Hobbs meter
A Hobbs meter is an hour meter that runs whenever the aircraft’s engine is running. It is named after its original manufacturer, Hobbs Corporation, and is ubiquitous in general aviation. Time accumulates on the Hobbs regardless of throttle setting or airspeed — taxi time counts the same as cruise time.
In Syndik8, the Hobbs reading is a meter reading. A pilot records a start value and an end value on every usage log. The difference is the Hobbs delta, which feeds hourly billing when the syndicate’s billing basis is engine-meter.
Contrast with a tach meter, which accumulates at a rate proportional to engine RPM. The syndicate settings let you label the meter “Hobbs”, “Tacho”, or anything else.