But it was FREE!

[Squeaksmyalias]

I just got back from a kid's day my flying club had set up, we give free flights to kids 8 and up. We set up a last minute day for today with a boy scout troop, normally we would schedule it with a few troops and make a few days of it and do some lessons too turning it into a sort of camp for them. Instead the leader had insisted we do it today, since they were visiting a few different types of airports today too. We love flying kids, so we agreed figuring it should be a beautiful day and a short one so we would be done by noon.

The planner for the kid's day confirmed with the scout leader last night all the info, 10 kids, possibly a few siblings since we are there and if they are of age, why not fly them too. They will show up at 9am and we would be done by 1130am. After that they would be moving on the other airports.

So myself, the four other volunteers, and the 5 pilots show up around 7am, get the planes ready, set up our stuff and finish up some last minute cleaning around the airport.

9am rolls around, no one shows up. 9:15...nothing...9:30am...nothing, so we give the leader a call, no answer, 10am rolls around we decide to call the two other airports to see if maybe some of the parents went to one of them first. They have NO clue what we are talking about, no scout troops called to schedule tours, no kids have stopped by. So we start clearing away our stuff, but decide to stick around a little longer and chat. 11am rolls around, still no one so a few of the pilots decide to go fly to a different airport to grab lunch at that cafe while the rest of us hang around to chat and tie down the remaining planes.

11:15, a Dad and daughter wander in to watch the planes. She got a random free airplane ride since we were there still and one plane was still out. At least we made one kid happy today.

So several hours wasted, no calls to tell us they were running late, canceling, or any news. Couple of us drove half an hour to get to the airport to help out, we still did some flying, we all enjoy hanging around having coffee together and a little girl had a wonderful flight, but I'm so so annoyed. We were giving FREE flights, absolutely FREE flights, with FREE pictures of the kids with the planes and pilots, FREE log books, certificates plus other perks. Not one word from anyone.

We did figure something out, we are likely not doing any more personal kid's days, groups will have to show up on the camp days we plan on doing, they don't have to attend the camp, if they want to fly they show up on the flying day or show up on one of our other public kid's days. If we are spending hundreds of dollars to give FREE flights, we are doing it on our terms.

[earl colby pottinger]

Don't worry

They will show up a week or month later demanding to be flown for free.

[NateTheChops]

I think it's great that you made the effort though. It's amazing. When something is flat out free, people drop the ball. But when it's blatantly obvious that some kind pf financial exchange will take place, they pick up that ball and hold on tight. And they ask for a discount on the ball.

[Daemonmonkey]

Too bad you cannot send the douchebag a bill for a couple of $1000 for wasting your time.

[Squeaksmyalias]

I wish we could have billed them.
If they do try to set up a 2nd day just for themselves it won't happen. Not a chance, it's not a spineless group at all.
I just hope that there wasn't a bunch of disappointed kids because their scout leader screwed up.
Like I said we love flying kids, we are always sad when a kid doesn't get to fly, either because they get scared or their parent changes their mind about the flight. Even with that, any sob stories about sad scouts we won't wait for them to show up again. We will gladly let them fly again, but on our terms, we are planning 4 more days this year so far of flights anyway, so the parents can pick what works for them.
I just think its so strange we went from hearing from the guy the night before to nothing, to the other airport going wtf what are you talking about? It's weird but I'm guessing the Scout leader is flaky, I'm sure it's just a joy to have him planning trips.

[Draco]

If it's an actual Troop and you know their contact person and troop number, it couldn't hurt to report him to the Boy Scouts of America HQ. It makes them look bad and, if you don't give these camps to other troops, hurts the local organization because of one ass.

[lineswine]

"They open up their wallets & close all their minds, & they love to buy you all a drink..."


(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ehden6aPl0 for more info)

[LillFilly]

Yeah, I'd speak to the Scouts about him, he'll ruin it for the good leaders!

My CAP group did the same thing; a certain number of free flights for cadets, and they could pursue a pilot's license with one of our instructors for only the cost of the plane fuel. It was a blast seeing the kid's go up!

