Originally Posted by
lstorm2003
Well I will say one thing.. I don't mind paying for ground if we're actually doing ground... But one thing I will never do and I don't think that instructors should do in general is charge a guy for walking out to the plane... That would be like a mechanic charging you for walking out to your car in the parking lot... I've had more than one guy try to charge me an extra .2 for walking out to the airplane.. I find it ridiculous.
You have that scenario, but also the part where someone has already taken up your time. Time and knowledge is what a CFI can charge for. If you are occupying his/her time, then you should be paying for it in some sense, or they should be able to be working for someone else. Now I understand the lolly-gagging CFI's that milk the .1-.2 before the flight, and a de-brief that last 20 min, if they aren't doing anything constructive, then don't charge it.
I personally only charged for any discussion time before/after the flight. Most cases that ended up being around a .3 avg. Some students were well prepared, and already had the plane pre-flighted to boot, they saved money. If you are going to waste my time though, I will charge you for it. Even in these cases it would mean I would go out and really work them over on the pre-flight, constantly asking questions about the systems they were checking for and anything else special to look for. Usually after a few of these sessions, they came more prepared.