Share in the expenses are zero. Is this legal?

I'll make sure never to post about the free flight time my son will get in the 310.
 
Jeff Oslick said:
This is incredibly easy to get around for the father/son. The father can gift the plane to the son. Not an issue at all. Or, have the aircraft owned by a business. The father+mother can gift $28K/yr to the son tax/question free to pay for...whatever. The son could have ownership shares in the family business providing substantial dividends to the son. There's no need for Richie Rich's dad to be paying a flying bill "directly".
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None of this works legally if the son lacks common purpose for the flight or it appears to be a quid pro quo, and the son flying the dad around on the dad's business looks a lot like a quid pro quo. Face it, folks -- there's no legal way to do this until the son gets a CP.
 
Dr. O said:
As far as 'your' friend (you sure aren't his) he is allowed to fly Part 91 in pursuit of business and personal interests without it being considered compensation, or considered holding himself out for hire.
All this is settled rulings by FAA counsel.
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Incorrect. This is directly contrary to several intepretations -- read Mangiamele and Bobertz and the other interpretations they reference. Without a CP, this is not legal.
 
A couple of thoughts here.

First of all, under the facts presented, someone turning this into the FAA would have to be doing it solely for the purpose of satisfying their jealousy, their urge to disgorge someone else of a benefit to which the reporting person believes themselves entitled.

Secondly, you must never forget this: when someone approaches the FAA to make a report of something bad being done, the FAA is by no means obligated to limit their investigation into the matter reported; indeed, they will routinely make a basic inquiry into the reporting party, as well, if for no other reason than to determine the veracity of the source.

Bottom line: inside this glass house, perhaps you'd best be careful where you're throwing stones!
 
Ron Levy said:
This is not legal. The son is receiving compensation in the form of free flight time for providing pilot services to his father. The son also lacks common purpose with his father for the father's trips, so even the expense sharing clause of 61.113 is out, as is calling the flying time a gift, since it appears to come with the attached string of taking Dad where he wants to go, when he wants to go (Quid pro quo, Clarisse). However, the FAA is not going to stick its nose in family business without someone shoving it in their face. As long as they don't start taking paying passengers, and Dad doesn't start complaining to the FAA about his son's flying, the FAA isn't going to get involved.
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Ron is right on both counts: not legal, and FAA not interested in family business.

Here is how to make it easier for the lawyers to swallow, although it still might not pass the duck test:

You can receive an unrestricted gift from anyone, your parents included. That you choose to convert that gift into 100LL is your choice, and the FAA isn't involved. So I would ask Dad (by the way, does this Dad need another son?) to write checks in approximate amounts, and payable to the son. Then sonny pays for the fuel etc. with his own credit card.

A letter from Dad to son transmitting the check and referring to it as an allowance will help, too.

But the odds of the FAA pursuing an action on a father-son transaction are very low, unless somebody screws up.
 

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Skip Miller said:
Ron is right on both counts: not legal, and FAA not interested in family business.

Here is how to make it easier for the lawyers to swallow, although it still might not pass the duck test:

You can receive an unrestricted gift from anyone, your parents included. That you choose to convert that gift into 100LL is your choice, and the FAA isn't involved. So I would ask Dad (by the way, does this Dad need another son?) to write checks in approximate amounts only payable to the son. Then sonny pays for the fuel etc. with his own credit card.

A letter from Dad to son transmitting the check and referring to it as an allowance will help, too.

But the odds of the FAA pursuing an action on a father-son transaction are very low, unless somebody screws up.
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OK, I guess the reference to the AR-15 Shotgun earlier wasn't enough of a clue that I was joking.

Is the scenerio legal: de jure: no. de facto: Yes

If you ask a lawyer to look at the law, he will clearly say that this violates the regulations, both on their face and as interpreted by the FAA.

