This won't be the last time someone "screws" you out of $100 in aviation.
Truer words were never spoken.
There is no place for these personal attacks some of you are enaged in.
I think the young man is being quite reasonable, and it is natural to ask the question he asks. I think those who are attacking him as irresponsible, telling him to "man up" and such other nonsense are entirely out of line. Putting aside for a moment that you are completely misconstruing the question answer me this. What purpose is there to ask a question here if the response is going to be an ad hominem attack?
We don't even know what happened. The pilot does not indicate exactly what happened just the outcome. Was there a sudden gust of wind that he reacted to by pushing on the brakes a bit too hard? And if there was did he sacrifice a tire to save the ship from greater damage? Since there is no indication that the airplane did not go straight before the brake locking up, he must have been pushing both of them with approximately the same force. Why did one lock and not the other. Maybe the problem was with the brakes. Did he have any training on max performance stops? Did the instructor ever show him how much braking was too much? If not, then how would he know until he exceeded the limit. Remember this is a student pilot on his first solo. You want to berate me when I do that, go ahead, but not this guy.
His question about how to react to the bill was reasonable.
It is not unreasonable for someone to say, hey I made a mistake, but am I the financially responsible party? Personal responsibility and financial responsibility are two different things. The young man has admitted he flat spotted the tire. He has presumably learned two thing from the mistake, a) how hard to push on a brake, and b) if you want to be berated here is the place to come.
What about the instructor who soloed him? I instructed 1500 hours and I NEVER had anyone break an airplane on their first solo, or any time during training for that matter. And that was back in the day when we routinely soloed pilots with less than 15 hours, sometimes much less.
The FBO is out of line. They are unwilling to accept their responsibility for the business they are in which is to give inexperience pilots the keys to the airplane on the say so of a barely more experienced instructor (generally). Stuff will happen and flat spotted tires seems to me to be a pretty minimal adverse outcome.
I know times are tough but just a like a marriage you don't go into business expecting everything to be wonderful everyday. If you are not good enough as a business person to budget and plan for unexpected mtx maybe you need to be in another business. It is extremely foreseeable that a training aircraft will run through tires at a high rate - plan for it!
FBO owners are the worst business people I have ever had the displeasure to deal with. They know when they get into it that the business is more likely to lose money than to make money. In fact it is nearly impossible to make a profit and they know it. Then they cry about not making money.
This FBO owner is even worse. He sent his instructor to do his job. If the owner wants to collect $100.00 he needs to walk up to the student and ask for it not send his instructor on a collection mission which is the cowardly thing to do. If anyone needs to "man up" it is the FBO owner.
And you folks here who attack this young man on a personal level for asking a perfectly reasonable question - have you no shame? To have uncertainty and go to an expert for advice (which is really what he is doing) should not be met with attacks on ones character. And leave the Bravo Sierra about folks needing a tough skin in your box of irrelevant platitudes where it belongs. He is not a politician, he is not a public figure, he is not an editorial writer. He is young pilot who asks a group of people whom he obviously respects for advice and gets attacked for doing so. I say it again - have you no shame?
Now don't wimp out and say that telling someone to take responsibility for their actions is not a personal attack. IT IS! By saying he should you are implying he has not done so and he obviously has. The question asked was not one about responsibility, it was whether or not he should be required to pay for the tire. Those are two different issues. And as you can see from the responses there is no consensus.
I would tell the FBO owner that I'm not paying, but I don't want him to have any concerns over the safety of his equipment and so I'll go rent somewhere else. The worst the FBO operator can do is sue and I don't think there is an honest judge anywhere in the world who wouldn't tell the FBO to go pound sand. Blown tires are a routine mtx item in a flight school.
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I hadn't heard that!
