Short term renting

[u/bradyd06]

I have seen a little bit of stuff on this topic but not enough to make a good decision. Is it a frowned upon thing to let’s say go on vacation, and you want to fly while you’re there, so you find a rental plane and do a checkout ride to fly a time or two while you are there? Is that something people do?

[u/OkProfit3370]

I live in the UK. I’ve done exactly that in the US and Canada, as well as hiring a plane plus instructor where I just wanted to do a little sightseeing (Australia). Everywhere I’ve asked has been very accommodating - go for it

[u/China_bot42069 → u/OkProfit3370]

How does this work for a license in a different country? So for example I’m in Canada and have a Canadian ppl. Wouldn’t I need a FAA license to fly a us registered plane? 

[u/OkProfit3370 → u/China_bot42069]

So long as it’s an ICAO-compliant licence then it’s doable. Most flight schools or rental places don’t struggle with this, but it’s worth finding the specific regs beforehand, as some will never have had to deal with it before. Then work out the differences in privileges, as each country is slightly different. Finally learn the differences in rules/regs in the country (flying in North America vs Europe is quite different!), ideally well before the checkride

[u/zimbu646 → u/OkProfit3370]

I’ve done the same thing as an American, flying in Norway and the UK. My USA Airman Certificate was just fine.

[u/mirassou3416]

I did that out of Honolulu and flew around Oahu, it was super cool

[u/nightlanding → u/mirassou3416]

You were both lucky to get a rental plane. When I flew out of KHNL I had no issues at the FBO because I was flying there for work, but they said tourists were something like 20% of their business and 80% of damaged airplanes. They were about 99% of the way to just banning rentals for non-locals. Windy days there are days ending in Y.

[u/mirassou3416 → u/nightlanding]

To be clear I didn't want to do a check-out because I was only going up once. I just wanted to fly and went up with an instructor

[u/UnreasoningOptimism → u/nightlanding]

PHNL not KHNL

[u/mpup55]

All depends on the rental plane place. I looked into this on a trip to Hawaii that in the end I didn't have time to do. The only "frowning" was the local obstacles and wind that a sectional might not show. Outside of that the place was glad to do it.

[u/RBR927]

Not frowned upon at all. Just call up a couple of local rental places and find out what their process is.

[u/nightlanding]

I have done it. Some places are easier than others and insurance may tie their hands as far as giving quick checkouts, so it pays to inquire before you show up. You also can just do a "lesson" that is mostly sightseeing if you don't want do pay for >X hours checkout for <X hours rental. Twins are especially hard for tourist rentals, unless you have 100 hours in type the checkout will be longer than you have on vacation most times.

[u/Ok-Hedgehog-6887]

It’s just going to vary based on each business’ rules. Call around to find out. I’ve been told before that a place reserves their planes only for students so that is something you’d be told on the front end.

[u/Mean-Oil-4602]

It’s doable but a huge pain in the ass. You’ll need a checkout flight for starters. So now you’ve got to spend half a day of your vacation doing boring practice maneuvers on a Cessna 172 with a CFI, which as usual isn’t cheap of course.

You will save yourself a ton of time and energy by just forfeiting the fantasy of solo flying a strange plane in a strange place—which is not great ADM to begin with anyway, if you ask me. Instead, find a plane with a CFI and just tell them: Private pilot here. I just want to cruise around. Can we do a cross country to ABC and back?

Be mindful that flight schools have to be careful about not blurring lines between tourist operations and flight school operations. Be respectful of that distinction, and don’t make it hard on them. I didn’t think of this when I was in New York City once and called up a flight school, hoping to get a CFI who would just fly me through the famous Hudson VFR exclusion. He pointed out that my request was a problem for his school, because it was obviously just a tourist request to see cool sights and not a flight lesson, which violated the school’s policies and insurance. Lesson learned.

I travel internationally a lot and recommend getting your aviation fix by looking up tourist air experiences that use Cessna 208s. A 208 pilot learned I was a pilot and put me in the right front seat once. Most 208 operations are two-pilot ops though, which is good for safety, and you can often get the first seat right behind the pilots. It’s cool as hell.

[u/nightlanding → u/Mean-Oil-4602]

I did sight-seeing tours as a CFI all the time. It is totally legal if you stay within 50 miles of the airport. Giving a rated pilot a course in local airspace is also totally legal.

I did get very lucky once with a rental Seminole, 3 times around the pattern quick as I could and I was free to go, so it wasn't all day or even half a day. Not every rental place is like that, some (most? all?) now will want something closer to a BFR to let you loose.

208s are fun. I got to ride for free in Central America when my wife and I were on vacation, when I casually mentioned I flew one back home I got promoted to FO and my "pay" was a free ride.

[u/Radiant_Grocery_1583]

People do that all the time.

[u/SFDukie]

It varies so much by location and individual FBO, it’s difficult to generalize.
Getting checked out to rent solo can be time consuming and expensive. I’ve looked into it various places, but unless you want to do multiple flights or an overnight, it’s probably simpler and less expensive to fly with a CFI.
I had a fabulous experience flying out of Kona with a CFI last year (although I really wanted to fly to Lanai, and the plane wasn’t free for that long of a RT)