"Peter Clark" wrote in message
...

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.

This looks like precisely the misinterpretation that I've been talking about
in the other parts of this thread.

Read the ruling:
http://www.ntsb.gov/O_n_O/docs/AVIATION/5061.PDF

The passengers on the flight were restaurant guests -- *they* were paying
for their seats on the flight:

"There were people who had paid to be flown to Put-In-
Bay for whom there was no transportation available and,
apparently, respondent came to the rescue."

That in itself violates the *first* prohibition in 61.113. Whether the
pilot is compensated or not is irrelevant. He's busted.

Moreover, at *no* point is it suggested that the flights themselves were the
compensation. They *were* paid for by the pilot in command. But the court
refused to believe that there would be no compensation paid to the pilot at
all:

"Interpreting the facts in a way most favorable to
respondent and assuming that he really had no expectation of any
kind of benefit, strains credulity. Respondent testified that
these flights cost him about $1100. The law judge, who had the
opportunity to witness respondent's demeanor, judged his
credibility and rejected his Good Samaritan argument."

This case has nothing to do with pilots not paying the direct costs of their
flights!

Julian