Simple question. When renting an airplane, is the cost per flight hour or per hour of use. Seems to me that per hour you possessed would get very expensive on a 3 day weekend to Vegas.
When I was flying and renting the cost of the plane was per hour that the engine was running. If I had the plane away for a full day then there’d be a minimum charge - I think it was 2 hours per day.
Varies.
Basic charge is typically per “Hobbs hour” (Hobbs meter is a digital electric timer that runs when the engine is on), and includes fuel.
If you propose to keep the plane overnight (or longer), you typically must agree to pay for some minimum number of flight hours per day (whether or not you use them), or pay some specified extra charge.
The helicopters I rented had the Hobbs meter activated by an oil pressure switch so that you were only charged while the engine was running. On fixed-wings, the Hobbs was connected to the Master switch. The place I rented from last month reminded pilots that there would be a certain minimum charge if they forgot to turn off the master switch and ran up the Hobbs meter. Some clubs charge by tach hour. Mot places rent ‘wet’ (fuel and oil included), but some don’t.
So as you say, ‘Varies.’
I would imagine that renting small general aviation aircraft also varies considerably in the details to, say, a big corporate jet.
It varies by rental place. Our club now has a minimum of one hour / day – this was because a member would take the plane 20 NM for the weekend [near where he lived]. Our club charges tach time (which is usually lower than Hobbs time)
Brian
Indeed. For example, it would typically be the case that short-term rental/charter of a jet includes a flight crew - you’d rarely get a positive response to: “Hand me the keys to that Citation so I can buzz around the sky for an hour.”
One is like hiring a car, the other is like chartering a bus.
My only experience with long term aircraft hire was when I hired a Piper Cub for a couple of weeks. There was no minimum hours but I’d already told them I’d be doing 50 hours in it and paid up front so I guess they were happy with that.
Since the engine maintenance regulations are mostly based around engine run time, as others mention, that is the basis for the fee.
Fees will vary depending on:
- wet or dry - if you are flying around the area, pay the “wet” rate (gas included) and the FBO will top it up on their dime when you bring it back. For longer distances and to other airports, you will have to pay for your own gas at the other locations, so rent “dry” - lower rate, simply start given a full tank and on return pay the local fueling service to make it a full tank like car rentals.
-Often a minimum “hours per day” rate will apply. This depends on how busy the FBO is, how badly they’ll miss that aircraft. Possibly negotiable for a small operator, off season, etc.
-Most places will also pre-sell blocks; prepay 10 hours or 20 hours and get a lower rate.
(Of course, unless you are known to the FBO, they will want ID and other guarantees; usually you will have to pay for a check ride with an instructor to show that you will get their aircraft back in approximately one piece.
I’ve never seen an FBO that allows a pilot to rent an aircraft without producing a valid airman certificate (including type rating if applicable), a current medical certificate and a RRTP (FCC license for radiotelephone), and a log book showing you were otherwise legal to carry passengers etc. Even if you were a Blue Angel, you needed a check flight with one of their instructors before they rented to you.
I have never rented an airplane overnight but I understand that there are some minimum flight hours that you must pay for if you did so and it isn’t cheap.
To give you some hard numbers, a very small two seat plane typically rents for about $125 an hour in the Boston area while a 4 seat plane is about $160 - $200 an hour. That includes everything including fuel. All of that is engine run time with the Hobbs meter running but some of that is sitting next to the runway doing systems checks. That is about all the average person can afford. Twin engine planes, turbo-props and jets can range from the many hundred to several thousand dollars an hour and you have to have tens of thousands of dollars worth of training just to fly one at all, let alone rent one.
Helicopters are supposed to be miracles of flight but they mainly serve as virtual $100 bill shredders. My cousin runs one of the premier helicopter sight-seeing and search and rescue operations in Colorado. His 4 seat helicopter with a weight limit costs him $700 a flight hour. He told me that it costs over $100 just to start the engine on his helipad for a warmup and systems check.
Yep. When I was learning to fly in 1977 it was $20/hr for a C150, and $12 for the instructor (they came cheap). When they upped it to $25/hr, 10-hour blocks were $20/hr prepaid. All wet rates, dry rate negotiable, and multi-day minimum was IIRC 2 or 3 hours per day minimum. If you require professional help, the licensed instructor can cost quite a bit extra per hour.
Last time I flew, about 15 years ago from Toronto Island Airport, it was $100/hr. I think. That operator went under. I read that 9/11 made a huge dent in the aircraft rental business, with some added restrictions and more security and paperwork hassles.
It goes without saying that you have to have all the credentials that show you can fly and are current, as Morgenstern points out.
Actually, all aircraft I’ve been involved with enough to know, whether small piston singles or large passenger jets have had all maintenance based on air time. What you do on the ground at idle power, or close to it, is irrelevant, so charging by hobbs time can be a bit inaccurate in terms of maintenance costs. On the other hand, the aircraft needs to produce a certain income to pay for itself and if the charge was based on an airswitch then the hourly rate would probably be a bit more to compensate.
When I learned to fly in the mid-'80s I rented dad’s Skyhawk for cost, which came to $33/hour. I think the FBO that was leasing it from him charged $50/hour or $55/hour, and the instructor was $15/hour.
The WTC/Pentagon attacks did put a damper on things; especially in Southern California, where airspace was closed longer than in other parts of the country. But I believe that the dearth of new aircraft since the collapse of General Aviation, which caused used airplane prices to rise dramatically, forced a lot of pilots out of the activity and discouraged people from becoming pilots. Worse, new (for the time) technologies such as cheaper computers, the Internet, video games, huge TVs, and eventually smart phones gave people a ‘recreational’ outlet that was orders of magnitude cheaper than flying, and more accessible. The Al Qaeda attacks and the ensuing wars damaged out economy so that people had less disposable income to spend on an expensive activity like flying. And when something is out of the public’s attention for 20 years, people forget about it.