However...if you look at this in a de facto manner, it's acceptable, because there's nearly zero chance (think of when you studied calculus, this is a lim x->0) that anyone will ever get the FAA to subject this to any kind of enforcement action...it's a family matter, and so long as it remains that, the FAA honestly has much bigger fish to fry.
 
SCCutler said:
Secondly, you must never forget this: when someone approaches the FAA to make a report of something bad being done, the FAA is by no means obligated to limit their investigation into the matter reported; indeed, they will routinely make a basic inquiry into the reporting party, as well, if for no other reason than to determine the veracity of the source.

Bottom line: inside this glass house, perhaps you'd best be careful where you're throwing stones!
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I'd agree fully. I called the FSDO to report someone for the first (and hopefully last) time a couple of weeks ago. Even though the reason was for a major safety concern, I did still stop to think about it.

But, the guy is probably going to kill himself (and someone else - in the case of my report me and my family). So it needed to be done.
 
You guys are missing the most important question: does he have a sister?
 
Tony_Scarpelli said:
I can see how flight hours could be considered compensation for pilots under 2500 hrs particularly for the guys wanting to get ATP and professional jobs. I can see how that precedent was set but I wonder if anyone who was already achieved an ATP with xx,xxx hrs could modify this precedent with FAA?
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Why? If you have an ATP it doesn't matter (to the FAA) if you are being compensated or not.
 
true,

and I agree with most of the "they won't care" posts. It is dancing a little to close to the line for my taste, but whatever.

Now if something happens I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if receiving compensation for flying gets piled on to the list of violations.
 
Dr. O said:
As far as 'your' friend (you sure aren't his) he is allowed to fly Part 91 in pursuit of business and personal interests without it being considered compensation, or considered holding himself out for hire.
All this is settled rulings by FAA counsel.
Click to expand...

Minor point, and this is the issue, he can do this if he is paying the whole bill or at least his pro rata share if there is common purpose involved. If he is not paying the bill, then he is receiving free flight time and that has been ruled to be consideration and until he has a Commercial certificate, that is what causes the issue. Again, nobody is coming after this.
 
Skip Miller said:
Ron is right on both counts: not legal, and FAA not interested in family business.

Here is how to make it easier for the lawyers to swallow, although it still might not pass the duck test:

You can receive an unrestricted gift from anyone, your parents included. That you choose to convert that gift into 100LL is your choice, and the FAA isn't involved. So I would ask Dad (by the way, does this Dad need another son?) to write checks in approximate amounts, and payable to the son. Then sonny pays for the fuel etc. with his own credit card.

A letter from Dad to son transmitting the check and referring to it as an allowance will help, too.

But the odds of the FAA pursuing an action on a father-son transaction are very low, unless somebody screws up.
Click to expand...

Dad gives son a plane and a $1000 a week allowance. In appreciation son flys dad anywhere he wants to go and pays the bill. Might not pass the duck test, but it does pass the technical challenge. American law is all about loopholes, and this is the loophole.
 
Ron Levy said:
And as a Student Pilot, he couldn't log it, either, unless you were a CFI giving training. As for your wife, there is no requirement that passengers contribute, only that the pilot pay at least his/her pro rata share. But again, the FAA isn't interested in this.
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Are you sure about that? I think that it could be logged as flight time for the purpose of insurance. It could not be logged as either PIC or training time, however.
 
Most people who think they've found a loophole don't realize it must be of sufficient size for the duck to swim through.

Henning said:
Dad gives son a plane and a $1000 a week allowance. In appreciation son flys dad anywhere he wants to go and pays the bill. Might not pass the duck test, but it does pass the technical challenge. American law is all about loopholes, and this is the loophole.
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And, all of this avoids the question of why the FAA should care. Is it a safety issue? Is it some other issue that should be of concern to the FAA?

Why should we care, either?
 
wabower said:
Most people who think they've found a loophole don't realize it must be of sufficient size for the duck to swim through.
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It doesn't really matter, even if the duck gets strangled, the outcome will be duck soup. The worst that would come out of it is a meeting that ends with "You can't do that anymore until you have a CP."
 
