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Old September 26th 04, 01:13 PM
Peter Clark
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On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 07:42:20 GMT, "Julian Scarfe"
wrote:

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...

I believe that it would depend on whether the owner of the aircraft was
getting something in the deal. It's hard to claim that the pilot is
actually flying FOR compensation, if there was no need for the pilot to

fly
the airplane. Just because the pilot could be considered compensated,

that
doesn't mean that the pilot did the flying FOR the compensation.

Now, the FAA could (would?) equivocate on whether the owner of the

aircraft
was getting something in return. For example, an airplane that sits idle

is
worse off than an airplane that is regularly flown. The FAA might accuse
the pilot of providing a service to the owner, simply by keeping the
airplane flown.


But it's not a violation of 61.113 (I presume you're talking about it *this*
time, Peter) to provide a service to someone. It's a violation to be
*compensated* for providing that service. If the owner says "make this
flight for me and I'll lend you the aircraft for a few hours for free next
week" then that could be construed as compensation. If he just says "please
make this flight for me", I don't think it can.


However, the FAA includes intangibles such as good will to be part of
what they weigh when considering whether compensation was garnered or
not. I don't believe they'd go out of their way to violate someone
just for using a friend's aircraft for free, but IMO a strict reading
of the "no compensation" rule would preclude it from being acceptable.
What is the pilot giving the owner in return for their paying for the
fuel, oil, and airport expenditures the pilot is accruing yet not
paying for? The pilot is getting free flight time, the owner is
getting a bill...

It seems to me that the underlying implication of the rule is that in
the eyes of the FAA the pilot is supposed to be paying for the flight
expenses in all cases. In this light, everything else is either an
exception, or needs to be Part 121 or 135. 61.113(c) "A private pilot
may not pay less than the pro rata share of the operating expenses of
a flight with passengers, provided the expenses involve only fuel,
oil, airport expenditures, or rental fees" is in the exception list -
and even it implies the baseline understanding that the pilot is
paying - all the pilot can do is carve up the authorized items in the
bill with the passengers, and even then the pilot can only reduce his
cost by his share of the seats used - and then there has to be common
purpose and all that. March 04 AOPA Pilot has an article "Commercial
operations and the private pilot". In this article the story is about
how pilot's friend was throwing a Super Bowl party at his restaurant
and some of the guests were being flown in, but the charter
arrangements fell through. Restaurant owner asked pilot friend for a
favor, can you go pick these people up. Pilot said sure, no
compensation here, just doing a favor for a friend. Pilot took no
money from restaurant owner, and paid for the flights. However, 4
flights later, FAA violated the pilot and pulled his certificate for
270 days. Appeal to NTSB was denied, and in their ruling they held
in part that "compensation need not be direct nor in the form of
money. Goodwill is a form of prohibited compensation." Of course
there were other parts of the ruling and circumstances were different
here (there were passengers involved), but they've established (or
continued? I didn't go that far back) the precedent that goodwill and
other indirect compensation should be examined when determining
whether the flight is prohibited or not.