Quote:
Originally Posted by Whirlybird
There's a recent thread on Rotorheads about this whole concept of "valuable consideration". Some people seem to think that free flying equals valuable consideration, ie is equivalent to being paid. Sounds like complete nonsense to me, but what do I know. What's the legal position? I'm not sure anyone knows. Perhaps you should note that Flying Lawyer sensibly omitted to post on the Rotorheads thread, despite being called on in several posts..
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I agree with the distinction that you made on that thread.
If "free flying" means "if you do this ferry job for me today then I'll let you have 3 hours free next week instead of paying for the hours" then that's valuable consideration.
But there is no presumption in the law that a pilot must pay the costs associated with a flight to avoid valuable consideration going in the opposite direction. If a pilot
does pay for flying, either to a club/school or to a co-ownership group, there
is valuable consideration flowing from the pilot to the recipient. If the pilot pays nothing for the flying and nothing is given or promised to him in return for making the flight, then there's no valuable consideration in respect of the flight.