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.
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.
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 |
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.
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