"Roger Long" om
wrote
If you check, I believe you'll find that Angel Flight and similar
organizations have a Memorandum of Understanding on file with the FAA that
lets them do things that would be questionable for a private pilot.

There is no such thing as questionable. Either it is legal, or it is
not. It ****es me off to no end when people describe operations as
'questionable' and avoiding them 'to be safe.' If you think it
violates a rule, cite it chapter and verse or admit it doesn't.

There is nothing questionable about flying people around for free,
regardless of reason. It only becomes an issue if compensation is
involved. Sharing costs is compensation. Flight time has been ruled
to be compensations, but not if you're paying for it out of your own
pocket.

Does that mean nobody has ever been busted for it? Of course not.
Plenty of FAA inspectors are assholes who simply make up their own
rules; if that weren't the case then there never would have been any
need for the 'guidance' that went into the handbook about not treating
tax deductions as compensation. I think you will find that when you
chase the Memorandum of Understanding down (if it still exists - I
suspect the change to the Inspector's Handbook made it moot, and I've
certainly never heard of it in the years I've been flying for Angel
Flight) that it will also address only the issue of compensation.

You need to realize that just because someone at the FSDO said so
doesn't make it right. FSDO inspectors have been known to do all
sorts of improper things, up to and including hounding pilots to
death. (http://www.avweb.com/pdf/brinell_report.pdf) People do get
violated for no good reason, and that's one of those risks of flying
that you just can't avoid. If the fed wants to get you, he will get
you.

Michael