Airplanes and advertising banners

Factual Questions
1

Hello all. Long time troller, first time poster.

At the beach, I noticed a number of airplanes flying along the coast pulling long advertising banners. Does anyone know:

  1. How the planes land with those things? I would think they’d have to cut the banner loose and let it fall to the ground, but I’m not sure. I can’t imagine you could land with the thing still connected.

  2. What kind of skill does it take to fly with a banner? There seems to be a large drag on the plane, and I wondered if the pilot is required to be licensed to fly advertising planes.

2

but I happened to ask one just this question once. He told me that they do not take off or land with the banner attached. Rather, there’s some kind of system by which the plane flies by and catches the banner after takeoff. I’ve not seen the setup, but I suspect that a hook-like thing on the plane catches the line by which the banner is dragged.

They are released before landing. I think they just fly low & slow over the designated pickup area and cut loose.

Don’t know about licensing requirements. There are many tiers of pilot licenses, but somebody who knows more about it than I will have to provide details.

3

BTW, welcome, Mr. Blonde! It didn’t immediately sink in that that was your first post.

4

Since this is done as a business, the pilot probably needs a commercial license which has higher standards than a regular private pilot’s license.

5

I am a pilot, but I’ve never seen how this is done. I imagine there is a way to deploy and retract the banner from the cockpit. I doubt that the banner is picked up after takeoff. This seems too dangerous, but it is possible. Cutting the banner loose in a field seems a plausible way to drop it if there isn’t a good way to retract the banner.

As far as certification: I couldn’t find any specific regulation concerning pilots flying banner trailing planes in the Federal Aviation Regulations. I am guessing that no special licensing is required, because I’ve never heard of any. The pilot would have to have a commercial pilot’s license and must have the ratings and endorsements appropriate for the aircraft.

Though the pilot likely doesn’t need any special licensing, the airplane does. Any change made to a certified airplane that could affect how it handles in flight requires that a supplemental type certificate (STC) be issued. That means that the installation and use of the change must have been throughly tested. The exact details of the testing and the required changes to the pilot’s operating handbook would be outlined in the STC.

These changes might be a speed limit or other flight operational limits for a plane towing a banner. If the banner caused any large change in the way the plane handled, then it would not likely be allowed to be installed on the aircraft.

6

This got my curiousity up, so I did some hunting. This site contains a FAQ maintained by a company in Nashville that does this sort of thing.

Apparently, towing a banner requires a waiver from the FAA - they reference FAR 91.311. These guys claim that they “most commonly” do aerial pickups of the banners after takeoff, and that they release them above a dropoff area before landing.

Aerial Banners, Inc. out of Florida offers an FAA-approved pilot training program. They say that they only offer it to commercial-rated pilots with at least 300 hours. They don’t say to what extent those requirements are theirs or the FAA’s.

7

Is there any money in this? Well, of course there is, but how much? It occurs to me that “I’m the guy who flies the banners over the beach all day” would have to be one of the all-time best pick-up lines. I mean, what nubile college girl wouldn’t want to score with the banner guy?

8

There is not much money in this this type of thing. I am a pilot and I would imagine that most people do it simply to off-set the high cost of owning their own private plane. As several posters previously mentioned, this requires a “commercial” pilots license. Most people take this to mean the the same license that your friendly American Airlines pilot has. In fact, a commercial license is merely a souped-up private license that allows you to make some money from flying for some very nominal extra requirements. Regular private pilots are required to do their flying with a severe hit to their pocketbooks.

9

Duh, I should have looked at my own link more carefully. From FAR 91.311, orginally cited by brad_d:

91.309 refers to towing gliders. So all civil aircraft in the US are required to have a waiver. It doesn’t say what this entails, but getting one is probably not too difficult.

Not much, but there has to be some or they wouldn’t be doing it. I think that most of the flying is done by profession pilots and not, as mavpace suggested, pilots who have commercial licenses and fly only to ofset some ownership costs. I don’t know many non-profession pilots how have commercial licenses, I think it is pretty rare. Pilots who own their own plane usually are independently wealthy or are able to write off the expenses. Pilots who can’t afford their own plane, rent planes when they fly.

I’m guessing that those banner planes are flown by a local flight instructors who are trying to get more utilty out of their airplane; any time it spends sitting on the tarmac it isn’t producing revenue. Every Saturday when the Badgers have a home game I can see banner planes circling the stadium. I’ve always assumed that they are Wisconsin Aviation airplanes flying out of Truax, but I think I might head down there and ask them.

