FAA Commercial Pilot privileges in UK airspace?

[nouseforaname]

Just wondering what the deal is with this. Can you be paid, as per the FAA rules (as a pilot flying a plane not a pilot providing a plane for hire) here in the UK.....like if my friend owned a king air N reg, etc. can I be employed as a pilot here in the UK to fly his plane?

Thanks in advance for any clues.

[youngskywalker]

Yes, thats the basis for lots of Corporate aircraft in the UK and Europe. Just avoid bent charters!

[Tony77]

As long as you have the right to work in the UK, yes FAA allows it to work anywhere on a N-registered a/c (of course you have to hold the category, class and type - if needed - ratings for that particular plane).

[Pace]

Nouseforaname

Pretty obvious really who else is going to fly it an EASA pilot?

Unless the owner flies himself/herself the owner will have to employ someone who can legally fly the aircraft for him.

The pilot will have to be FAA licenced to fly the aircraft and will also have to the correct FAA licences to recieve payment for flying the aircraft.

Pace

[englishal]

Depends what sort of operation it is, if I recall correctly.

Yes you are licenced to fly the aeroplane and be paid to fly it.

If Public Transport is concerned though, it would have to be on an AOC. If it is, then no problem (hence American Airlines / Delta / etc...).

If you took your mates King Air and started doing on demand air taxi work without an AOC then you could be in trouble.

If you used it for "aerial work" - then I think DfT permission would be required but if you had it then again no problem.

If I recall correctly

[Pace]

Sam

For business or pleasure as long as they are his family or friends or company employees as long as he is not charging them for the flight that is quite in order.

he may even own an A320 with 70 employees on board and that is in order too

He may not have enough usage for his aircraft but can still legally rent it to someone else who will have to employ pilots to fly it or employ pilots the owner approves of (his own as long as they fly for the owner freelance and not directly employed by the company full time but even full time is arguable),

He cannot from that point have any involvement in the leased flight and that is where all the grey areas and arguements occur as his pilots are probably handling everything anyway and legal or illegal charter can get very close.
It is a minefield from the pilots perspective and has caused me a lot of worry in the past.

Pace

[IO540]

Yes, as Pace and others state this is perfectly OK. This is how corporate and private-jet aviation works all over the world. Some 99% of private jets are not flown by the owner; they are flown by a paid CPL/IR pilot.

No AOC is required for this.

The flight becomes an illegal charter (and this would be the case probably anywhere in the world) if there are paying passengers aboard. Such a flight would then need an AOC, and all kinds of other issues appear. This does seem to happen occassionally however, and the CAA gets very interested if they find out If you go to the Bizjets forum here on pprune, there are regular threads there on illegal charters etc.

According to some digging I did a few years ago, it is possible to get an AOC in the UK to operate an N-reg plane as a charter, but there are some provisions for G-reg operators to object. There is/was some stuff on the Department for Transport website on this.

[IO540]

If the aircraft was previously simply used for private purposes, then the maintenance schedule would presumably have to be updated for hire purposes

Does the use of a paid pilot terminate Part 91 operations?

[englishal]

if the owner employs the pilot to fly the owner, then it is not a "commercial" operation with regard to maintenance. If the pilot supplied the aeroplane and then flies the "passenger" then it is.

[Pace]

Not an area that I can answer with any degree of confidence

SoCal

Nither I but here goes. although leased from the owner the operation is still private. Forget a multi million $ jet. You as a PPL own a Piper Archer. A truck runs into the wing and its out of action for 6 months.

You rent a replacement and continue to fly it as a private pilot as before for business and pleasure. Although you dont own the aircraft you are leasing it as you may do with a car. The insurance still says not for hire or reward but that means you cannot then start using the aircraft as an air taxi charging people for trips.

Now just imagine you never had a PPL and had bought your Archer to get you around on business. You pay a pilot to fly you. Thats OK.

Whats NOT ok is if you think I can make money with this Archer and set up an air taxi business charging flights to Paris for the day at £1000. That includes your damaged and owned Archer and your replacement leased aircraft. Thats how I read it?

