Squawk list (My letter to the owner of my rental plane)

[jason]

1) The landing light in 38J is INOP. I swapped the fuse with another 10A fuse and it still didn't fire. Thought you'd want to get it fixed.

2) Less serious, but I thought you'd want to know how my attempted flight went.

I decided that it was a beautiful night to re-up my night currency. I decided at around 10 pm to head over to the airport knowing that something would be available.

On my way over I tried calling to have the line guys pull 38J down. After getting into a loop with the auto attendant answer lady on their phone system, it finally started ringing (and ringing and ringing) with no answer. No problem, I'll just show up.

I got there around 10:15 pm and walked in. Nobody around. Door to the ramp was locked. Door to the maintenance hanger was locked. Walked throughout the entire building for the next 20 minutes. Called on the phone (every extension in the building rang with no answer). Waited another 5 minutes and saw the Performance Flight 172 taxi up. A line guy appeared from the back side of the building to chock them.

When the Performance guy walked in I took the opportunity to go through the unlocked door to talk to the line guy. It turns out that there were two guys on duty. They were just around back washing their cars and the phone that they had in their pocket wasn't ringing. No problem, let's just get the plane down.

He got in the truck and ran to the hanger. He showed up around 10 minutes later without the airplane. Said that he couldn't find the "adapter" that he needed to hook on to it. Asked if I'd be comfortable taxiing it out to the ramp. "Sure, no problem". I hopped in for a ride to the plane. He dropped me off and told me to just park it on the ramp when I was done.

Pre-flight. Found the landing light INOP. Troubleshot it for about 5 minutes. Decided that I could take a hint and decided not to go flying tonight. I started to think about how the NTSB report would read, "Pilot ignored all signs that tonight wasn't his night and proceeded to go after his night currency without a functional landing light"

Tried calling for a ride back (no answer). Walked back to the FBO to tell them that they could go back up to put the plane away. Left around 70 minutes after I arrived.

I'm not upset, I just thought you'd want to know. You could have had at least an hour of rental tonight if things had gone a bit better.

 

[Richard]

Tough break, kid.

If I were the recipient of that letter my response would have been:

Why did you wait until 10 pm to book a plane? We try our best but you should take more responsibility to properly schedule a flight. This is best done during normal business hours. While the aircraft are normally available for scheduling for local night flights, they may not be accessable. In this day of increased airport security no longer can you waltz up to the aircraft. In the future, please make appropriate adjustments in your scheduling.

Hey, things happen...this includes landing lights burning out. I trust you made the appropriate squawk entry. Likewise, I trust you returned the fuses to their rightful place in the cockpit.

As for the linemen, they aren't our employees although I will personally speak to their employer regarding their ignoring their duties. Such behavior reflects poorly on everyone.

(Or, if they are his employees) I will speak with them at my earliest opportunity to remind them how they are charged with providing service to you and our other members.

 

[jason]

Tough break, kid.

If I were the recipient of that letter my response would have been:

Why did you wait until 10 pm to book a plane? We try our best but you should take more responsibility to properly schedule a flight. This is best done during normal business hours. While the aircraft are normally available for scheduling for local night flights, they may not be accessable. In this day of increased airport security no longer can you waltz up to the aircraft. In the future, please make appropriate adjustments in your scheduling.

Hey, things happen...this includes landing lights burning out. I trust you made the appropriate squawk entry. Likewise, I trust you returned the fuses to their rightful place in the cockpit.

As for the linemen, they aren't our employees although I will personally speak to their employer regarding their ignoring their duties. Such behavior reflects poorly on everyone.

(Or, if they are his employees) I will speak with them at my earliest opportunity to remind them how they are charged with providing service to you and our other members.

And as the writer of the original letter I most certainly would have written back:

Thanks for your timely response. I most certainly try my best to book the airplanes as far in advance as is practical. I did attempt to call ahead well before my arrival to give the line guys plenty of time to perform their duties. That said, if it is a requirement to book in advance, why did you originally tell me that pop-ins at night would be no problem? When I first queried you about this you assured me that the best way to get a night flight would be to just show up.

As for the heightened security levels, I would certainly think that your contract with this particular FBO that calls for 24 hour staffing would suffice in a situation such as this.

I did, in fact, mark the squawk sheet and I also made sure to put all fuses back as I found them. I thought I had made that clear in my original letter.

