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Best Practices for the Renter Pilot
I am not yet an airplane owner. This is certainly a goal for the future, but the cost at present is prohibitive. I didn’t start my flying journey until June 2021, well after the used aircraft market went bonkers and prices soared, as did the prices of many other things. Additionally, owning an airplane isn’t just about the cost of purchasing it, there are many other costs presented as well. Annual inspections, engine overhaul reserve, maintenance reserve, insurance, storage fees, and the cost of fuel all factor into the cost of ownership.
So, for now, I rent.
Renting isn’t the worst thing in the world though. Like anything, renting has its advantages and disadvantages. Depending on how popular a particular airplane is, for example, booking availability could be problematic. Rental airplanes may require maintenance more often because they are flown more often, plus 100-hour inspections, both which cause downtime. You can’t customize the setup of the panel, by adding or subtracting equipment, so you get what’s there. And just like a rental car, you never really know what the other renters have done with the plane. On the flip side of the coin, the maintenance costs, most insurance costs, storage fees, and fuel are generally included in the hourly rental rate (fuel included with “wet rate” rentals). This allows you to better budget exactly what you are spending on flying.
As an airplane renter, I have identified some best practices for renting, which I believe will make you a great renter with a solid reputation.
Anytime you rent an airplane for the first time, you should review the logbooks to get an overall idea of the airplane’s history. If you are renting from a flight school, you should consider doing this during your aircraft checkout process, and you can make it part of the ground time when you are covering the pre-flight procedures and general airframe knowledge (the renter’s exam). Look for items of interest and ask questions as to how they were discovered, and how they were resolved. Although you should always do a thorough pre-flight, be extra detailed on the first one, especially if the airframe is new to you. When I did a checkout flight on a light sport recently, the airframe was all new to me. Fortunately, the CFI doing the checkout flight was also the owner of the airplane, and so he could speak very credibly to its history and demonstrate exactly what to look for during the pre-flight.
Depending on how often you fly that particular airplane, it may be advantageous to continue your logbook review on a rolling basis. You are the Pilot in Command (PIC) after all, so being aware of issues that may make the airplane unairworthy goes a long way to ensuring safe, legal, and enjoyable flights.
Depending on where you rent from, this may be a requirement and not an option. Many Fixed Based Operators (FBOs) and Flight Schools who rent airplanes require a minimal amount of insurance from renters, but you are always free to go beyond their minimums. And it’s probably a good idea to do so, if you can afford it.
Non-owned aircraft insurance is kind of a strange hybrid approach to insurance. Admittedly it’s something I didn’t initially understand and for the first year, I probably had the wrong coverage limits and spent more than I needed to.
• The liability coverage covers you against liability arising from bodily injury or property damage that you cause while operating the non-owned aircraft. You will want more coverage here and this is generally the lower cost portion of a non-owned aircraft policy.
• The aircraft damage portion, however, is a little different. It will cover aircraft damage that you cause. This could cover you for amounts beyond the owner’s policy coverage, could cover the deductible for the owner’s policy, or could serve to protect you from subrogation if the owner’s insurance company pursues it. If the airplane is damaged and you are not the cause, this portion of the insurance does not apply. This portion of the coverage costs substantially more, and you should choose an amount that you believe will comfortably cover you if you should damage the aircraft.
Once you have coverage, keep your insurer up to date with your experience and hours flown, new ratings or endorsements, safety courses (such as WINGS), and new certificates as these may help to lower your premiums. Also, be sure you understand the coverages you have and ask good questions of your insurer, as it’s a bad time to find out you didn’t understand your coverage when you need it.
This ties in with reviewing the logbooks. If you are an airplane renter, please don’t fail to report maintenance issues via appropriate channels, regardless of the cause. If you detect something during your pre-flight, the flight itself, or during post-flight, make sure to report it. You do not know whether this issue will present itself again later, leading to an emergency or something more catastrophic. If you identify an issue, report it. If you caused an issue or broke something, report it. It is the only way that it can be fixed if necessary, or deemed a non-issue by a certificated mechanic. After all, if it were your airplane, you probably wouldn’t ignore it. A couple of stories I’ve heard come to mind:
• A pilot flying a single engine piston caused a prop strike and didn’t report it. The occurrence wasn’t discovered until much later, after the airplane had been up flying several times. Fortunately, this incident didn’t lead to an engine or prop failure in flight, which could have had catastrophic consequences.
• In another case, a student pilot on solo landed with the brakes on and flat spotted the two main tires to the point that they were completely ruined. When asked by a CFI, who observed the whole thing, whether he had done so he denied it. The student did later admit his mistake and worked with the FBO to replace the tires.
• In a third case, a pilot landed so directly on the nosewheel of a Cessna that the firewall crumpled. There was no way for the pilot flying to not have known that the landing was nose first, but nothing was said. The issue was later discovered by another pilot during a pre-flight inspection.
In each of these three cases, the issue wasn’t that it happened, it was the refusal to admit it and report it. As pilots, we all make mistakes; but if you discover, or cause, an issue and do not report it, you could be affecting the safety of a future flight.
This should be fairly self-explanatory. Yet it seems like a common enough occurrence that it bears mentioning. After you have returned from your flight, remember to remove not only your belongings, but also any trash. I can’t remember the number of times I have rented an airplane and gone out to pre-flight, only to find chip bags, soda cans and water bottles, dirty napkins and paper towels, wadded up flight plans and sectional charts, and other trash left behind in the airplane. To rent an airplane and then leave your trash behind is not only rude to the owner of the airplane, but it’s rude to your fellow renters as well.
Also, be sure to fully go through the shutdown checklist. Put the engine plugs in, turn off all the applicable switches (including the master), close the windows, engage the control lock, secure the tie downs and chocks well (as appropriate), lock the doors and baggage compartment, and apply any sunshades or covers. Locking up is a significant issue given how prevalent the theft of avionics has become. And please remember to return the keys; on more than a few occasions renters have taken the airplane keys home with them and then couldn’t be reached to bring them back to the FBO.
In sum, be kind and clean up after yourself, everyone appreciates that.
This one, much like cleaning out the airplane, should be self-explanatory. Put simply, do not do things with a rental airplane that you would not do if the airplane were yours. Don’t fly in the yellow arc in turbulence because it’s a rental. Don’t put the flaps out, or put the gear down, above the appropriate speeds because it’s a rental. Don’t firewall the engine just because it’s a rental. Abusing the airplane, just because you’ve rented it, is rude. And before anyone says “who would do those things anyway,” let me assure you that these things are happening.
I like having an airplane accessible when I want to fly, and not have it be in the maintenance hangar again because someone was silly. And I certainly would hate to experience some sort of catastrophic failure of a critical piece of equipment because someone did something sketchy. Be a good pilot and be kind to the airplane. Put simply, if you owned the plane and wouldn’t do that, don’t consider it acceptable in a rental. It doesn’t seem like much to ask.
There are probably other points that could be mentioned here, but these will suffice for now. If you have an additional tip for good renter practice, send me an email at Jeff@angryoctopusaviation.com and let’s discuss including it in a possible future update. By following good renter practices, we encourage owners to trust their airplanes to the rental line, and ensure we have aircraft available when we want to fly.
Blue Skies and Tailwinds,
Jeff
