Categories, classes and meters
What each field on an aircraft means: category and class in the same words a certificate uses, and which meters the aircraft has. Meters decide whether its flights are invoiced automatically.
For owners and admins
WebAircraft → Add aircraft, or Edit on a tail you already have. Category and class describe what the aircraft is. Meters describe what it has fitted, and that one decides whether its flights are invoiced automatically.
Category and class#
These are the same two words a certificate uses, and they are asked as two questions because that is how they work: a class belongs to exactly one category.
Pick the category first. The class list then narrows to the ones that belong to it, so a helicopter can only be a rotorcraft class and never "multi-engine sea".
| Category | Classes |
|---|---|
| Airplane | Single-engine land, multi-engine land, single-engine sea, multi-engine sea |
| Rotorcraft | Helicopter, gyroplane |
| Glider | None |
| Lighter than air | Airship, balloon |
| Powered lift | None |
| Powered parachute | Land, sea |
| Weight-shift control | Land, sea |
A glider and a powered lift have no class rating at all, so the Class field switches itself off rather than asking you for something that does not exist.
If you fly an amphibian, the lookup leaves the class empty on purpose. It can operate off land or water and only you know which it does here, so pick the one that matches how the school actually uses it.
Filling it in from the tail number#
Start typing the registration and matches from the public US aircraft registry appear under the field. Pick yours and the make, model, year, category, class, engine and seats fill in together, along with the serial number when our copy of the registry has one for that tail.
The registry is a convenience, never a gate. It covers US registrations only, so a non-US tail simply shows no matches: type the fields yourself and save exactly as normal. Nothing you enter is checked against it.
The serial number is the one to check rather than trust, and the one most likely to arrive empty. It is what an Airworthiness Directive names its affected aircraft by, plenty of registry rows do not carry one, and the federal file is a copy of paperwork rather than a reading off the data plate.
Meters#
Meters says which meters the aircraft actually has: Hobbs and tach, Hobbs only, tach only, or none.
This is not a display preference. Billable hours are worked out as the difference between two meter readings at close-out, so it changes what happens to money:
| Setting | What close-out bills |
|---|---|
| Hobbs and tach | Whichever meter Bill by Hobbs time selects |
| Hobbs only | Hobbs |
| Tach only | Tach |
| None | Nothing. The flight is not invoiced automatically |
Choosing Glider or Lighter than air sets Meters to None for you, because neither has an engine to meter. You can still change it if your aircraft is the exception, a self-launching motorglider being the usual one.
Closing out an aircraft with no meters#
It ramps exactly like any other tail. What changes is that the ramp screens ask for nothing: there is no Hobbs box and no tach box, because there is no reading to take. Press Ramp out when it leaves and Ramp in when it is back, and the close-out records the time it departed and the time it returned. Those two times appear on the booking.
On a dual flight you are still asked for the instruction time, and that half is billed at the instructor rate. So a glider lesson invoices the instruction and nothing for the airframe, and a solo produces no invoice at all.
Because there is no rate to charge, the aircraft form hides Rate, Rate basis and Bill by Hobbs time once Meters is None. Nothing you typed there is lost. Switch Meters back and the figures come straight back with it.
Everything else stays the same. Setting None does not restrict who can book the aircraft, and it does not affect maintenance.
Engine, fuel, gear and seats#
All optional, and all there so you can find and judge an aircraft later rather than because anything is calculated from them.
- Engine and Fuel describe the powerplant. Electric is a real option, and a glider takes "None".
- Gear is tricycle, tailwheel, skids, floats, amphibious or skis. Tailwheel is worth filling in, because it is the sort of thing an instructor needs to know before a member is signed off on the aircraft.
- Seats is how many people the airframe holds.
Leave any of them blank if you do not know. An empty field is more honest than a guess, and none of them stop the aircraft being booked.
After this#
The whole form, field by field.
What close-out does with the meter readings.
Still stuck on this?
Email support@aerscheduler.com and tell us what you were trying to do. We answer.