#276 Logging Flight Time - Hobbs Time - Pencil Whipping and more...

Day 276 coffee with Kenny and we're going to talk about Hob's time here in just a minute and answer a question from a ground school member about logging his time and it's a great question. But first we have to say congratulations to Chris Bowden. He just sent in his picture for the Hogs wall and it's up on the new wall we just started since we filled the first one up. Hello Kenny, I want to take a moment to thank you and Hoggs. Today I passed my PPL helicopter add on checkride and I could not have done it without your program. Between the online ground school and coffee with Kenny, I was able to get through the course and go back and re watch certain areas to make sure I was prepared and stayed motivated. I think while the preparation part is obviously important, the underappreciated part is the motivation. When I would get frustrated and question whether or not I could pull this off. It was the way you present your videos and the coffee with Kenny's that would help keep me engaged. Thanks again. Gotta let the old checking account rebound for a couple months and then on to commercial. Chris Bowden I absolutely, absolutely love that. Thank you again Chris for sending the picture and giving us that nice testimonial. It's awesome. So right to this member's question. Kenny got a question about logging flight time. I'm training with a new instructor that is having me add point two every hour we've flown together. Reasoning is that we spend point one during pre flight in the cockpit and zero point one for shutdown procedures. I have a Vietnam pilot buddy who said something similar citing some FAA decision that is unknown to me. What do you think? Like you, I'm a former law enforcement and I care about being honest and doing the right thing. Even when you think no one is watching. Am I perfect? No, I'd appreciate any response. That is a great question. So without knowing how their hobbs meter is working in their aircraft, I can't say specifically but that could very possibly be acceptable.

The thing that you have to think.

About is hobbs meters can run off of battery power. You can have a hobs that starts running when you turn the master on and the master off. You might have one that runs off of oil pressure and then you might have an actual collective hob. So it's only log in time when the collective is raised and when the collective is down it's not turned in the meter. I did jump online today and tried to look up the exact definitions. There's a lot of different information out there. And I was wasting a lot of time and I thought, you know what? I'm just going to talk about what I've always do, what I've always done and what's acceptable. Here in the Midwest, most of us go by engine start because usually as soon as you start the engine or very shortly after, you're going to be engaging the rotor system. So you might be logging time before the blades actually start spinning, but then when you shut down, you shut the engine off, the blades are still going to spin for a little bit. So it kind of works out either way. And I think that's acceptable. And I even looked in some forums and saw some arguments back and forth where some people say it's when the skids leave the ground till the skids are back on the ground. And then there's people say, rotor turning, rotor start to rotor stop. And this is why I like to use a timer or use a wristwatch. Engine start, timer going, engine stop, timer off. Because in that way you can keep track of how long the engine's running. And regardless of whether your Hobbs is operating off of one of those three ways, you're keeping track of when the engine is running. So you're at the controls. As far as I'm concerned, you're pilot in command, you're flying it. Engines on, blades start spinning, you're in control of that thing. When you're using time that way, it doesn't matter if you're if your meter is on the hobs or not, because something else you got to think about is every time you set down and maybe the instructor's talking to you for 30 seconds or a minute or anytime you're practicing auto rotations, if you're full down collective, then you're technically getting cheated out of that time, right? Because you're flying, you're in an auto rotation, man. So if you're flying an aircraft where it's operating off collective, totally fair to be logging that as flight time, even though the collective's down and the hobbs meter isn't running. So to answer this member's question, I think adding a point one and point two could be acceptable, depending on how the Hobbs is. And I think if you're being a reasonable and prudent person and you're doing with what within reason, you're going to be just fine. Now, if you're flying one hour and logging two, that's a problem. And I want to touch on the pencil whipping thing. I don't think I've ever In a video talked about pencil whipping. And early in my career that was. That term was tossed around a lot.

And.

