But, surely, paying for 2 or 3 hours for every day you are away with the plane is going to totally kill any significant trip away where you are actually going to see some place.
The only thing that will make the remotest economic sense is a flying-every-day trip, where you do a flight every day the plane is away. I recall one guy renting a PA28-181 for 2 weeks every summer, from a local school here, and he toured Germany, with a flight on each day. But each flight would not have been 2-3 hours so he must have done a “bulk” deal with the school.
Here in the UK, the more powerful (and thus much more useful) planes, e.g. a PA28-181 or higher, don’t do many hours, because they cost more and people (rightly) can’t see the point in spending more money than they have to to get the PPL – especially if they are doing it for the usual reason which is to tick the box.
If you flew 2-3 hours every day (as PIC) for a week “you” would likely be shagged and yawning every evening you are out – especially with no autopilot and the crappy headsets they give you.
Anyway, back to the topic, it would seem that obviously no clearance is needed to pull/push the plane away by hand.
Also I can’t see that one is needed to taxi under power – if no startup clearance is needed. If a startup clearance is needed then obviously you are “vulnerable” to the tower asking you where you are going, etc…
Anyway, back to the topic, it would seem that obviously no clearance is needed to pull/push the plane away by hand.
That really depends where you do that and if you push your aircraft across red/orange/blue/white/dashed/dotted/double lines that must not be crossed without clearance. In France, I got nearly arrested for walking across one such line, if I had pushed an aeroplane across it I would probably spend the rest of my days on Devil’s Island…
Just sitting behind an FTO DA40 who is completely oblivious to the queue behind him and seems to be doing some paperwork…
You need to install an air horn on the TB20 :)
Starting at the fuel pump without moving the plane out of the way is similar to starting while still in a tie down spot, instead of pulling the plane out and turning it 90 degrees so the prop wash blows down the taxiway. Either marks you as somebody who hasn’t been around aircraft and needs an education. Maybe that comes later when their plane gets blasted by stones from somebody else’s prop wash.
When I buy self serve fuel I generally nose the plane up to the pump anyway, to allow equal access to both wings. That pretty much mandates moving the plane by hand before startup.
Here in the US, if you stay off of the taxiways or runway, then movement is the pilot’s discretion, Only the airlines have ramp control.
That is really, really good Rhino. You won’t be able to rent an aircraft from a commercial rental company flying it for just 2hrs per day on average…
They will ask you to fly it for at least 4hrs / day.
I had the same trip booked through the commercial flying school in EDLE though, before switching over to the club setup. They’re generally very accommodating and follow a “first come first serve” mentality, as long as you don’t overstretch it. They seem to understand that there has to be a compromise between economic value of a certain rental agreement and the needs of the customers to take the aircraft on trips (to make the whole thing worthwhile).
Is there a difference in policy/mentality by the rental companies between NL and DE here? My Dutch pilot friends who I did the PPL with and who I meet regularly seem to be having trouble getting their aircraft rented for longer periods. I’ve never had a request turned down so far.
If you flew 2-3 hours every day (as PIC) for a week “you” would likely be shagged and yawning every evening you are out – especially with no autopilot and the crappy headsets they give you.
Peter, I believe you are a bit too bitter about this whole rental business. 
I found it’s actually not so bad (obviously, ownership preferred). I carry my own headset, can have an autopilot if I want and if you do a 2-3 hours/day on average trip, it doesn’t actually mean you have to fly everyday. You can do 4-5 hour legs to fly further and then enjoy your time at the destination…
They’re generally very accommodating and follow a “first come first serve” mentality, as long as you don’t overstretch it. They seem to understand that there has to be a compromise between economic value of a certain rental agreement and the needs of the customers to take the aircraft on trips (to make the whole thing worthwhile).
That’s exactly how it should be.
Unfortunately, there are too few “touring pilots” and too many people flying just local nav-exes or only the usual 30-minute burger run, so many (the more “commercial”) outfits rent out the aircraft in 2-hour blocks and thereby often get 6 or 7 billed flying hours out of a nice summer weekend day. Those people renting on the 2-hour blocks however also are usually the ones who give up flying after a while…
Here in the UK, there is a dire shortage of quality aircraft on the self fly hire scene.
It is gradually improving, and there are some exceptions where there is a good choice.
But IMHO the biggest factor in people giving up is the “lack of fun”. Nowadays anybody with the money to get a PPL has plenty of other options on having “fun” so they have to evaluate the competing options. And it’s difficult to have fun in GA when the hardware is such crap that prospective passengers (especially female ones ) turn up their nose when they see it. With the passage of time, what you are left with is a flying community consisting mainly of retired men in their 60s and above, and they are not going to be renting 2hr blocks per day and doing a long trip because they don’t actually have all that much money. Also some of the “old” guys (I am 57 BTW, yet where I am based I am just a kid) have done enough touring in the past and now just want to do short local lunch runs, so again the market isn’t there to support a quality-aircraft self fly hire option.
Anyway, this is digressing 
Pulling the aircraft along say 10m cannot IMHO cause a problem, but it isn’t easy to pull a filled-up SEP (I can only just about pull the TB20 on a very flat surface).
Not required to pull by hand. Just get in and move out of the way within, say, one minute.
Every half competent pilot should be able to start up his aircraft within one minute after getting in and start moving immediately. This merely requires pilots to know the vital points (towbar removed, etc.) and skip the less important ones from the checklist. One can then do it all over again slowly once out of the way.
