General
Upon making your booking with us, you accept our standard terms and conditions, details of which, are confirmed herewith. Upon arrival, you will be asked to sign a hard copy to reaffirm your acceptance of the terms. This copy will be signed by us and will become your guarantee of our commitment to the contract arrangements made with you.
Pilots Paradise offers you exclusive use of one of its aircraft for an agreed period of time referred to as the ‘Holiday Rental Period’. You may fly anywhere in the continental USA, including the Bahamas but only as agreed by the flying staff when you are in Florida. They may deem that the risk is too high to fly to certain destinations at certain times or in certain weathers or that you require further training or are not capable of flying to certain destinations. So all planned destinations outside of Florida must be agreed to before undertaken. If you have certain plans of where you would like to fly then this is worth discussing with our staff before you book your holiday as we may not agree to allow you to certain destinations. It is required that you have an instrument rating to fly to the Bahamas and other longer distance trips.
You must, file a flight plan OR be in receipt of a radar assisted Flight Following Service (FFS) for any flight further than 50nm from Sebastian (Home Base).
This amount of freedom comes with added responsibility. An essential part of this agreement is your undertaking to communicate with us via email to: flying@pilots-paradise.com or call: 772 589 0800, with the following information;
- Cross country flights over 50nm, confirming the airport of departure and intended destination prior to each flight, plus confirmation of arrival within 15 minutes after landing. This maybe accomplished by sending the planned daily itinerary in the morning, or by simply sending a brief email or text just prior to departure at each location.
- By no later than 9pm each day, confirmation of the hours flown on that day and the airport location where the aircraft will be secured for the night. Failure to do so may result in us informing Search & Rescue services that you have gone missing and may result in additional costs being levied.
The Pilot in Command must demonstrate, at the time of checkout, their flying skill; airmanship and decision-making ability is of an acceptable standard. It must be understood, that in the interests of safety, pilots must always be well prepared for each flight, exercise good judgment throughout, never push themselves to fly in weather conditions beyond which, their qualifications and/or ability will allow and never push on home for the sake of financial or other convenience.
It must be understood, therefore, that an increased level of flying and decision making competence is required to operate our aircraft. Our check instructor therefore retains the right to place upon you certain operational restrictions and limitations, relating to destinations, weather, wind or other considerations. In an extreme situation, you may be denied permission to fly without further dual instruction or the addition of a safety pilot, and in such circumstances, we will endeavour to find a workable solution for everyone’s benefit.
If you fail to adhere to limitations or restrictions placed upon you, or are seen to be operating in an unsafe manner or displaying poor airmanship, we have the right to consider you have breached the terms and conditions of the contract allowing us various remedies including but not limited to, the immediate termination of the contract and preventing further use of the aircraft without any refund of the flying hours unused.
Weather
We cannot control the weather and cannot be held accountable for it. The weather in Florida is generally very conducive to flying, nevertheless, occasionally; the weather is not suitable to fly. Even so, typically, there is plenty of opportunity to make up your lost flying, as the weather rarely stays bad for long periods. For this reason we do not give any refunds for hours not flown. We will also not be held responsible for other ‘Acts of God’ that may affect your ability to complete your flying hours.
Flying Hours
If you plan to fly over your prepaid hours you must pay for the extra hours before you fly them. Payment will normally be taken in 5 hour blocks and if these extra hours are not flown, they will be refunded back to you.
Aircraft and Maintenance
On arrival the aircraft will be filled to Tabs with fuel (36 US gallons) ready for use. You must return it filled back to Tabs at the end of your stay. If the aircraft is not to Tabs, we will charge a convenience fee of $50 + the cost of fuel to top it back up to tabs.
We maintain our aircraft to above the industry standard requirements and it will be serviceable ready for your arrival. However, please bear in mind that technical problems can occur at any time and are completely out of our control. If you are unlucky enough to experience a problem, we will do our upmost to fix the aircraft as soon as possible, or provide you with another aircraft, if available.
If you chose to fly away from base and a technical problem occurs, you are liable for the co-ordination and organising of any repairs necessary. Such repairs must only be carried after our specific approval as to cost. It will be necessary for you to pay for the repair at the time and we will reimburse you upon your arrival back to base. Please remember, we will only agree the cost of any repair based upon the costs quoted by our own maintenance organisation for the same repair. We will not be liable for any inflated costs, which might occur as a result of the area you chose to fly to, for example, remote areas, or areas where costs are normally higher than our local area.
We hereby confirm that we cannot accept any liability whatsoever for any inconvenience or additional costs incurred by you as a result of mechanical breakdown.
It is incumbent on you and your total responsibility to return the aircraft to the agreed home base at the end of the hire period, failure to do so for whatever reason, will result in our right to claim damages from you personally for any costs involved in the recovery of the aircraft and lost revenue by delayed return; you accept liability for any such costs.
You are more than welcome to fly for as many hours as the mood takes you. You are, however, obliged to inform us when you have reached your prepaid flying hours and make a further payment to cover your estimated additional flying.