I know a lot of people that have done it. Right now you just have to avoid that temptation of being a pencil whipper because in the end, where is it going to get you? Yeah, it might get you a job sooner than what you were supposed to, but what if, what if you have an accident? What if you get into trouble? What if you were flying beyond your capabilities because you didn't have the proper time in your logbook because you were double in every hour you were flying, you were logging too. That could come back and completely bite you in the rear end. So I hope that answers this member's question. Love to hear your feedback down below about how you guys and girls log your flight time and what's acceptable at your school. So again, you want to make sure that you talk with your flight school and find out how are they logging time and what's acceptable and how do they do it and how do the meters work and when start and stop. So now what I want to do just for something completely different, I'm going to roll a presentation that I put in ground school a few years ago. And then I took it back out after Brian Rutledge, our operations manager, said, man, you know, that was like a little bit overboard or something because it was kind of long. But I was talking about hobbs times, but also talking about how flight instructors charge and how flight instructors deserve to get paid. And sometimes a customer or a student might not understand the way billing is handled. And sometimes an instructor might be doing something well within reason and login time and the way that they charge you could be very well within reason and you don't always understand. And I had kind of gotten an argument with one of my students and I was aggravated and I made this video on a day when I was aggravated. But I just watched it and I thought, you know, it's not that bad because it makes the point I'm gonna stick up for instructors here. Okay? You got good and bad instructors out there in the world, right? But a lot of instructors are out there doing what's right, doing what's fair. And talk to your flight school if.

You'Re unsure about the way you're getting charged.

Make sure you give them the chance to explain how they do it and why they do it. Because instructors are usually, you know, working for peanuts. So going to roll that presentation just for fun and we'll be back in a little bit.

Alright, Next, I want to Talk about collective time. This is a picture from the R44 that we use. This is a collective activated meter. This is used for maintenance time. It is not used for flight time. So we touched on this just a little bit in the last video. Hopefully you watched that one. If you haven't, go back and watch it now. It's the video on fuel. So with collective timer, they can be operating a couple of different ways. And maybe there's some other strange ones.

Out there I don't know of.

But most of the time, either it's going to operate off the collective, meaning when the collective comes up, the meter is running. When the collective goes down, the meter stops. Sometimes certain aircraft will have a meter that actually starts off to power. So when the power goes on, the meter starts running, power off, the meter stops. So you can kind of see where this can can cause confusion with log books. And this may be something old news to you if your advance has been flying. But for people that don't really understand this works yet, it's important to understand this because all the time that you're running the engine up before you pull that collective, the engine's running, blades are spinning, you're sitting in the aircraft, you are logging flight time. So, yes, you're paying for that time. So you're paying the instructor, you're paying for the aircraft, but that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. So when the engine's on, you are acting as pilot in command of that aircraft. Then it's going to be that way until you shut the engine down. Also, when you're operating off a collective, that's a meter that's off of collective time. Anytime you're doing an auto rotation, the meter is not running. While you're actually in flight, you're doing an auto rotation. That time needs to count. You need the time for your logbook. The aircraft needs to make its money, and the instructor needs to make his money too. Her. And you know, flight training is, hands down, is expensive. But the aircraft deserves to be paid and your instructor deserves to be paid too. So understanding the collective times, understanding these start and shutdown times and how to do these different numbers with all the information that we need to keep track of so that things get filled out appropriately in log books and billing time. So this is a repeat slide from the last one. Please get in the habit of starting the timer on the instrument panel at engine start. Then please stop timer when you shut the engine off. This is how you're keeping track of your flight time. If you have a Hobbs mirror that runs off the collective. This applies to aircraft operation prior to and after fueling, start and stop for both flights, even if it's a short flight back to the hangar. So that slide is directed towards the people that fly here. And the R44, again, because the way we move the aircraft, because it's easy for them to do this. First flight, shut down, get fuel, then they want to hurry back to the hangar, and they, oh, they forget to start and stop the time. Well, it's still important because especially when you're new, it takes you a little bit longer to start up and takes you longer to shut down. But that's okay because you're in the learning process. You should be logging that time in your logbook, and the aircraft should be getting paid. So I just mentioned everyone is a different skill level. Some go through startup and shutdown faster than others. Difference between Hobbs time and flight time will not be the same for every person. The difference may be 0.1, or it could be 0.3 or more, depending on the circumstance. If you've been flying for a little while, you know what I'm talking about when you're brand new and don't feel bad if you're brand new, because I was the same way. I can remember when I was learning to start up and shut down, I was slow as molasses. I was slow as anybody. And I can remember even having a lot of trouble. And one of my instructors said, man, you know, you're really struggling with that checklist. You know, you ought to kind of study that and get to where you know it better so you have a better flow in the aircraft. And that's exactly what I did. He made me a copy of the aircraft checklist. It was for the R22. I went home and I would study that thing. And then I started strapping it to my knee board, and I actually had a strap across my knee board. So what I learned to do is, as I'm going through the checklist, I would just keep sliding the checklist up to the right to that strap, going across so I would know where I was at. So it's easy to check, do what I need to do, look back, slide it, do the next thing, look back at the. At the checklist. Instead of constantly, oh, where was I on the checklist? And actually went out and sat in the helicopter and practiced in the hangar. You know, go out there with aircraft off, battery off, nothing on, and work through the checklist, go through push buttons, pull things, just Leave the battery off so you're not running the thing down, but go through the checklist so that when you're actually in the helicopter, it speeds up the process a little bit and it saves you time and money. If the instructor allows you to do that or your flight school allows you.