10

Late, as usual, but I’ll chime in.

I’m a private pilot (helicopter, although I have a fixed-wing rating as well). I didn’t go to the side (above), but I read an article in a flying magazine a while ago that said the banners were picked up after the aircraft is in flight. IIRC, there are a couple of poles that have the tow-line suspended between them. The airplane somes in low and slow and hooks the banner. Also, IIRC, the tail-end of the banner is weighted to keep it flying correctly.

Many, if not most, pilots who want to fly for a living aspire to fly with the airlines. This takes a lot of hours. Since airplanes are expensive to rent, these pilots often take low-paying jobs such as flight instruction or banner towing to build hours. That is, they get to log a lot of hours and a little money in exchange for doing a job they probably wouldn’t rather be doing.

I don’t think you need to be wealthy to own a plane. My dad had two of them on a government salary. You can buy a mid-70s (most of the fleet was built in the 70s… at least a large number of planes were) Cessna 172 (a popular 4-seater) for about $40,000. That’s on a par with many SUVs. What bites you in the billfold is the maintenence. If your aircraft is used commercially, it needs inspections every 100 flying hours plus a more-comprehensive annual inspection. (The annual can take the place of a 100-hour inspection.) Aircraft using Lycoming engines need to have their engines rebuilt every 2000 flying hours. Continental’s TBO (Time Between Overhaul) is about 1,500 or 1,600 flying ours I think.

If you’re using your aircraft for personal flying (i.e., you’re not using it commercially) you can skip the 100-hour inspections and just do the annual. If you fly 300 hours per year (a figure I’ve heard as the “break-even” point for owning vs. renting) you’ll get almost seven years between overhauls on the engine… if it makes it to TBO. Sometimes (though not too often) they break down or need an overhaul before TBO. Everything that goes into an airplane has to be certified; so even though that starter is exactly the same as the one they use on a Buick, you’ll pay through the nose for it because it needs the little FAA stamp on it.

Of course, airplanes use low-tech engines. The basic design is from the 30s. The good thing is that the engines are very reliable. The bad thing is that they are not as efficient as the computer-controlled powerplant you have in your Honda. Airframe and engine manufacturers are very conservative and it’s hideously expensive to certify a new design; so the engines are slow-turning, large-displacement engines like the ones your grandfather used.

Being relatively low-tech, they burn more fuel than, say, a Geo Metro. Just a ballpark figure, but I’m thinking about 10 miles per gallon. And avgas costs considerably more than mogas. (There are diesel engines in development that will run on jet fuel, which is much less expensive than gasoline.) But remember: You’re scooting along in a straight line at 130mph. Aircraft use gallons-per-hour instead of mpg.

Okay, that’s the bad news. The good news is that the overhauls, inspections, etc. can be planned for. Just add X dollars to your hourly cost of fuel and oil to cover maintenence, tie-down insurance, etc. and you’ll have the money available when you need it. It takes about 2 hours to fly a Cessna from L.A. to Las Vegas. How long does it take to go to LAX board an airliner, and then fly the 45 minutes to LAS? How much is your time worth? Also, you’re not bound by an airline’s schedule. If you want to stay another day, or another hour, there’s not “ticket alteration fee”.

Yeah, it’s expensive to own a plane; but you don’t have to be wealthy. You could drive your old car and fly a plane instead of getting that new BMW. Can’t afford $40,000 cor a Cessna 172? Maybe you can get by with a $25,000 Cessna 150. Or an America (Grumman) AA-1.

I’m not wealthy, or even “comfortably well-off”, but the only reason I don’t own an airplane is because I have this affinity for helicopters. Now those are expensive! Oh, well. Maybe I’ll win the lotto? Or get an airplane instead…

11

Maybe I overstated the case a bit, but it was different in the past. Gas, parts, and maintenance were all cheaper. But let’s just say I wouldn’t be comfortable owning a plane unless I was very secure finacially.

Its a little different. A lot of people who own BMW’s finance them and are in to debt up to their eye balls. You can’t do that when you own a plane, because the instant an unforseen expense comes up you have to sell it and you will be out lots of money. My Dad’s plane ate some aluminium somewhere in it’s engine and had to get a overhaul at 1000 hrs (2000 TBO on an 0-360 Lycoming). It cost +$16,000 to overhaul. He would’ve had to sell it if my parents didn’t have a fair amount of savings (it helps that the plane is owned by my Dad’s business and he gets a tax write off for expenses).