Payment of Your Holiday or Training
Deposit
Is non-refundable.
Payment of Balance
Balance must be paid, at the latest, on arrival.
Payment Methods
You may pay by bank transfer or cheque in Pounds (GBP) to our UK bank account or in EUROS to our EUROS account. You may also pay direct to our USD account in USD if you have a USA bank account. The holiday amount is based on USDs and we will request an equivalent GBP/EURO amount based on the days exchange rate, plus 1.5% of the holiday value to cover transfer costs. Considering paypal charge around 4% exchange rate costs we feel this represents excellent value to our customers for buying a US product.
Deposits will be taken using PayPal and a 4% charge will apply for using this.
Payments made locally by American Express will attached 3% charge.
Security Deposit
Flying Holidays require to leave a $1000 (USD) deposit which is payable upon arrival. This will be an authorisation on a credit or debit card or can be held in cash in any currency. We will hold this deposit for the period of your stay against; any minor damages to aircraft not covered by insurance; over-flown unpaid flying hours; aircraft not fuelled back to tabs on return, are non exhaustive examples of what the security deposit may be used for. This is not an authorisation to overfly your prepaid hours.
Assuming everything is in order following the inspection, the cash deposit will simply be handed back to you in the currency it was paid or the credit card payment will be refunded.
Accommodation (Motel Staying students only)
We cannot be held responsible for accidents or injuries sustained whilst using our Accommodation, it is used at the occupants own risk. Most accidents happen in the home and whilst staying in our accommodation you accept those same risks as if it were your own home. Any faults or dangers found in our accommodation must be reported immediately to our staff. When accommodation is left for the day, the air conditioning must be set to 80 degrees to save energy whilst you are not occupying it. If it has been left at a low setting all day and we discover as such we may charge you an energy excess usage charge upto but not limited to $100 per month. Accommodation must be paid for upfront and is non-refundable. Non use of booked accommodation is non refundable.
Aircraft Checkout
The instructor will complete the competency check out from Sebastian Airport from Pilots Paradise FBO. The time taken will be the minimum possible for your convenience; our aim is to give you the keys to the aircraft as soon as possible so that you may enjoy your holiday.
If additional time to the normal pre-paid time is required, the instructor will do everything possible to get you on your way as soon as possible. Please bear in mind the weather and wind conditions may affect the ability to satisfactorily complete the checkout on your arrival day.
The additional cost associated with this will be made clear to you at the time and will be the additional instructor cost @ $90.00 per hour if you go over the prepaid 2 hour time.
It is your responsibility to have all of the necessary paperwork for your holiday up to date and valid. Including: log books; medical; insurance; FAA verification letter or FAA licence; JAR/EASA/ICAO/CAA licences. You must bring these with you in order to fly our aircraft. We have no obligation to refund you if the necessary paperwork is not correct or present. Please note; we require a copy of your FAA verification letter at least one week prior to your arrival so that we can prepare the online paperwork with the FAA ahead of time.
Flight Training
The flight instructor holds complete discretion over the amount of flight training you require before going for your test. He is obligated under the regulation to not allow you to go for test unless you are ready. That said it is also your personal responsibility to be ready for test and be capable of completing the test to the required standard when the time comes. We will not be held responsible if you require extra training over the minimum requirements set out in the FAR AIM and flight training manuals to achieve the pre-test standard. The instructor will endeavour to be as honest as possible to you about your ongoing performance and how much longer he perceives you will need before you are ready for test if that is significantly over the minimum training requirements. However he cannot completely predict your performance day to day and into the future so we cannot be held responsible if you go over our best guess predictions for completing your training.
Damage to Aircraft and Insurance Commitment
If you wish to take out your own renter insurance policy you can as this and it will give you additional personal liability and medical protection and may cover your security deposit held by us if we deem there is damage to the aircraft that our insurance will not cover.
You are responsible for the payment of any damages you cause to accommodation or the aircraft during your stay. We may make an assessment of such damages at any time. We will take minor damages out of your security deposit as deemed necessary. You agree that any minor damages over and above the deposit amount to the aircraft or accommodation will be paid for in full immediately, prior to departure, to the value of the repair.
It is assumed that if damages occur that are not covered by our comprehensive flight training policy or your personal renter insurance policy, we will be able to arrive at a sensible agreement as how to cover the cost, however, if an agreement cannot be reached, we reserve the right to prevent you from any further flying of the aircraft with no refund for lost hours as deemed appropriate by us.
Hold Harmless
Our aircraft are fully maintained to industry standards and fully insured with an industry standard flight training and aircraft hiring insurance policy. When renting our aircraft you accept all the inherent risks of flying an aircraft and will not make Pilots Paradise Ltd., Fishe Flying Corp. DBA Pilots Paradise liable for those risks.
Customers stay in our accommodation at their own risk, Pilots Paradise Ltd. or Fishe Flying Corp. (DBA Pilots Paradise) will not be held accountable for any injury sustained whilst staying in our accommodation.