:eek: And I thought a four-seater (Cessna 172 Skyhawk or Piper PA-28-140 Cherokee) was expensive here!. They generally go for $120/hour to $125/hour here. A Cessna 150/152 goes for about $110/hour or $115/hour.
The last time I flew helicopters, a decade ago, a Robinson R22 rented for $195/hour and a Schweizer 300CB rented for about $210/hour. No Schweizers up here, so I don’t know what they rent for now. A local FBO mentions as a benefit to its Canadian customers that helicopter training is about half what it costs in Canada. They say that training in their R22 costs $262/hour including tax. That’s a lot just for a helicopter, and the paragraph does say ‘training’, so I’m guessing that the rate includes an instructor. I think R22s rent for about $210/hour to $220/hour. Of course things get more expensive when you start flying kerosene-burners, as your cousin says.
I ran the numbers – some of which were [del]anally[/del] high altitude-derived, and I’m told were too high – and estimated that the hourly cost of me flying a Cessna 172 that I owned outright would cost about 110/hour (IIRC). When people drive cars they tend to think in terms of 'I get *x* miles per gallon and gas costs y/gallon, so it costs $z to drive my car from Point A to Point B.’ Most pilots are more aware that there are other costs involved. There’s the fuel (at six-something per gallon) being burned at 6-10 gph, plus the required maintenance reserve for the 2000-hour overhaul and other maintenance, 100-hour inspections, annual inspections, tie-down/hangar, insurance, and so on.
I’m guessing that FBOs charge by Hobbs and clubs charge by tach because the Hobbs meter racks up clock time faster than the tach counts engine time. So their airplanes can fly more clock hours before having to have the 100-hour inspections and the expensive overhauls. I’m further guessing that clubs charge by tach time because they’re, well, a club; and charging by tach time is fairer to the members. Also, a club I’m thinking of joining charges $35/month dues, $25/year insurance, and a one-time initiation fee that I’m guessing is $500. The two clubs I’ve looked at charge the same for their airplanes as a non-club FBO, so why pay those fees unless they charge by tach time?
I’ve posted about this before. My dad ran a small aircraft rental biz in the 1960s-80s. We were based out of KSNA, otherwise known at various times and for various audiences as Orange County Airport / Santa Ana Airfield / John Wayne Airport.
We bought a brand new 1966 Cessna 150 Commuter (the deluxe model) for $9,999. We rented it out for $10/hour wet in 1966. The Fed’s CPI calculator tells me that’s equivalent to $73.50 now.
So if 150s now rent for $110/hr. wet in greater Seattle, that’s about a 50% true increase in cost over inflation. But instead of a new airplane, you’re renting one that’s at least 20 years old and more probably 40.
Oh yeah, and on an inflation-corrected basis, major airline pilots earn about 1/2 as much as they did in 1967. So comparing 1967 to now, light plane flying feels about 3x as expensive to an airline pilot as it did back then. Hence why most of us have abandoned any hobby flying. Certainly I got priced out a long time ago.
I don’t know how well our wages have held up (or not) versus other historically well-paid occupations. I know folks farther down the food chain have really been slaughtered since the 1960s.
The Cessna 152 went out of production in 1985, so they’re at least 30 years old. The 150 went out of production in 1977, so the newest ones are closing in on 40 years old – and there are still a lot of them out there from the mid-late-'60s.
Aside: There was a 1963 Cessna 150C – the last year/model for the ‘fastback’ 150 – on eBay not too long ago. It was disassembled, but complete. Beautiful, basic, unmolested panel. Original paint (needed repainting, but the white/red/black scheme was there). Needed a doubler on one side of the lower firewall, and there were a couple of dents in the cowl that could be worked out pretty easily. The original Continental O-200 was well past TBO, but compressions were in the high-70s. Prop was either new, or in excellent condition. They were asking under $10,000 for it. Basically, all it needed was to be painted, reassembled, and annualed. If I had the money…
As I said, I learned to fly in a 172 that rented, IIRC, for $55/hour. Today, here, a 172 rents for just over twice that. I was making probably $5/hour. Today I’m making over four times that; so for me, the rental cost has gone down. But! When I learned to fly I was living at home and dad bought the food. Today I have a mortgage and pay for all of the bills. So… Not so affordable. 
Aside from the prices going through the roof, many of the used US fleet is moving overseas - there never were a whole lot of GA aircraft built, and most of them were built in the US.
Toyota was repeatedly rumored to be ready to start production of a GA bird “any time”.
Maybe the Chinese will use some of their cheap labor to turn out some nice glass birds (many Asians are small enough to get into the nooks where a layup needs to go).
Yeah, Cessna re-started their designs (based on 1940’s planes) - but at $250K (and (MAINLY) UP), a bit late.
Light Sport seems to have died without ever being born, and kits either go belly up or turn into $400K factory jobs.
Van’s is the only one which comes to mind - the Glastar might have a chance if they’d simply quit the Glasair line - you had a superior product, and let a twit paint a plane red and then eat your lunch.
Might want to take a look at soaring (flying sailplanes) - you’ll encounter a respectable number of your fellow airline pilots.
Oh, be fair! Cessnas are 1950s designs! 
Last time I checked the price of a 172, it was about $330,000. Textron has announced a new 172 that is Diesel powered for $430,000. Yep, their entry-level ‘Family’s First Airplane’ costs between one-third and one-half million dollars. Talk about misreading your target market!