"Peter Gottlieb" wrote in message t...
OK, here's one. I have heard the FAA considers "time" to be compensation.
The following is hypothetical.

What you have heard is "kind of" correct. It came from a ruling
against a pilot who was not being compensated monetarily, but was
getting free use of an airplane. The logged flight time was
considered to be compensation, as the pilot would have otherwise had
to pay for the flight time. The specific case involved a
time-building pilot that was flying skydivers for a skydiving
operation for free. The FAA ruled that the pilot was being
compensated with free flight time. Flight time that you pay for
yourself is not considered compensation. If it was, you wouldn't be
able to fly yourself anywhere.


Let's say I have a wife who thinks flying is a waste of my time. So she
always gives me a hard time when I want to use the plane. Now, she has a
friend who needs to get somewhere, a small airport that no commercial planes
go, and she asks me to fly her there. No monetary compensation is involved
(nor other "favors" from her friend, for those of you with dirty minds).
All I get out of it is time flying, and I bear all the costs. I would have
no other reason to fly to that particular field (although no reason not to
either).

Is this legal in the FAAs eyes?

Yes, this is legal. If your wife's friend contributed nothing to
the flight, there was no compensation. You payed for the flight, so
there is no way it could be considered a commercial operation.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)