Yeah, right. Just form a Delaware corporation, then all's we's gotta do is . . .
Henning said:
It doesn't really matter, even if the duck gets strangled, the outcome will be duck soup. The worst that would come out of it is a meeting that ends with "You can't do that anymore until you have a CP."
Click to expand...
 
Skylane81E said:
Why? If you have an ATP it doesn't matter (to the FAA) if you are being compensated or not.
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For providing pilot services, that is correct, and for what this kid is doing, a CP would be enough. But not for providing air transportation. That's discussed in the Bobertz memo (above).
 
Henning said:
Minor point, and this is the issue, he can do this if he is paying the whole bill or at least his pro rata share if there is common purpose involved. If he is not paying the bill, then he is receiving free flight time and that has been ruled to be consideration and until he has a Commercial certificate, that is what causes the issue. Again, nobody is coming after this.
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The word here is compensation, not consideration. Slightly, but significantly, different legal meaning.
 
Henning said:
Dad gives son a plane and a $1000 a week allowance. In appreciation son flys dad anywhere he wants to go and pays the bill. Might not pass the duck test, but it does pass the technical challenge. American law is all about loopholes, and this is the loophole.
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"In appreciation"? That makes it quid pro quo, and thus a violation of 61.113, technically as well as duckly.
 
AuntPeggy said:
Are you sure about that? I think that it could be logged as flight time for the purpose of insurance. It could not be logged as either PIC or training time, however.
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I don't know what the insurance company counts, and that's entirely up to them, but for FAA purposes, the only time a Student Pilot can log time (any time) in flight in an FAA pilot logbook is when sole occupant or under instruction from a CFI (the airship crew exception notwithstanding). See 61.51 for details.
 
Damn it, I'm putting the duck in the smoker. Bit of mesquite wood and cook at 225F. Yummy.

And dead.
 
AuntPeggy said:
And, all of this avoids the question of why the FAA should care. Is it a safety issue? Is it some other issue that should be of concern to the FAA?
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Congress has directed the FAA to require higher levels of training, competence, and qualification when a pilot is being compensated for providing pilot services to someone else. The assumption is that when there's no money involved, you can't complain that you didn't get what you paid for, but when you're paying someone to pilot for you, you have a right to expect more than that. Consider it consumer protection.

Why should we care, either?
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Personally, I don't care what those two do inside their own family (as long as we're not talking child abuse or something like that), but the OP asked if it was legal, and I thought the OP deserved a correct answer (even though I knew it was going to degenerate into this).
 
Henning said:
It doesn't really matter, even if the duck gets strangled, the outcome will be duck soup. The worst that would come out of it is a meeting that ends with "You can't do that anymore until you have a CP."
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Agreed -- as long as they stop at that point or the kids gets the CP (which I suspect is what the FAA would be most strongly encouraging), since once you draw the FAA's attention, you tend to keep it. I remember watching an Inspector walk up to a pilot who had just publicly done something blatantly illegal in an airplane. Instead of the expected, "Good morning, sir, I'm Inspector Jones from the FSDO," the Inspector looked up at the pilot (still in the cockpit) and said, "Now, Fred, we've talked about this before..." At that point, I realized it wasn't just coincidence that this inspector was hanging around a very sleepy little airport 2-1/2 hours' drive from the FSDO.
 
Ron Levy said:
None of this works legally if the son lacks common purpose for the flight or it appears to be a quid pro quo, and the son flying the dad around on the dad's business looks a lot like a quid pro quo. Face it, folks -- there's no legal way to do this until the son gets a CP.
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Ron,

If the son is paying all the fuel bills, etc., through money he got from...whatever...there is no direct, provable compensation link. He's just flying his dad around because...he feels like it.

There is no way in a 1,000 years the FAA would look twice at this, nor virtually any other "in the family" arrangement.
 
