What counts as remuneration
 

Hello

I have a PPL and Seaplane rating. There is a local club nearby which operates 3 seaplanes for sightseeing trips. Can I carry passengers, log P1 time and not be paid with my PPL. I can't see how this would be different from dropping parachutes - except that my passengers wont be jumping out (If they do I may need to question my calling as a Pilot)

Thanks for your help.

As far as im aware the only cases where 'exemptions' are afforded to a PPL holder are the standard towing gliders, and as you mentioned, dropping parachutists. Although you may have a point that there is little difference in ferrying passengers who exit mid flight and passengers who stay seated for the duration, I would imagine that as this exemption is not documented it is therefore excluded. If I am wrong others will correct.

Elssar,

You don't say which country you are in...But, in the UK, what you envisage is deemed Public Transport, for which you need a commercial license..Even if you personally don't get paid, the punters would be paying somebody..

With 3 seaplanes available, I guess it's not the UK:{

Sightseeing trips are considered commercial - the flight is what is paid for. Skydiving and glidertugging are aerial work - the flight is merely and end to the actual bit people are paying for, which is the jump from altitude or the glider flight.

So no, you can't do it. Sorry!

The fact that you would be getting your flying for free could be seen as remuneration.

I had this question when I carried out maintenance flights and was asked to pay for the flying time (even though I was doing them a favour). Needless to say I don't do them any more (in my mind it's like asking you to take my car in for a service and you paying me for the pleasure - plainly ridiculous)

You could put one of the passengers in the left hand seat and call it an air experience flight

My understanding on a PPL was you could hire out an a/c yourself and carry the passengers for free or IIRC they could make a "contribution" towards the costs of the flight and nothing more, providing you yourself paid the same amount towards those costs.

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. I've always carried anyone with me for free anyway whilst PPL flying.

:)

The UK CAA produced a paper some years ago clarifying what they considered Public Transport due to the complexity of the rules. This may help your understanding:

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/1428/summa..._transport.pdf

ifitaint..

You can carry passengers on a PPL, so long as they don't pay you or anybody else for the flight.

That's the UK position.

There is a bit of a grey area where the payment is made to an apparently unrelated 3rd party and this arrangement has been probed by quite a few outfits - even in the UK - but it is a non starter anywhere I know about. In the UK you need an AOC to do pleasure flights.

Variations on the theme include getting them to pay for something else not related to flying but again a non-starter over here.

You can do cost sharing but then you are very limited on how the flight is advertised. Again, some grey areas in there, but basically the cost sharing limits mean it will never make anybody any money.

Detail on cost sharing is provided on Page 7 of the document above. This is the UK CAA Legal Department's interpretation of what is permitted when cost sharing:

Note item D which does allow advertising within a club environment.

If money changes hands for the purpose of the flight (other than cost sharing with the pilot) then its not a Private Flight.

If a pilot receives payment or benefits in kind it is a form of remuneration.

The simple check is: If the flight doesn't go, will any payment or benefit still be made. If the answer is No then it is clearly for the purpose of the flight!

There are two separate issues: payment for a flight which can be public transport or aerial work both of which require a suitably qualified pilot and probably an Air Operators Certificate; and payment of the pilot which can only be made to a Commercial pilot except where there are exemptions e.g. some Flying Instructors. Parachute dropping is aerial work, as is Glider Tugging.

An interesting point in the UK ANO Schedule 8 is that a UK PPL holder may conduct Parachute dropping and glider tugging but the privileges is not included in a UK JAA PPL

The only aerial work exemption on A JAA licence is for Flight Instruction. To drop parachutists or tug gliders there is the issue of paying for a drop or tug, both of which constitute revenue flights. Unless there is an exemption somewhere!

The interesting area, never clarified, is whether a website based "club" counts.

There are loads of "seat sharing" websites where one can advertise, and presumably (since most PPL-level pilots do cost share as a virtual condition of the flight) cost sharing would be arranged privately off the site.

If you fly me to Le Touquet, I might choose to buy you lunch in Le Touquet. If we don't fly, I won't buy you lunch, because I can't. By your test, that makes the buying of lunch remuneration for the flight.

I suggest reversing the test. If the payment is not made, would the flight still go? If I don't agree to buy you lunch, will you still fly me to Le Touquet? If the answer is no, then the buying of lunch really is remuneration for the flight.

This seems about the right time to digress onto the "common purpose" test used by the FAA for cost sharing over there :) :)

In that case, bookworm, I'd suggest that unless the lunch is the same price as the flight (nice lunch!) then there isn't a problem. Share the lunch and flight costs as the PPL would still be paying well over half!

Tim

Of course.... but you can make your own bl***y way back!

So long as the cost of the lunch does not exceed half the direct cost of the flight I think it would fit the cost sharing case. If it cost more I doubt you'd make it back!

:)

IMHO it is important to realise there are two quite separate issues here:

1) a CAA prosecution

This is extremely unlikely unless the pilot is running some kind of transport scheme, e.g. taking loads of people down to Le Mans and charging them for it. This has been done many times. Usually an AOC holder sees it and moans to the CAA and they, reportedly, turn up, interview the passengers separately and ask them how much they paid, etc. You can find a list of CAA prosecutions (I suspect they don't list most of the failed ones though) on their website and it's obvious they are extremely rare and 99% of the supposed illegalities discussed on pilot forums are never enforced over here.

2) insurance coverage

This is the one which might actually get you - if there was an accident involving an injured/dead passenger. The reason is that the owner/operator's liability to passengers hangs on the pilot being found negligent (Civil Aviation Act) and that in turn will be easier if he has been prosecuted for illegal flying. The passengers may be you friends, but are rest assured that 99% of people will forget that if they can get an extra £10k or £100k out of it. I fly an N-reg plane which can't be legally cost shared in UK airspace (ANO Art 140) and while I have been offered cost sharing countless times, I have never accepted it.