Instruction Rates & Policies
Effective 17-August-2016
The student agrees to the following when receiving instruction from Olioni Aviation LLC:
- Hourly rate (including overhead, ground and flight time):
- $99
- If the payment method (e.g.: credit card) has surcharges of more than 3.5%, the bill will be increased by that amount
- Times are calculated in increments of 0.1 hours, rounded up
- Final dollar amount is rounded up to the nearest whole dollar
- Invoicing fee:
- 3% of the balance or $10, whichever is higher
- The student is personally responsible for all payments that are due
- Start time:
- Nominally the scheduled start of lesson
- If the instructor is late, the clock starts when the instructor arrives
- If the helicopter needs to be retrieved from the hangar, then an extra 0.5 hours is added
- However, the student is welcome to arrive a little earlier to help accelerate this process
- End time:
- After all post-flight procedures, paperwork, rental payments, logbook entries, post-flight debriefing and discussions, etc., are completed
- If the helicopter needs to be hangared afterwards, an extra 0.5 hours is added
- The student is welcome to help accelerate this process
- Pre-flight time
- For beginning students, the pre-flight will be supervised
- Advanced students can begin the pre-flight by themselves by scheduling the aircraft a little bit earlier than the instructor, if it's not the first flight of the day
- As always, any student can request instructor supervision of the pre-fight process at any time
- And at any time, the instructor may choose to supervise the student's pre-flighting to make sure things are done correctly
- Minimum lesson time that includes a flight (when scheduling):
- 2.0 hours
- Minimum lesson time that is ground only (when scheduling):
- 1.5 hours
- Late student arrivals:
- The instructor clock will still start at the original scheduled time of the lesson
- If the helicopter needs to be retrieved from the hangar, then an extra 0.5 hours is also added
- No flight due to weather or aircraft problems:
- No charge
- Lesson cut short due to weather, aircraft or physiological reasons
- No *extra* charges or penalties
- "Regular" charges will apply to the lesson
- Lesson cut short due to other reasons: (for example: the student has to get to a newly scheduled appointment)
- Will be charged for the full duration of the scheduled lesson, plus any time spent in getting the helicopter ready and/or re-hangared
- Missed lessons, no-shows or lessons cancelled with less than 48 hours' notice:
- Will be charged for the full duration of the scheduled lesson, plus any time spent in getting the helicopter ready and/or re-hangared
- Early morning flights, especially in the summer
- Early morning flights are usually affected by weather, low ceiling, fog, etc., especially in the summer time
- These flights should have a "Plan B" in place - what we work on if the weather is not great to fly outside of KPAO
- e.g.: hovering, pattern work, autos in the pattern, gov off, hyd off, ground review, and so on
- The instructor reserves the right to cancel an entire lesson or cut short any lesson or flight at any time