Can I ferry a friends plane?

Ron Levy said:
No, Tom's correct -- focus on the word "give", i.e., to provide without compensation. You can give rides to anyone you want, anywhere you want, any time you want without violating the rules under discussion. It's only when money starts changing hands (other than you paying the cost of the flight) that these issues arise.
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If it's not your plane and you're not paying for the gas, you're not giving a ride--you are offering your pilot services for free. I do agree, if it's my plane and I choose to pay all expenses (give) I can pretty much offer anyone a ride gratis. Tom said he could give a ride for any reason to anyone in any airplane he was rated to fly as a private pilot. So I have an airplane and need to have some parts (or people) delivered to another city. So Tom offers to fly them for free in my airplane. I guess he could do it legally by his logic since he's rated to fly my airplane and the reason for the flight doesn't matter--I don't think so.
 
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Henning said:
Insurance issues are even simpler, meet the open pilot warrantee or get listed on the policy , and have her bind the coverage with honest information. Do that, no worries.
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Not quite. Careful on that too.

Currently there are three individuals who have permission to fly my plane. They are all commercial pilots, all CFIs, and all meet my insurance company's requirements for time in type, all three are named on my policy

My policy allows me to allow up to three pilots like this fly my plane without losing the open pilot clause...and I'm covered.

But they are not.

If one of them pranged my plane, the insurance company would pay me for the damages but would likely proceed with subrogation against the pranger.

They are all three aware of this...did they cover themselves? I don't know. Not my problem.
 
timwinters said:
Not quite. Careful on that too.

Currently there are three individuals who have permission to fly my plane. They are all commercial pilots, all CFIs, and all meet my insurance company's requirements for time in type, all three are named on my policy

My policy allows me to allow up to three pilots like this fly my plane without losing the open pilot clause...and I'm covered.

But they are not.

If one of them pranged my plane, the insurance company would pay me for the damages but would likely proceed with subrogation against the pranger.

They are all three aware of this...did they cover themselves? I don't know. Not my problem.
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If they are named pilots that is true, but you can add them as named insured, and they are covered as well. The interesting thing on doing named insurers is if they have more time/experience than you do in type than you, it may even reduce your rates. That's why people will hire a pro to fly with them a year in expensive/high performance, cabin class planes.
 
MikeELP said:
Yes, but there always has to be one person who thinks that the boogie man is hiding under the bed. ;)
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It has nothing to do with being afraid, but rather with answering the question actually asked.

It was not about ethics, safety, responsibility, or anything like that -- not even consequence. It was about legality.

And that's a VERY different answer. The OP can presumably ethically, responsibly, safely (etc.) ferry his friend's plane for free. Legally, not really.

Whether that has any consequence is yet another question, with yet another answer. Just because you don't get caught does not mean it was legal to begin with. But it sure does mean there isn't any consequence, at least this time.
 
Here are a couple of "hypothetical" (cough) scenarios that I am "familiar" with (cough).

If a friend were to ask me to fly with him in one of his two planes to another airport so he can pick up his other airplane from the avionics shop and I then fly the first one back to our home field. I do not pay for anything. I refuse to call that a compensated ferry flight just because I flew for free. I simply did a friend a favor.

A friend of mine breaks his arm on a vacation the next state over that he flew to. Another friend and I fly over in second friend's airplane and he flies back by himself. I fly first friend's plane back home with him as a passenger. I pay for nothing. I refuse to believe this would be either a compensated ferry flight or air taxi operation. Again I simply did a friend a favor.

These scenarios are so different than if your local FBO gives you free flight time to ferry aircraft around the country because he is too cheap to pay a commercial rated ferry pilot. Same with the OP's situation.

In neither of my hypothetical (cough) situations nor in the OP's did any one hold out or advertise their services to the public nor were they true commercial operations. And believe it or not, I bet that the FAA or an administrative law judge would consider helping out a friend to be having a "common purpose" which is maintaining a friendship. I could never imagine being ticketed by the FAA for these flights and really doubt if I would be. If some of you disagree that is fine.
 
SkyDog58 said:
Here are a couple of "hypothetical" (cough) scenarios that I am "familiar" with (cough).

If a friend were to ask me to fly with him in one of his two planes to another airport so he can pick up his other airplane from the avionics shop and I then fly the first one back to our home field. I do not pay for anything. I refuse to call that a compensated ferry flight just because I flew for free. I simply did a friend a favor.

A friend of mine breaks his arm on a vacation the next state over that he flew to. Another friend and I fly over in second friend's airplane and he flies back by himself. I fly first friend's plane back home with him as a passenger. I pay for nothing. I refuse to believe this would be either a compensated ferry flight or air taxi operation. Again I simply did a friend a favor.