Pace

[slatch]

SoCal is not correct. I fly N registered aircraft for owners under part 91. I get paid for my time. The aircraft are for family use and serve no commercial purpose. No one in the back are paying for the trip. The owner is picking up the tab including my expenses. I fly at least one Angel flight a month, again as a part 91 operation, no one in back is paying. I get paid but no one in back paid anything. If the owners tried to lease or charter a trip and accept payment for the trip it would be a Part 135 operation and be subject to different rules. It is a complicated situation with owners putting their aircraft on lease to a Part 135 operation and then wanting to use the aircraft under Part 91 when they want. For me to fly the aircraft i need to be listed on the Part 135 certificate or the aircraft needs to be removed from the certificate while it is used for Part 91. It all becomes very complicated and I only fly Part 91 aircraft. If an aircraft is listed on a Part 135 certificate the paper work is complex.

[englishal]

Pt 135 is the equivalent of an AOC i believe...?

[mm_flynn]

I believe part 119 is the equivalent to a UK AOC. 119 then requires you to operate under 121, 125, 135 of which 135 is the more typical case for questionable operations.

Originally Posted by Pace

He may not have enough usage for his aircraft but can still legally rent it to someone else who will have to employ pilots to fly it or employ pilots the owner approves of (his own as long as they fly for the owner freelance and not directly employed by the company full time but even full time is arguable),

There is a specific FAA prosecution in this area. An aircraft owner had a company (Company A) that leased aircraft. He also was a director of a separate company (Company P) (with a different phone number) that provided pilots (and I believe these pilots 'operated aircraft' as in did all of the planning for the flight). The process for this illegal charter was the punter calls Company A to hire an aircraft for a short period of time. The punter, then on the separate number calls Company P to hire a pilot to plan and fly him to a location in an aircraft supplied by the punter (hired from Company A).

The FAA said, illegal part 135 - you are busted mate.

[Pace]

mm flyin

I take your point but an owner is legally capable of leasing his aircraft to someone else. Without going into details I knew of such a very wealthy owner who was checked out by the CAA and what he was doing was totally legal as was I flying as Captain

What you are talking about is the owner running an Air taxi op under the guise of leasing the owner can have NO involvement whatsoever in the leased flight other than approving the pilots they use and pay to fly them.
In the above case you mention he was very involved.

Pace

[nouseforaname]

got my answer anyway thanks.....

[IO540]

A while ago I read about a UK (G-reg) operation which was doing charters without an AOC, by splitting up the business into two parts. Apparently the CAA tried to bust them but failed in the Court.

If the pilot supplied the aeroplane and then flies the "passenger" then it is.

This is the "holding out" stuff which one learns about during the FAA CPL. It's a pretty clear rule.

This is not something I know much about but there seem to be ops which don't need an AOC in the USA but do need them in the UK e.g. crop spraying, traffic spotting, and similar "solo" operations which in the USA can be done on a mere CPL. Can any US pilots confirm?

As a very general comment, a solo CPL holder can do very little with that CPL in Europe without being employed by an AOC holder. Being a paid pilot for an aircraft provider (as described above) is the chief possibility; others are odd things like ferrying...

[mm_flynn]

Have a quick look at FAR 119, 121, 125, 135 the first paragraph (Applicability) and it frames out what would require the higher operating standards of an AOC.

In summary running scheduled airlines, airtaxi, on demand charter (of people and freight) and operation of large transport aircraft (even if it is private).

The other things which the CAA includes (and then includes a bunch of special case language to exclude!) are broadly those where the only one who is going to get killed is the crew (and because they are small aircraft have no real risk differential to people on the ground vs private flight) and as such the US seems to have taken a view that no special regulation is required - beyond that for all aviation activity.

[englishal]

If the pilot supplied the aeroplane and then flies the "passenger" then it is.

Yea but in this case, from a maintenance point of view the aeroplane is classed as a commercial op, rather than a private op...