Give me your best Common carriage/ Wet/Dry Lease scenarios
Posted by Equal-Bed8002@reddit | flying | View on Reddit | 45 comments
Looking for some really confusing and interesting commercial questions
Wandrews123@reddit
You are going to a football game, and so are 4 of your buddies. You can’t fit everyone in the plane at once, so can you fly 3 there, drop them off and come back to pick up the 4th on a separate flight?
KITTYONFYRE@reddit
of course, why not? you don't mention any compensation :\^)
Wandrews123@reddit
I mean, I figured in the context of commenting on this post that implied a lil somethin extra was involved.
Recent-Day3062@reddit
Why not?
PhilRubdiez@reddit
Because the second flight wasn’t you going back coincidentally with your buddies. You can take people with you for your own purposes, but going back means you got hired to go get him.
Recent-Day3062@reddit
Why? Let me try it this this way. One day you take three buddies to a football game. They fly back commercial. The next day you fly back. You pick up another buddy and go to the same place for golf. Is that a problem ?
Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t see any compensation here
PhilRubdiez@reddit
You can do what you want with friends as long as you were going to do it originally. Imagine if you were going to drive to the grocery store, so you ask your roommates if they want to tag along. Perfectly fine, since you had to buy some beer and steaks. When you get back, your other roommate wants a ride to the store. You already have your Bud Light and Porterhouses, so you have no real reason to go back.
In FAA land, that second flight would be verboten because you didn’t have a Common Purpose specifically 9.3.2.
Wandrews123@reddit
I forgot to mention costs are being split too. Apparently there’s an AC somewhere that used this example and they deemed the main purpose of the flight to be transportation of said person.
Material-Length9366@reddit
Came here to say this is the key. If you’re paying for everything yourself, you can ferry people all you want.
Recent-Day3062@reddit
Oh. That is different.
PhilRubdiez@reddit
I linked it. lol
Wandrews123@reddit
Yeah I replied to the wrong comment whoops…
thatTheSenateGuy@reddit
It’s do you have a reason to go back on your own (picking up your friend is not on your own). You don’t because you were also intending to go the football game. (Or maybe another activity in that city). If you just transport the people and take money from them; you provided transport of people from place to place for compensation.
Recent-Day3062@reddit
So, if I had a doctor‘s appt back in my home town before flying the friend, it‘s OK?
thatTheSenateGuy@reddit
Then why were you at that destination? I suppose if you had a lunch meeting planned in (pick college town); then you had a doctor appointment at home in the afternoon after your lunch; you could take people both ways; then if you have dinner appointment back in college town to take another person. It’s legal but you are right against a Grey edge. If people “know” you’re the guy who can take them places that could cause you problems.
Could you probably break the law and just do the trip… probably and if no one talked and you fly often to that airport to build time. FSDO would probably never know; but if your friend tells their friend Mike. Word of mouth (holding out) could go around that you are available for transport.
Recent-Day3062@reddit
I guess it might come down to, how do they show your intent?
mild-blue-yonder@reddit
You’re a commercial pilot and a co owner with 4 other pilots. One of your co owners wants to pay you 100 bucks to fly him to a wedding across the state in the plane you both own. He’ll have a good time, get drunk, sleep it off and you’ll fly him back the next day.
Is this legal? Why or why not?
Equal-Bed8002@reddit (OP)
It took some digging, 91.501 (c)(3) talks about how there has to be an agreement for all the co owners in the joint ownership. This agreement means one of the registered owners furnishes a flight crew for that airplane. Now I’m not sure if that registered owner can furnish themselves as the flight crew.
Please correct me if I’m wrong. This is a really good question, damn !
Material-Length9366@reddit
This is a great one. Want to see what people have to say. Off the top of my head I can argue both ways.
ebs757@reddit
this has to be the most useless subjects in all we have to learn in becoming commercial pilots.
Material-Length9366@reddit
It could be argued that this is the only topic commercial pilots really learn over and above PPL
BeechDude@reddit
Here's a scenario that trips up a lot of new Part 135 pilots:
You're a new FO finally logging turbine time. One of your operators' King Air 200s gets grounded after repeated write-ups. You've been sitting at home all week when dispatch calls: "We found another aircraft, be at the airport in two hours."
You show up and see a perfectly maintained King Air 200 with nearly identical avionics to the one you normally fly. Your captain has been with the company for a year and seems a little unsure, but you're both eager to fly. You agree to do the trip.
What's the problem?
Alixadoray@reddit
This would have to do with the Operator not having the new plane on its certificate. You need the airplane to be approved by the FAA and listed on certificate before you can charter it. It's Serial Number Specific, right?
Equal-Bed8002@reddit (OP)
Is it something to do with the slightly different avionics which might not be in the OpsSpec of the part 135 I’m flying for.