These scenarios are so different than if your local FBO gives you free flight time to ferry aircraft around the country because he is too cheap to pay a commercial rated ferry pilot. Same with the OP's situation.

In neither of my hypothetical (cough) situations nor in the OP's did any one hold out or advertise their services to the public nor were they true commercial operations. And believe it or not, I bet that the FAA or an administrative law judge would consider helping out a friend to be having a "common purpose" which is maintaining a friendship. I could never imagine being ticketed by the FAA for these flights and really doubt if I would be. If some of you disagree that is fine.
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You must be able to prove that you paid the direct costs of the flight, other wise you will be violated for not having a CPL to operate for compensation. holding out is not the issue here.

I know these operations happen almost every day, I have flown other owners aircraft as a favor to them. that is legal as long as certain items are complied with. I do it free, and not log the time. I gain nothing, except the warm and fuzzy feeling. and the FAA has never ruled on that.
 
Witmo said:
If it's not your plane and you're not paying for the gas, you're not giving a ride--you are offering your pilot services for free. I do agree, if it's my plane and I choose to pay all expenses (give) I can pretty much offer anyone a ride gratis. Tom said he could give a ride for any reason to anyone in any airplane he was rated to fly as a private pilot.
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If he's "giving" the ride, he must be paying for the gas. If he's not, then he's not "giving" the ride, he's providing pilot services for compensation. But he said he was "giving" the ride, so what he said he was doing is not illegal.
 
SkyDog58 said:
If a friend were to ask me to fly with him in one of his two planes to another airport so he can pick up his other airplane from the avionics shop and I then fly the first one back to our home field. I do not pay for anything. I refuse to call that a compensated ferry flight just because I flew for free. I simply did a friend a favor.
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You can call it anything you want, but by the law, you provided pilot services for compensation, and if you only have a Private Pilot certificate, that's illegal.

A friend of mine breaks his arm on a vacation the next state over that he flew to. Another friend and I fly over in second friend's airplane and he flies back by himself. I fly first friend's plane back home with him as a passenger. I pay for nothing. I refuse to believe this would be either a compensated ferry flight or air taxi operation. Again I simply did a friend a favor.
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Same answer.

These scenarios are so different than if your local FBO gives you free flight time to ferry aircraft around the country because he is too cheap to pay a commercial rated ferry pilot. Same with the OP's situation.
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Not by the regulations.

In neither of my hypothetical (cough) situations nor in the OP's did any one hold out or advertise their services to the public nor were they true commercial operations. And believe it or not, I bet that the FAA or an administrative law judge would consider helping out a friend to be having a "common purpose" which is maintaining a friendship.
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You'd lose that bet.

I could never imagine being ticketed by the FAA for these flights and really doubt if I would be. If some of you disagree that is fine.
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Whether or not the FAA actually catches you or takes action against you doesn't change the illegality of the actions you describe.
 
Ron Levy said:
Since you are an ATP, it wouldn't be illegal.
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Indeed... But I would have done the same thing in 1985 when I was a private. I do think the rules were a bit more lax back then. I seem to remember contribute a buck and all was well.
 
Kritchlow said:
Indeed... But I would have done the same thing in 1985 when I was a private. I do think the rules were a bit more lax back then. I seem to remember contribute a buck and all was well.
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The rules were no different then, nor in 1970 when I was a PP.
 
I will say that I had never heard of this interpretation until maybe 10-15 years ago, long after I had a commercial and about the time I started reading message boards on the internet. That is, the part about flight time being "compensation".
 
Kritchlow said:
I believe you.

I always thought it was "shared expenses" without regard to exact percentages.
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As best I can remember, the regulation on expense sharing has always (or at least since 1969 when I was doing PP ground school) said "pro rata" share. What has changed since then is the FAA's clarification of what constitutes compensation and the concept of "common purpose". The one common thread has been an increasingly strident insistence that PP's just don't get compensated for flying, and an absolute resistance to any loosening of the rules on this issue.
 
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Ron Levy said:
As best I can remember, the regulation has always (or at least since 1969 when I was doing PP ground school) said "pro rata" share.
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At the fight school that I got my PPL, and later came back to instruct (7B9), the rule of thumb was to kick in a buck. I'm not saying that was the correct answer, but it satisfied the then management at our small flight school / single pilot & airplane 135 operation.
 
Kritchlow said:
At the fight school that I got my PPL, and later came back to instruct (7B9), the rule of thumb was to kick in a buck. I'm not saying that was the correct answer, but it satisfied the then management at our small flight school / single pilot & airplane 135 operation.
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I believe you. As with logging PIC time, this is an area which is very poorly taught in pilot training or understood by most pilots, in part because of the arcane nature of the regulations involved.