My feeling is that there is a temptation to cut corners on unforseen expenses if it might hurt you financially. And you don’t have to read the NTSB accident reports for long before you find inadequate maintenance listed as a probable cause.

Sorry for the hijack, but there is my opinion. And now just two more things:

  1. definition helicoper: A collection of reciprocating parts, flying in close formation, centered around an oil leak, waiting for metal fatigue to set in.

  2. A heliocopter can’t really fly; its just that something that ugly is repelled by the Earth. :wink: :wink: :wink:

12

I owned a Grumman AA1 for seven years. Paid $11,000 for it in 1992, solid it for about the same in 1999. Great airplane.

I never had an annual go over $600 (owner assisted). I paid $190 for insurance and $350/yr for tie-down.

Other than that, the cost of flying was just gas and oil.

Airplanes are much cheaper to own than you’d think, for one simple reason - they don’t depreciate. They just look more expensive because we track the cost of EVERYTHING. If you did that with your car, you’d be shocked at how much it really costs. A mid-range luxury car will depreciate easily $10,000 a year for the first couple years of ownership. That pays for an awful lot of airplane maintenance.

13

I’m pretty sure I saw factory remanufactured Lycoming O-320s in Trade-A-Plane for about $14,000. I don’t remember what the O-360s cost, but I think I would’ve just traded out the old engine for a fac-reman.

Salaries were a lot lower in the past as well.

I don’t actually read the NTSB reports, but I do read Reporting Points and Aftermath in Flying magazine and I can’t recall seeing any accidents that they said were caused by the owner cutting corners. The owners I know will ground the aircraft until they can afford to repair it correctly, rather than have a job done half-way.

At least I can see my wings working!!! :p;):smiley:

14

My Dad had a Penn Yan rebuild with reconditioned cyclinders. That cost around $12,000. Then he replaced just about everything firewall forward, as long as they had the engine off he figured might as well. An alternator instead of a generator, new vacumn pump, govener, oil pump; after it was all done, including installation, it was over $16,000.

I concede that it is possible, and probably common, to fly safely and inexpensively, but the tempatation is there to fly with “deferred” maintenance.

There is a lot of truth there. My Dad’s business owns a Dodge minivan and he tracks expenses on it as well. It cost around right around double the van’s operating costs to operate the plane, a 1965 Mooney C, for a year. Of course, the van is used a lot more often than the plane, but both are very expensive to run.

15

I actually did the math for a friend one night, when he kept claiming that I had to be rich to own an airplane. After all, it costs something like $50 per HOUR to fly. Who can afford that?

Well, he had a real nice new sports car. I figured it would depreciate about $10,000 that year. He had $30,000 tied up in it, and financing costs were about $3,000. Insurance for him was around $2000. Gas, about $1000/yr. He figured he’d drive about 10,000 miles that year. So three scheduled maintenance stops, plus washes, window fluids, etc. Call it another $500 for unscheduled maintenance and upkeep.

Total cost of ownership that year: $16,500. Driving 10,000 miles, that adds up to $1.65 per mile, or at an average of 30 mph about $49.50 per hour to drive the car.

His car cost $16,500 that year - I flew about 80 hours that year, and my total cost was about $3400. And I was supposed to be the rich one.

If car owners did that kind of math routinely, you’d see a lot of people driving a lot cheaper cars than they do now. But the auto dealers, leasing companies, etc. are very good at burying those costs in the detais, and we’re a society of car drivers and we’ve gotten very good at rationalizing them.

16

Thanks for the replies everyone!

I’m still having trouble visualizing that the plane snags the banner while in flight, but I guess that’s the way it’s done. Those banners must not weigh as much as I thought… my initial inclination would be that grabbing the banner in flight would be dangerous, and it would take some skill to maintain air speed.

17

WAG here: The airplane comes in slow enough to snag the to-line and not rip it from the banner (or the hook from the plane, for that matter). As soon as the banner is caught, the pilot advances the throttle to full. The pilot has to maintain flying speed, whish is about 60mph in a Cesna 172. Some of the planes are Piper Super Cubs or old Stinsons. These aircraft can fly slower than Cessnas, and many banner tows may have more powerful engines than they originally came with. This would allow them to accellerate even as the banner playing out behind them is trying to arrest that accelleration.

Never tried it; just a guess.