PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Legalities behind selling block-hours
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Old 10th Dec 2009, 13:46
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IO540
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
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This could be hugely complicated.

Presumably you fly on a French PPL. Then, with an F-reg plane, what you can and cannot do is as per DGAC rules, but the owner of the local airspace can have regs which can be additionally restrictive; for example owners of N-reg planes flying in UK airspace cannot do some ops which one could do in US airspace (single engine public transport being an obvious one).

In fact you don't even say you fly in UK airspace at all. So you need to find out Netherlands airspace regs.

If you asked re a G-reg based in UK and flown on a UK PPL then you could get some better answers here.

There is no problem renting out a G-reg provided that it is maintained to the specified higher standard.

You can rent it out for as much as you want - £10000 per hour would be 100% legal.

So long as you the owner is not sitting in the plane while the renter is flying it, the operation cannot be regarded as PPL Cost Sharing which has the requirement that the pilot does not make a profit, and there are no restrictions on how or how much the renter pays for it.

For example I could rent out (subject to appropriate insurance of course) my N-reg plane, but I must not be flying in it with the renter because then it would be PPL Cost Sharing, and that is banned in a foreign reg plane (ref ANO article 140); this ban applies only in UK airspace of course. I have this information directly from the head of aviation at the Department for Transport. It is likely that you will have a similar local regulation because I am sure that every country in the world prevents a PPL making a profit through cost sharing a flight.

My feeling is that selling hour blocks is 100% legal everywhere, so long as you (the owner) is not in the plane when the renter is flying.

If you were in the plane when the renter is flying, then it might be a legal grey area, and there are a few of those I think most people would think it is PPL Cost Sharing and you would get done. But it would depend on the details of your relationship, agreement etc. I am not a lawyer...

Also make sure that the check flight is done free of charge (i.e. outside the hour block purchased by the renter) otherwise somebody could get you for illegal cost sharing

I used to rent mine out, years ago, and had to stop doing it because most of the people I got were totally unsuitable and would have just wrecked the thing. You will be facing the same problem. If you have a nice plane then you will want to be fussy, but if you are appropriately fussy you will not get many takers, because most good current pilots are already owners of their own planes...
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