The biggest problem, however, is the Congressionally-mandated position of the FAA that there must be higher standards for pilots and aircraft when money is changing hands. Most people are so used to the much laxer rules for motor vehicles, and have trouble accepting the very different standards for aviation in this regard. The other issue is folks who feel they should have some sort of right to get others to defray the cost of building time and experience in return for providing aviation services, such as piloting and air transportation, to those people -- and that right just doesn't exist. To those who would ask, "Then how am I supposed to pay for all that flying to get my IR/CP/whatever?", the FAA would probably respond, "That's not our problem to solve; protecting the public is."
 
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Interestingly enough... Through this forum Mark (midlife something..) and I discovered we pretty much knew the same people through the same small hick airport. He did his IR back with my colleague instructor when I was teaching at the same airport. We probably met each other. I think I remember him... Mark, I was the guy always wearing the white t shirt and jeans when instructing..

Anyway , good ole times at 7B9.
 
FAA mission: "Our continuing mission is to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world."
FAA vision: "We strive to reach the next level of safety, efficiency, environmental responsibility and global leadership. We are accountable to the American public and our stakeholders."
https://www.faa.gov/about/mission/

And after all this discussion about legality, is there a safety issue involved? I would say "No, there is no safety issue."

Is there an efficiency issue? I would say "Yes, helping out a friend adds to efficiency."

Is there an environmental issue? "No."

What about global responsibility? "No change."

So, in keeping with their mission and vision, the FAA should not object.
 
AuntPeggy said:
And after all this discussion about legality, is there a safety issue involved? I would say "No, there is no safety issue."

Is there an efficiency issue? I would say "Yes, helping out a friend adds to efficiency."
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I believe the FAA would say they are concerned with the efficiency of the airspace system, not individual efficiency.

I also believe they would say there is a safety issue because you've got a low time pilot doing a job for compensation. That creates pressure to fly and could result in an unsafe choice to fly.

IMO 61.113 is one of the worst rules out there. It's poorly written and is ambiguous.
 
bflynn said:
I believe the FAA would say they are concerned with the efficiency of the airspace system, not individual efficiency.

I also believe they would say there is a safety issue because you've got a low time pilot doing a job for compensation. That creates pressure to fly and could result in an unsafe choice to fly.

IMO 61.113 is one of the worst rules out there. It's poorly written and is ambiguous.
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No different safety wise than a pilot retrieving his or her own plane. It's not like it's a job with a deadline.
 
bflynn said:
I believe the FAA would say they are concerned with the efficiency of the airspace system, not individual efficiency.
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Agree.

I also believe they would say there is a safety issue because you've got a low time pilot doing a job for compensation. That creates pressure to fly and could result in an unsafe choice to fly.
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Agree in part. I think the FAA would say the safety issue is that someone hiring a pilot to provide pilot services (as opposed to what they get for free) has an expectation of the higher level of safety provided by the higher demonstrated level of knowledge and skill which comes with the Commercial Pilot certificate versus a Private Pilot certificate.

IMO 61.113 is one of the worst rules out there. It's poorly written and is ambiguous.
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Agreed -- which is why the Chief Counsel keeps having to write letters of interpretation on it.
 
EdFred said:
No different than a pilot retrieving his or her own plane.
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Disagree entirely. Retrieving your own plane is entirely your own business. The FAA's position (as required by Congress) is that ferrying someone else's plane when that other person is paying for the job (even if it's just the gas burned) makes it a completely different situation in which public policy demands the higher level of demonstrated skill and knowledge which comes with a Commercial Pilot certificate over a Private or lower.
 
Ron Levy said:
Disagree entirely. Retrieving your own plane is entirely your own business. The FAA's position (as required by Congress) is that ferrying someone else's plane when that other person is paying for the job (even if it's just the gas burned) makes it a completely different situation in which public policy demands the higher level of demonstrated skill and knowledge which comes with a Commercial Pilot certificate over a Private or lower.
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You edited his post in the quote to say something he didn't.:nono:
 
Henning said:
You edited his post in the quote to say something he didn't.:nono:
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No, he edited his own post to change what it said after I quoted it. But even with him changing "No different than a pilot retrieving his or her own plane" to "No different safety wise than a pilot retrieving his or her own plane", I'd still disagree, since the Congressional position is that when someone is providing pilot services for compensation/hire, public policy requires the guarantee of the higher level of safety assumed to be provided by a Commercial vs Private Pilot.
 
