Originally Posted by
Learguy
I agree with Navajo on this. And yes, I used to own a couple of FBO's in the past.
While I think you teaching your friend is a nice thing to do, you are using all of the services that the FBO's are ultimatly paying for, and providing little to support those services.
It used to irk me to no end when the "I'm just an independent trying to teach the joy of flight" guy would march into the FBO, take over the flight planing room, spread all his stuff around and spend 45 minutes giving ground instruction. Oh yeah, drink the coffee and eat the popcorn, and then loudly proclaim they would do practice landings at the next airport because gas was 3 cents cheaper.
All the while I would have all the expenses of a couple of planes sitting on the ramp, and a CFI looking for a bit of protection.
How about approaching the FBO, presenting your credentials, and asking if you could rent one of their aircraft to teach your friend? Might be a win-win, and you can make new friends doing it?
The FBO on the Airport is operated by the Port Authority and for the record I would be buying all my gas from them. Rent an airplane at $140 an hour when I own one. How crazy is that? A CFI looking for protection...anybody with any flight time knows CFI's have no protection, if they want it maybe ALPA should unionize them too. As far as planes sitting on the ramp, if one little CFI causes your planes to sit on the Ramp something tells me your planes should not be flying anyway due to price, quality, or maintenance reasons!!!