I'm not saying that a PPL cannot safely carry PAX! Who oversees this PPL pilot to ensure that they are really upto the task though?
Can someone please answer me this, are PAX required to sign some type of indemnity (similar to that of warbird/adventure flights)? Are the PAX actually aware that Angel Flight does not hold an AOC and therefore accountable to the standards of their pilots?
If the PAX are fully aware, then that's fine (not just a fineprint somewhere).
havick,
there needs to be a large amount of facts injected into this thread, I will try with some.
Who oversees the pilots........ CASA, the same folk who oversee Tiger, QF and the rest of us. Who overseas my hangar mate (72) who does the odd Angel Flight? Well for near 50 years it was QF, and CASA, and as you point out one day its him, next its me, and some days its a old blokes who may or may not be the most skilled in judgement or whatever. This may well be one of them.
Are the pax informed, ABSOLUTELY......fully, and if you did some homework you would learn a whole heap more.
If the folk who receive the charitable works of others had to go by RFDS.....they would not. Kids who need follow up care or dialysis do not qualify, nor could RFDS cope with it all.
I agree your heart is in the right place, but its far from reality. One could argue that during the many long drives all these folk would have made over the years how many would have been killed in a car crash, given many are old, sick and tired mums etc etc. Despite GA stats I think the folk are at less risk. Hard to prove but a gut feeling.
Again shooting from the hip, this guy should have pulled the pin, stayed in a motel. AF WILL pick up the tab for all concerned. They do not push folk to fly and will discourage it. At the end of the day its up to the PIC.
Hope that helps a bit.