Pricing Example

We compare here the "chock-to-chock" pricing often used at other aero clubs and flight schools with the scheme by which the Wakatipu Aero Club charges for its aircraft.

At WAC time is only charged from just before the first radio call (i.e. after warm up, taxi to the run up area, and run ups) until engine shutdown. By contrast the chock-to-chock scheme (i.e. from engine start to engine shutdown) used elsewhere will add an extra 10 minutes to the charged duration of the flight, but for no more actual time in the air.

A flight of one hour's duration (measured chock-to-chock) will typically result in a charge for only 50 minutes at the Wakatipu Aero Club. Our hourly rate of $215 (as of June 2008 for a 160hp Cessna 172) is actually only $179, measured on a chock-to-chock basis.

Here we compare our headline rate of $205 with a $190 rate perhaps charged elsewhere.

(Note: according to CAA rules the amount of time logged by the pilot has nothing to do with how she is charged. Each of the two pilots in the example tabulated above, one flying at WAC for $187 and the other paying $208 somewhere else, is supposed to log the chock-to-chock time [1 hour] in their own pilot's log book.)