Aerobatic sponsor

[Pittsextra]

If you compete in aerobatics and for a variety of reasons you attract a commercial sponsor can you still fly the aerobatic contest with a PPL?

Thinking if this applies or not:-


Privileges. Subject to any other

conditions specified in JARs, the privileges of the

holder of a PPL(A) are to act, but not for

remuneration, as pilot-in-command or co-pilot

[Pittsextra]

What about if the deal is such that there is branding either on you or the aircraft and the consideration is paid in cash?

[eharding]

Simply have the wording of the sponsorship agreement make it perfectly clear that any payment is in respect of the display of sponsor graphics on the aircraft and you tarting about in your sponsor-branded lycra flying suit while you and the aircraft are on the ground, and that no payments are conditional on either you or the aircraft being airborne at any stage, ever.

If you have a DA, things are - or at least were - rather different, in that the CAA are - or were - happy for a PPL to recoup reasonable expenses incurred as a result of flying a display. Very reasonable indeed, in some cases.

Caveat: my DA expired years ago, I never had a tarted-up sponsored lycra jumpsuit, we did have a sponsors logo slapped on the Pitts but I certainly never saw a penny out of them, and any legal advice you derive from this posting is worth exactly what you paid for it.

Edited: "paid in cash?" - well, I might be stating the obvious, but you'd have to be a weapons-grade retard to accept a cash payment and not put it through your books, and then pay tax on it. Even if the IR don't initially take an interest in you, they may on the off-chance take an interest in your sponsor, and the hoped-for photos of you, your sponsor and your sponsor's name on the aeroplane slapped all over the local press and a forensic examination of your sponsor's accounts might well lead them on a fishing expedition right up your fundamental orifice.

Remember: the CAA will only hound you into an early grave. The Inland Revenue have entities on the staff that will happily chase your immortal soul down to the last pit in Hell, and make things much worse for you when they do finally find you.