The club currently has two aircraft available for use by club members. All hourly rates include fuel and are based on tach time, described below. All of the club-owned 172s have tuned exhaust systems, allowing the engines to develop full rated power more easily. All aircraft have intercoms.

Hourly Rates

Our planes are billed using tachometer ("tach") time rather than hobbs time, and are "wet" (fuel is included in the price).

Some basic info and rules of thumb for calculating rates: Fuel costs roughly $5 a gallon and a typical 4-seat trainer uses 8+ gallons per hour. For a plane flown dry, add another $45 an hour for fuel to your cost. Our planes, however, are flown wet: the fuel is included in the hourly rate.

Hourly time is measured either by a Hobbs meter (a timer which starts when the engine does, runs at a steady rate, and stops when the engine shuts down) or by a tachometer ("tach time"). The tach meter runs at a rate slower than clock time when the engine is at less than cruise RPM (e.g. in descent, taxiing), meaning less time on the meter and less cost to you. Our planes use tach meters.

Hobbs time = Tach time x 1.2
Tach time = Hobbs time x 0.83

For example, a 1 (tach) hour flight in one of our 172s would cost $100, fuel included. A flight of equal duration in a dry 172 at $100 per Hobbs hour would cost $165, including fuel.

A 1 Hobbs hour flight would cost $100 + $45 (fuel) = $145. A flight of equal duration in our 172 would cost $83.

Some reasons we use a tach rate:

• no rush on the ground while idling

• better fuel economy when not flying at max speed

• less wear and tear when not flying at max speed

• accounting accuracy/fairness - 100-hour maintenance, TBOs, etc. are all tach

Reasons to use wet:

• fairness - "the last guy didn't fill it up all the way"

• we don't require a fill up after shorter flights so you don't have to fill up after every flight