too far apart on the hangar walls. The replacment Inspector later laughed at that and called that "splitting hairs". You may also call me whatever you like Donald.....it's only a website.

 

Trans Quebec had nothing like that and I wasn't involved in anything dishonest, but I did witness some 'goings-on' that I knew would eventually bring something down on everyone's head......and it did.......the time clocks in all the a/c. They couldn't do that on the Allouette II's and I refused to operate there again because of the dishonesty of a few and refused yto go back there if I had to operate with a clock as they had installed. At that point I was checked-out on the Allouette and never flew the 206 there again. If I ain't getting enough to pay the bills then that's my fault for working for wages that don't allow me to do that comfortably....not the company's. Company doors have handles/doorknobs on both sides of the doors and I knew andstill know how to walk both ways.

 

Widgeon ------ in short, the Hobbs Meter is a joke because it will activate before you are light on the skids.....try it! Hank Inglis with the USFS in Boise was advised of this eons ago, long before I knew him and knows it also. The Hobbs meter has been used as the gospel in the US since Juan Trippe.......USFS just made it official that's all. The older 206's that were bought "Used" out of the US eons ago, used to have the Hobbs meter connected to the "Engine Out" c/b and if you lifted up the battery compartment lid and pulled the c/b for the Hobbs, then the horn wouldn't shut off at all when it started. As might be expected, that was a prank pulled on many a newly checked-out 206 pilot at that time. :shock:

[Peeshooter]

Hello

 

When working for forestry in any province go in at the end of the day and get the logged time in the dispatchers book this way there is ZERO variance.

 

The biggest difficulties I have had personally on this subject are in Saskatchewan especially if they have had an expensive fire year and a looking for something to complain about or release machines. Always check with dispatch so that the numbers match exactly.

 

Cheers

 

Peeshooter

[Phil Croucher]

As far as I am aware, the customer has always paid from first lift off to rotor rundown (the same as pilot's logbook), with air time going in the tech log, and this goes for Europe as well. In fact, there is an unofficial agreement in UK, when pleasure flying, that 1/3 of the running time is subtracted to create air time, although I have always used a stopwatch. I never have liked relying on someone's else estimate based on secotrs flown, etc, like the do at Niagara.

 

Just about every fixed wing flying club I know bills you from chocks on to chocks off, not wheels off/wheels down

 

Phil