Air Operators' Certificates

[Justiciar]

Hopefully this is the best forum for this....if not apologies in advance.

Has anyone had the experience of applying for an Air Operators' Certificate in order to conduct pleasure flights. The CAA guidance is a little unclear as in some documents it suggests that you don't need one if the flight begins and ends at the same airfield.

I am interested in what the total cost is likely to be and what the requirements are beyond having a Transport cat C of A for the aircraft.

Thanks

[onehunga]

I like it. 1 wanabee does the flying, 1 drives the courtesy bus (painted up and professionally sign written) from [insert local tourist spot here] to the local airfield on a nice summers day, 1 wanabee takes the cash. Roles reverse during the course of the day.

Pricing = who really cares as it will be cheaper than hour building!

Somehow I think someone who has passed the ATPL air law will rain on the parade but hey we can still dream.

[TRon]

They are about 40k legally to set up.

Plus you need cash reserves i.e. you cant use the money you gain to directly fund maintenance etc.

There are all sorts of other traps/admin/red tape issues. Nice idea, but I can guarantee th CAA will pi$$ on your fire, before it is even an ember!

[Send Clowns]

TRon, onehunga

No disrespect, but I think you're both talking from a point of view of knowing absolutely nothing about the issue.

For example, TRon, if you look at the CAA's own price list, a broader AOC for a twin comes in from less than £9k, or did when I last looked. A restricted single-engine AOC (I believe they restrict the flights to within 25 nm of home, although once the AOC is issued and running smoothly extending is easier than initial issue) should be much less costly. Why can't you use the money gained to fund maintenance? How else does (for example) BA (about whom you should know a little) fund their maintenance? Since I know 2 organisations that will maintain a light aircraft from around £12 per hour, flat rate (no avionics, but who needs avionics day VMC?), I think that would be eminently suitable. Why are cash reserves such a problem anyway? Does no-one here have any money, or access to banking facilities?

onehunga, where in your ATPL law did you learn about the specifics of AOC issue by the CAA, let alone the specifics of the AOC for single-engine operations? My memory is sketchy, and I never was much good on that subject, but I would swear that ATPL Air Law is entirely ICAO and goes into very little detail about how to obtain an AOC, none about cost or light-aircraft AOCs specifically. They certainly can be held, and must be worthwhile, or a certain company I know of would not have been running all these decades.

I have talked to an ex-CAA employee about this issue, and he thought it was worth looking into. I only decided against it because I am crap at business issues and market research. If someone wanted to run the thing I would be willing to invest and to fly. The AOC is required, unless the flights are trial lessons (only available for registered training organisations, all pilots have at least FI(R), all flights within the PPL syllabus, one person must have a briefing and be offered genuine training - control must really be offered at some point).

P.S. Have you looked into using someone else's AOC Justiciar?

[onehunga]

Send clowns - you need to chill, clearly a bad day instructing. Did you not detect the irony/cheek in my posting? Or perhaps the give away line where I intimated that I had not passed (or sat for that matter) my ATPLS? Now back to the more important issue of who will be selling the icecreams!

To aid with the original question CAP 360 Part I and II appears to be what you are after. Unfortunately not available for download from the CAA website so you will need to purchase it by following the attached links.

CAP 360 Part I (http://www.caa.co.uk/publications/publicationdetails.asp?id=20)

CAP 360 - Part II - Maintenance (http://www.caa.co.uk/publications/publicationdetails.asp?id=21)

Interestingly enough it says "it augments and amplifies the ANO". Now I am sure that the ANO is part of the Air Law syllabus :)

[Justiciar]

Have you looked into using someone else's AOC Justiciar?

No I haven't actually. Good point. This is no to much for me as an acquaintance. I get a fair number of casual enquiries from flyers about all manner of things legal and I thought I would try and help out on this. Unfortunately most of the CAA guidelines are directed towards bigger operations. We are talking here about (probably) one wood and fabric bi-plane during the summer weekends!

Send Clowns and onehunga: thanks for your help so far.

[Martin1234]

Let's say that a real estate agency is selling guidance on "what to think of when buying property in this area". Instead of using a car to show the clients the area the employee is renting a small aircraft which he pilots himself. The passengers are paying for the advice of a real estate agent and not for the flight.

Anyone knows how much you can stretch this "paying for something else possibility" and still not be considered to conduct commercial flights?

[Send Clowns]

Apologies, onehunga! I know TRon, and he's bright enough that he should know better. i did miss the irony, must have been half asleep!

[onehunga]

SC, no problemo.

Martin - suggest you have a read of the following thread that is relevant I believe to your point. In doing so I am assuming you are taking a situation where your "real estate agent" is a PPL possibly looking to share costs.

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=127851&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

There are a number of issues that have wider legal implications for the scenario you described. In particular the ANO uses a term called "valuable consideration". The legal beagles state that this has a much wider interpretation than what I would have at first thought eg: cash. Another factor to consider could be the possible invalidation of the aircraft insurance (presumably hull and public liabilitity) if a flight can be proved not to be for pleasure/leisure purposes.

[TRon]

Well I stand corrected and apologise if I caused offence!, maybe you are getting me back for previous posts!!

When me and the old man looked into it on a turbine twin the AOC second hand was going to cost 30-40k. I believe you can buy the CAA's but is just the document, and they change 'A.N. Airline' to 'Justiciar Airways' if you catch my drift. If you want to have it pertinant to your operation you have to pay lawyers to edit it, that is where the costs issue come in. I stand corrected on a Single AOC as I say. Maybe getting the AOC is the easy bit, but making money is the real hard bit. You know what they say, If you want to make a small fortune in aviation, start with a large one!

As for the financing, we were told that you cant just start with enough to lease/buy an aircraft and then use the money raised to directly finance the servicing. Reason being you might think 'Well b*gger it that prop needs fixing but we cant afford it till we take bloggs and his gran up..."

I can think of one way of financing your hourbuilding, a couple of guys I know of borrowed the money to buy a 172/Cherokee outright and sold 1/6 shares in it. Then sold the lot later for about 5k profit after they had paid for their hourbuilding.

I never saw it through due the cost and circumstances changed job wise for me, but I wish you well!

And sendclowns I guess I'll have to buy you a beer then next time I am down!!

[Send Clowns]

Certainly never turn that down!

Ouch, that sounds a lot for a turbine AOC. I admit I ahve a slight suspiscion that any AOC is more than the headline rate, as the CAA publish that as a minimum, then a nice fat daily rate for any more involved investigation required before issue. Not sure they could bear to pass up the chance to earn "just a little bit extra".

I can see why servicing costs need to be available "up-front", but I was surprised to find that this can be arranged on a "per hour" basis when I looked into buying an a/c to lease to a school. The risk is shifted to the maintenance company, in exchange for a slightly higher average cost. I imagine much of that is offset by very careful preventative maintenance, as this then benefits the maintenance organisation not the operator.