To do that, that is a great.

Way to save yourself a little money. So doing all this is important for the flight time in your logbook, also for the aircraft and the instructor to get paid. Profit shouldn't be a dirty word, but it appears that way when it comes to instructors getting paid. I'm sorry, but most instructors out there are living off of peanuts, okay? That's the way it is. So give your instructor a break. You're spending tons of money anyway. You know, the guy needs to get paid or the girl needs to get paid. Now I will throw in. There are times where an instructor can overcharge you and do things that aren't right and be going out and flying you. 1.7, 1.8, 1.9. That I'm telling you, if you're brand new and they're flying you more than an hour, my opinion is they're stealing your money. Now, I'm not talking about cross country flights. I'm not talking about when you're more proficient in the beginning, when you're learning the new skill. Those flights need to be about an hour. If they're flying you much over that, you just don't make good progress after an hour. Another reason why it's so important to keep track of the time. Me personally, I like being back on the dolly at 50 minutes. So by the time it's all shut down, engine's off, will have an hour for the log book. They'll get billed for an hour and they leave going, alright, that was a pretty good flight. I feel pretty good. If you take it to an hour and a quarter, hour and a half or more, which I've seen people do, the person gets, they get frustrated, they don't do as well and they end up leaving upset because you know they were doing good at 45 minutes by an hour and a half.

They suck.

They're not doing good, so they get frustrated. Instructor gets frustrated, causes problems for the flight schools. So an hour flight time to me is super, super important. So recapping from the first video, start the timer to engine, start number one, to keep track of your time and fuel burn, to keep yourself alive. I can't stress it enough, I know people, I can sit here and bore you with stories of people that I've flown with, structures I've flown with that are now gone because they didn't plan fuel properly, they ran out of fuel and had fatal accidents. It's a serious matter. Keeping track of your time, starting your timer, using your watch, knowing how much fuel is in your tank, getting used to a fuel gauge, using your fuel gauge to back up what you know is in the tanks or what you believe to be in your tanks. If you're always flying by your time and amount of gallons in the tank and you know your fuel, you know your fuel burn and you're using a fuel gauge just to back up what you already know, you should be in pretty good shape. I have number two reason. The flight time in your log book, you need it for your rating. You need that time in there. You're going for a rating. Whether it's an add on or an additional rating or it's your first rating, you know that time needs to go in your log book. It's important to start that timer and record these things properly. Number three, the aircraft billing and instructor time. I've had this discussion with many flight instructors over the years. We most generally give away much more of our time than we should. There are so many times we spend with students that are not, that we are not charging for that is reality. In the long run, we feel as people just show up, use us for all they can get and then they vanish, never to be heard from again. Now that sounds kind of brutal. I don't mean that in every case. Lots of people want you to get paid and want your money. But what I'm getting at is I had this conversation recently with a 30 year flight instructor downstairs in the lobby. Nice guy, retired school teacher, doesn't do much flight instructor work anymore. And he said, kenny, we know we've been screwing ourselves our entire careers. We've screwed ourselves and we kind of have. Because you want to help people get through the rating, don't always charge them for all the ground that you give them. You give them breaks here and there. So most likely your instructor that's working with you, he's probably not stealing your money, he's probably not doing anything derogatory, but the guy deserves to get paid. We do in general as instructors give away a lot of free time to our students. I give a lot of away a lot of free time talking with people and they want to come in, they want their information. And I'm passionate about training. And when we just do it, if we charge for every single hour that we talk to people learning to fly. We would make really good money as a flight instructor. So hope that gives you a little bit of insight, helps you understand a little bit. Kind of went through it kind of quick. Go ahead and put comments down below as normal, we can get good conversations going if I need to do any additions or additional videos to clear this up a little bit, but I hope that helps. Again, these things are pretty important. Understanding, you know, the flight times, the collective, how it all works, and go through these things with your instructor, because instructors may even be kind of guilty of not explaining this to you from the beginning. And maybe if you catch them and go, hey, let's talk about that collective timer, let's talk about how we're doing these flight times. Then everybody feels better about it versus you. Having questions, not really understanding what you're getting charged for and what you're getting billed for. And then it still falls back to knowing how much fuel is in your tanks. So understand how the flight times work, understanding the timers, super, super important. And oh yeah, a little more for you. I'll go ahead and tack on the end of this video.