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Ron Levy said:
No, he edited his own post to change what it said after I quoted it. But even with him changing "No different than a pilot retrieving his or her own plane" to "No different safety wise than a pilot retrieving his or her own plane", I'd still disagree, since the Congressional position is that when someone is providing pilot services for compensation/hire, public policy requires the guarantee of the higher level of safety assumed to be provided by a Commercial vs Private Pilot.
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You can disagree, but you'd be wrong. I only have a 3rd class, so for this purpose I am a private pilot. Whether I go retrieve a friend's plane because of reason x, or whether I retrieve my own plane for reason x, the process is going to be EXACTLY the same in regards to weather/time-frame, etc. The level of safety is going to be exactly the same. Whether get there itis rears its ugly head has 0 to do with the pilot being sport, rec, private, commercial, or ATP. That is going to come down to personality, and words on a certificate will not change that.

This isn't Joe Pilot posting on a bulletin board "hey, I can ferry your plane even though I don't know you for free" no matter how much you want it to be that.

Guess what Ron, I've ferried my dad's plane on more than one occasion and I didn't have a commercial at the time. You better call the feds on me. We can't have scofflaws like me running around, lest your head explode.
 
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EdFred said:
You can disagree, but you'd be wrong. I only have a 3rd class, so for this purpose I am a private pilot. Whether I go retrieve a friend's plane because of reason x, or whether I retrieve my own plane for reason x, the process is going to be EXACTLY the same in regards to weather/time-frame, etc. The level of safety is going to be exactly the same. Whether get there itis rears its ugly head has 0 to do with the pilot being sport, rec, private, commercial, or ATP. That is going to come down to personality, and words on a certificate will not change that.

This isn't Joe Pilot posting on a bulletin board "hey, I can ferry your plane even though I don't know you for free" no matter how much you want it to be that.

Guess what Ron, I've ferried my dad's plane on more than one occasion and I didn't have a commercial at the time. You better call the feds on me. We can't have scofflaws like me running around, lest your head explode.
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You mean the FAA doesn't have legions of Inspectors sitting around just waiting to go police pilots ferrying a friends airplane??? :eek:
 
Being a CPL does nothing to the safety of the flight in question.

A good friend current in make and model will be much safer than a 747 pilot that has not flown light civil in 20 years.

Or for that matter a CFI with 350 hours TT that has never flown the make and model.

Anyone who wishes some one to help move any aircraft best get one that knows the make and model rather than simply having the proper paper in their pocket.

You might simply pick the only rotten apple on the tree.
 
RotorAndWing said:
You mean the FAA doesn't have legions of Inspectors sitting around just waiting to go police pilots ferrying a friends airplane??? :eek:
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They don't need to, they have the NSA monitor email and cell phone calls, then track the flight by satellite so the inspector can arrest you upon landing..:rolleyes:
 
RotorAndWing said:
You mean the FAA doesn't have legions of Inspectors sitting around just waiting to go police pilots ferrying a friends airplane??? :eek:
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They Don't?? H---F--- what's this world coming to.
 
Then there is the, what if the person is a Private Pilot. Has no plan to ever get another rating ever and the hours of no real value to them? They are just being nice.

I actually was recently asked to do this for someone I didn't know. I said NO not just because I didn't know them but mainly because the plane was a ramp rat and I am a plane snob. It would have been a fun adventure. I don't NEED the time other than it would make me more proficient. I have a few friends who if they asked I would do what I could to help them out I am sure they would do the same. None of them NEED hours.

One time many many years ago the guy I rented from at the time called me and asked if I would ride with a CFI to an avionics shop about an hour and half away to get the radio worked on. His concern was someone flying while the other person worked a crappy handheld flying into a fairly busy ARSA (gives you an idea of time frame). I guess looking back that was probably against the rules since he didn't ask me to pay for gas although I guess it boils down to how it got logged. The CFI certainly had no issue.
 
Tom-D said:
They Don't?? H---F--- what's this world coming to.
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They've resorted to creating an army of people to flood the internet with copies of FAA legal opinions, 3rd party interpretations not proven in court and over analyzing every statement and only reply with "What if...", with the ultimate goal to make the only legal flight be several trips in the pattern on weekends, provided you dont think of riding with someone or think about money during the flight.

The real problems here are all the bandit private pilots making hundreds of thousands a year under the table as commercial pilots.
 
Never again will I take a friend's Cub around the pattern for a few minutes without paying for the $1 in gas I burned. :lol:
 
RoscoeT said:
Never again will I take a friend's Cub around the pattern for a few minutes without paying for the $1 in gas I burned. :lol:
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:rofl::rofl::rofl: Start a thread about this situation and ask about the pros/cons/legality of logging PIC time with or without paying, while in class C airspace
 
This thread is simply a reminder that legality is often absolutely nothing to do with morality or safety.
 
Ever have one of those moments where you say, "sorry I asked" but then you say, "that's the best entertainment I've had in a while". This is one of those.
 
Get paid in cash, do the flight. Do it as a favor for your friend, do it on principle against government overreach, and do it because you're not a complete drone even though your flight training drilled into your head that the rules must always be followed to the T.
 
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