Jeff Oslick said:
Ron,

If the son is paying all the fuel bills, etc., through money he got from...whatever...there is no direct, provable compensation link. He's just flying his dad around because...he feels like it.

There is no way in a 1,000 years the FAA would look twice at this, nor virtually any other "in the family" arrangement.
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On this point there is no one disagreeing.
 
Ron Levy said:
Basically, yes -- the Bobertz memo -- the pilot in that one had an ATP. The FAA's position is you could still be using it for recent experience or getting a job or whatever.
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However, the Chief Counsel's Office has said that not logging the time gets around that. In a recent thread, you tried to counter the FAA's opinion by saying that a pilot could choose to log it at a future time, but it would make just as much sense to say that it would not become a violation unless and until the pilot actually did log it. It also does not alter the fact that the FAA wrote what they wrote, and have never reversed their opinion it.
 
Sorry, if it's not OK for the public, then it's not OK for family.

Where's the line drawn? What if young stud private pilot finds some sugar momma that wants to have him fly her all around but they never get married? What about boyfriend/girlfriend? Or what about states where gay marriages aren't allowed? And if you can fly a non-recognized partner around, then why can't you fly your buddy you've known for 30 years around?

Either make the rules for everyone, or don't make them at all. I don't like double standards, it's time to write a letter to the CC.
 
If your children join you for that duck dinner, in the house that you paid for, and they eat for free, is that legal?

This whole topic seems preposterous.
 
Jeff Oslick said:
If the son is paying all the fuel bills, etc., through money he got from...whatever...there is no direct, provable compensation link.
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Horsepuckey. If this was an IRS issue, you'd better believe they could trace every cent back to Dad and make that duck sit up and quack for the judge. The FAA just doesn't care enough to go to the trouble in a case like this. Try this outside the family, and they just might do it.
 
Palmpilot said:
However, the Chief Counsel's Office has said that not logging the time gets around that. In a recent thread, you tried to counter the FAA's opinion by saying that a pilot could choose to log it at a future time, but it would make just as much sense to say that it would not become a violation unless and until the pilot actually did log it. It also does not alter the fact that the FAA wrote what they wrote, and have never reversed their opinion it.
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In the Bobertz memo (among other interpretations), they said they'd look at it case-by-case. The fact that you didn't log it does not automatically save you.
 
Ron Levy said:
In the Bobertz memo (among other interpretations), they said they'd look at it case-by-case. The fact that you didn't log it does not automatically save you.
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Some of the charity exemptions I have read - particularly dealing with hauling cargo or photographers - state directly that not logging time is an acceptable way to not run afoul of this compensation interpretation. I assume that operating under such an exemption is a special case, but even so, the FAA seems to acknowledge this pretty directly.
 
Ron Levy said:
Horsepuckey. If this was an IRS issue, you'd better believe they could trace every cent back to Dad and make that duck sit up and quack for the judge. The FAA just doesn't care enough to go to the trouble in a case like this. Try this outside the family, and they just might do it.
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Unless there is provable quid-pro-quo for the gifts from the father to the son in exchange for flying, the FAA couldn't prove anything. If the duck doesn't exist, it can't quack.

There is no IRS issue - irrelevant.
 
ChrisK said:
Some of the charity exemptions I have read - particularly dealing with hauling cargo or photographers - state directly that not logging time is an acceptable way to not run afoul of this compensation interpretation. I assume that operating under such an exemption is a special case,
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It is, hence its inapplicability to the situation described by the OP.
 
Jeff Oslick said:
Unless there is provable quid-pro-quo for the gifts from the father to the son in exchange for flying, the FAA couldn't prove anything.
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Correct, but the FAA would have no problem showing that it was "more likely than not" that there was a quid pro quo. Remember, this isn't criminal law where the standard of proof is "beyond reasonable doubt". In this situation, the FAA would have little trouble making a case that an ALJ would accept as proven.

As for mentioning the IRS, my point was merely that there will be a paper trail that governmental investigators could document should they care to do so.
 
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