When you come to flight, go ahead.

And pre flight the aircraft, check current weather, install transport wheels, open hangar doors, prepare headsets, and any other things required for that flight. Again, this was for my students here because I had one guy who, you know, was wanting me to help him do everything, and then when I charged him for my time, then he was complaining and I said, hey, you know what? Okay, I won't charge you anymore for time outside the aircraft, but when you show up, do these things yourself. This guy was even an add on pilot, commercial pilot, instrument pilot, and then still wanted me to hand him, you know, hand feed him and go around and help him do all this stuff. And I said, finally said, okay, fine, you don't want to pay me for my time, then when you come to the airport, don't come up and bug me for 45 minutes and then take another 45 minutes of my day when I should be building presentations, go out in the hangar, get the aircraft ready to go pre flight, do all these things, get the aircraft ready, get the doors open, then when you come in to see me, I'll charge you for my time and then we'll be happy, you know, so I've been doing this a long time. I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday. I have things to do. I have an online ground school to run. I have, you know, lots going on. I want to fly I like to fly, but I'm not going to go out and babysitting people in the hangar and then not get paid for it. Sorry. So after the flight, please install transport wheels. After we push the aircraft back inside the hangar, please close and lock the hangar door. Please fill out the R44 daily logbook with instructor name and your name. Please make a short note of what type of training took place during that flight. Also please fill out collective and flight time. Here's an example of the book that we use for the R44. I have the exact same thing for the instrum. It's real simple, you know, date, time, description of the flight. Hobbs start Hobbs tie Hobbs and flight time. So we are keeping track of both Hobbs time and flight time right here on the sheet. So again, depending on how your school's doing it, they'll show you specifically how to fill things out. But the point I'm making here is if you want to save yourself some money, let the haven. As soon as you can relieve the instructor of things he has to do, you'll start doing these things. Maybe that can save you a little bit of money on your charges at your flight school. And these tips are for basically for rated pilots. Then fill out the essential portions of your pilot logbook. Please fill in also what training took place during that flight. When you finish filling out your logbook, I will endorse the flight. I say that because same example, the commercial guy, thousands of hours instrument rating, he kept having me fill out his logbook and I'm like, alright, why don't you fill out your logbook and I'll just sign it. You know what's going on, you know what's happening here. Brand new students, that's different. Brand new students, we got to fill it out for them, help them understand.

How to properly fill out a log book.

But this guy's a professional, you know, a businessman, he knows how to fill.

Out a log book.

So again, depending on where you're at in your career, talk to your instructors, talk to your flight school. Understanding these important things and helping with the documentation will be easier on you. You want good records for your checkride. Later you're going back and trying to find what I did or what you did with your instructor. I can tell you that can be a nightmare. When you go back later, try to find these things because when you go to fill out your A710 getting ready for the checkride, you need to know solo time, you need to know cross country, you need to know where you went and it just makes life easier if you properly understand how to do the paperwork, do the logbooks properly, fill out the times, start and end times properly.

All right. Hope that helps. Put your comments down below. Let us know what works for you and doesn't work for you and what you think and see out there. Thanks for stopping by for day 276. Make sure you subscribe to the channel. Click that little bell, put your comments down below. Keep the comments coming in. So we got some more fresh ideas for new training topics for this video that we do every day. So make sure you subscribe, click the bell, leave us a comment, and we'll see you in day 277. This is 276. Yeah, see you in 277. Peace out.