In the end, I'm your customer. I wanted to make sure that you were aware of the lost revenue so that you could respond appropriately.

 

[wbarnhill]

And as the writer of the original letter I most certainly would have written back:

Thanks for your timely response. I most certainly try my best to book the airplanes as far in advance as is practical. I did attempt to call ahead well before my arrival to give the line guys plenty of time to perform their duties. That said, if it is a requirement to book in advance, why did you originally tell me that pop-ins at night would be no problem? When I first queried you about this you assured me that the best way to get a night flight would be to just show up.

As for the heightened security levels, I would certainly think that your contract with this particular FBO that calls for 24 hour staffing would suffice in a situation such as this.

I did, in fact, mark the squawk sheet and I also made sure to put all fuses back as I found them. I thought I had made that clear in my original letter.

In the end, I'm your customer. I wanted to make sure that you were aware of the lost revenue so that you could respond appropriately.

As a third party, I'd add:

"By the way, the funyuns selection (D8) on the vending machine in the FBO is INOP. Until this squawk is addressed, I cannot, in good conscience, be a patron of your services. Thank you for your time."

 

[Richard]

To which I would have replied:

You did notice that Level 5 cell parked over the departure end, didn't you? So it seems all things conspired to keep you safely on the ground. We'll just call it even Steven and go from here.


Jason, if he did tell you after hour pop ups were no problem, then you have a legit beef. I am supremely interested in what his response will be on that point.

But are locked gates and doors really within his authority?

BTW: I had a FBO owner tell me exactly that; that I could show up 24/7 to grab the keys out of a locked box stationed right outside the FBO office. What he neglected to tell me was the office girl would periodically change the combo on the lock. No combo = no plane keys.

His response was interesting; "...that doesn't happen, why would she do that? I think you misunderstood the lock combo." (the last 4 digits of the guard freg)

So like the dutiful trusting soul I am I tried the box right then and there. It opened! That very night the same thing happened again. The next day one of the CFIs had his day off. Coincidently, the lock box would not open while in the presence of the FBO owner. It turns out this CFI would change the combo so no one would come behind him to steal the plane keys. Then he would change it back to the oringinal combo in the morning. It didn't occur to the CFI to check the schedule to see if anyone had a night flight. The CFI had decided on his own to do this so no one had any idea it was taking place. I lucked out by being the one to discover this.

Moral: things happen.

 

[jason]

To which I would have replied:

You did notice that Level 5 cell parked over the departure end, didn't you? So it seems all things conspired to keep you safely on the ground. We'll just call it even Steven and go from here.

Jason, if he did tell you after hour pop ups were no problem, then you have a legit beef. I am supremely interested in what his response will be on that point.

Yes, this is exactly what he told me. I asked him how to schedule at night. He said that even if I schedule they'll still put the plane away. If I'd like I can just to show up and have them pull it down (as long as it's in service).

But are locked gates and doors really within his authority?

No, the doors are not his problem. The issue was that the only two line guys on duty were on the other side of said locked doors so I couldn't get through them. If they would have 1) been manning the front desk or 2) answered the phone then it wouldn't have been an issue.

BTW: I had a FBO owner tell me exactly that; that I could show up 24/7 to grab the keys out of a locked box stationed right outside the FBO office. What he neglected to tell me was the office girl would periodically change the combo on the lock. No combo = no plane keys.

His response was interesting; "...that doesn't happen, why would she do that? I think you misunderstood the lock combo." (the last 4 digits of the guard freg)

So like the dutiful trusting soul I am I tried the box right then and there. It opened! That very night the same thing happened again. The next day one of the CFIs had his day off. Coincidently, the lock box would not open while in the presence of the FBO owner. It turns out this CFI would change the combo so no one would come behind him to steal the plane keys. Then he would change it back to the oringinal combo in the morning. It didn't occur to the CFI to check the schedule to see if anyone had a night flight. The CFI had decided on his own to do this so no one had any idea it was taking place. I lucked out by being the one to discover this.

Moral: things happen.

It's the only certainty in life.

The bottom line of this story isn't that I'm upset. More than anything I just wanted to let the owner of the planes to know what was going on at night so that he could work with his line services vendor to resolve any issues that might keep him from renting his airplanes.