A man or woman walks into a flying club. They want to experience what flying in a light aircraft is like and what can be done with a PPL.
You say that there are plenty of PPLs in the club that would gladly take them on a flight. All they would have to do is share the cost with the PPL. They could fly round the local area or even to France and back.
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A man or woman walks into a flying club. They want to learn how to fly but do not know if they will like it.
You say that they can pay as you go and the course starts with a briefing and intro to the club plus a look round the aircraft (exercises 1 and 2) and then a short flight round the local area so that they can exprience the sensations of being in the air. If they want to continue they can book their next lesson and continue to pay as they go.
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A man or woman walks into a club and wants to purchanse a present for their grandfather. They want to pay for them to be flown in an aircraft for 1 hour. If possible they want to overfly their house and have some photos. They have no intention at that stage of becomming a pilot.
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Three different situations, the last one being public transport.
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Whirly,
If you are flying an unregistered helicopter and happen to see someone in trouble which you save and are a hero. Does your subsequent heroic action make the departure in an unrgistred helicopter legal?
No. Departing on an illegal public transport flight is just as illegal no matter what the passenger decides to do after the event.
If it was OK to do public transport with no AOC then we would have 737s flying round with 170 passengers who had all signed a declaration that they would considder taking up flight training once they got back from Spain!
Again I say that exercise 1 and 2 remove any further briefing requirement from exercise 3. No amount of briefing will make a public transport operation aerial work (training).
The only reason the current situation continues is that;
a) NO AOC operator is loosing out and thus no AOC holders are complaining; and
b) There have not been enough deaths as a result of the system for the CAA to be able to swing it's axe in the face of a crumbling flight training industry.
Regards,
DFC