[Squeaksmyalias]

Sadly we didn't know the troop number, just this guys name. One of the guys in our chapter is a scout leader, which is why we started doing days for boy scouts. He is going to see if he can find out who this guy is and see whats going on. We are thinking if the next Boy scout camp thingie goes well we are going to let the Girl scouts have a go at it. We have flown girl scouts before, but no one has shown an interest in it maybe now that we have sort of a program they will. The day we do the flying it's open to siblings too, not just the scouts. We didn't think it was fair that a parents were bringing siblings to watch their brother fly, but they were old enough to fly too. That is the only thing that has otherwise gone "wrong" about when we do stuff for specific groups, a couple boys complained that it was just for them not their siblings. The pilot's response to that was "Ok, well your flights don't start for another half an hour so I can take your brother and sister now." So those two scouts saw their siblings fly before them. Another scout was being rude to girls who had come that day too, saying that flying was a boys thing, when I pointed out I was a girl and I plan on becoming a pilot, he ran and told his Dad who then reminded me of my place. Both were promptly told to leave . We have rules, they are posted, if you or your children are rude to the volunteers, hurt property, running around where you are not supposed to, or left unsupervised you will be asked to leave. We rarely have to use the rules.
We don't fly special snowflakes.

[flyingember]

you'd be amazed how disorganized some scout units are. they fold all the time and new ones are made to replace them by new people

if you figure out who the guy is I have a secret.
don't go to the troop and if the the council doesn't respond, go to their charter org. they have to charter the unit and have a lot of say.

[bainsidhe]

Well if you do decide to give free flights on non-camp days, you can always insist on a deposit that's completely refundable if they show up. If they're serious, you better believe someone will show up to get their deposit back.

[Squeaksmyalias]

I don't know if we will ever do a deposit, but we are making sure to say we only fly in these days, where we are guaranteed to have more then just them.
Out of curiosity I called the airport later when near closing time to see if anyone had spotted kids show up. They said no they were wondering if they would show up late too. I might call or swing by next Sunday just to see if they show up, if they do it will be pretty funny because the Scout leader insisted up and down that he could only do this on the 27th.

[Mr Hero]

You ever been in a cockpit before?

[jedimaster91]

Being a Cub Scout den leader, I've learned there is a crapton of paperwork troops/packs have to fill out for fieldtrips. First there is the tour permit which must be filed with the charter three weeks in advance (used to only be two weeks). I don't know about other groups, but ours also has a separate permission form for each participant; so if a Scout wanted to bring a friend or sibling, that friend or sibling better have a signed permission form (we have extras!).

The nice things about the tour permits is one, they legally cover the BSA incase of an accident, and two, it forces leaders to plan ahead. The down side is sometimes things fall through for one reason or another and there's not always enough lead time to reschedule. And it gets annoying when a pack has at least one fieldtrip a month.

That being said, the guy should have given your group a heads up that they weren't coming. Not doing so is just rude.

[Squeaksmyalias]

You ever been in a cockpit before?

I've flown a Piper Cherokee 140 several times when one of the pilots takes me up as payment for helping out, he lets me take over flying for a bit. Hopefully by the end of the summer I will have had more time in the other planes, there is a great RV-6 that I'd like a chance to fly in. I haven't been in any other planes though cause I tend to suddenly get shy before I go and ask.

jedimaster91 from the looks of it, all his planning was last minute, he called us last Saturday the 19th to set it all up. We figured since he said he was planning on visiting other airports, one of his visits must have not worked out and he needed to add something. Which is why we didn't mind doing it last minute. For us to call the other places he said he was visiting and for them to know NOTHING about the troop visiting at any point either that day or any day soon was just very strange. We are wondering now if it was either some guy messing with us, or the troop leader didn't even tell anyone that they were doing something that day. Since we didn't have one family show up looking for the troop and we were scheduled to be the first visit.
Like I said the guy who set everything up on our end spoke to the troop leader the night before and the troop leader said "See you in the morning, everyone will be there by 9am."