BeechDude@reddit
Not the avionics, but it does have something to do with the OpsSpec. D085, specifically.
Curious-Owl6098@reddit
I’ll give one. Say your new golfing and drinking buddy happens to own a king air for his company to fly himself and his business executives and asks you to sit right seat. Would you take the job and can you log the time?
Later on you upgrade to PIC of the king air but the boss decides he wants to dry lease his plane to another business… it also just so happens that company…. Unrelated to the lease asks you to be the pilot. Is this legal? And what questions would you be asking
BeechDude@reddit
This is very similar to the scenario I did in a video I posted today, and is related to the following LOI: https://www.faa.gov/media/13716
Alixadoray@reddit
Now this is a good one.
You can take the job, but depending on the operation, you can't log the time. The King Airs are Single-Pilot Certified aircraft. (Unless there's one that requires two crew that I'm not aware of) It would need an approved Pilot-Development Program for you to be able to log time in the right seat, or the PIC would have to have a restriction on his license to require an SIC. Either way, you need to determine if you're required crew, and how you're required crew and be ready to prove it to anyone who asks if you're logging right seat time in a King Air.
I'm pretty sure this scenario is legal, but not sure I have all the facts to prove that it is. I'm actually curious what questions I should be asking, as I've been presented this scenario before. Questions that are springing to mind are "Who's telling me where to go?", "Who do I invoice for pilot services?", and "Who's paying for fuel?". Are there any others that are obvious that I'm missing?
Curious-Owl6098@reddit
The second scenario might be legal but it also could be a wet lease in disguise. But it’s sketchy. I’d definitely follow up on it. The point i was trying to convey was a dry lease that your boss was trying to do that’s actually a wet lease in disguise (where your boss provides the plane and indirectly the pilot and still has some operational control) if that was the case then it’d be a 134.5 operation
__joel_t@reddit
I believe there's another way the right seater could log time -- if the left seater has an MEI, it could be logged as dual received.
TxAggieMike@reddit
Paging u/beechdude
Seth did a really good series on this topic on both his YT and podcast channels.
BeechDude@reddit
I am actually editing a short on another illegal charter scenario that will be coming out on Thursday as I type this. Yes, I've got a lot of stuff on the topic (on here as well as on my channels).
TxAggieMike@reddit
The recent one you did that tied in an LOI was well done….
BeechDude@reddit
The short from today was also related to an LOI:
The Eric L. Johnson 2011 FAA Legal Interpretation gives the clearest example of this and is what I used to build this hypothetical scenario. You can find it here: https://www.faa.gov/media/13716
Brendon7358@reddit
Your a new CFI at a small school. The school owns all their airplanes. The owner is a few states away and asks you to fly there and bring him back. He won’t pay you, but he won’t charge you for the flight either. Is this legal?
Equal-Bed8002@reddit (OP)
Well the FAA considers free flight time as a form of compensation. The owner has operational control here and the owner owns the planes. I’m guessing this would fall under Private carriage because the owner is asking me personally to fly them and since there is compensation involved I would need a minimum of a second class medical ?
I have no idea if I’m right, I’m kinda confused.
ltcterry@reddit
Private carriage is a tiny niche. That's probably never going to be the answer on a practical test. And if you use it you open up the whole "tell me about 'private carriage..." ball of wax. The FAA can't even really tell you what private carriage is.
Imagine Bubba's Ball Bearing Works owns a 172 and asks you to fly it That's Part 91. You're paid to fly the boss' airplane. Nothing different. No paying passengers involved.
The scenario presented above is the same. The owner wants to pay you to fly an airplane. OK, doesn't want to pay you. But it's still just a Part 91 flight using your Commercial privileges.
pilot129@reddit
Not private carriage because that involves holding out. This is simply a Part 91 flight. You need a 2nd Class Medical since you’re being compensated with free hours.
__joel_t@reddit
Since OP has answered, let me take a stab at this. I think many of the facts are irrelevant and designed to mislead, so good job :-)
Can I hire a commercial pilot to ferry my plane from point A to point B? Yes. It is legal for the commercial pilot to fly that flight.
Can I hire a commercial pilot to fly me (and just me, no other passengers) in my own plane from point B to point A? Also yes, also legal for the commercial pilot to fly that flight.
In both cases, the commercial pilot would need second-class medical privileges. In both cases, I maintain operational control, which means this isn't even private carriage.
It doesn't matter that this happens to be a flight-school-owned aircraft and you're working for the school. It doesn't matter that the compensation is solely in the form of flight hours accumulated, not additional cash.
Equal-Bed8002@reddit (OP)
Thank you, that was helpful !
Curious-Owl6098@reddit
Id say legal. Part 91. Owner maintains operational control as it’s his plane and he determines where’s the flight is conducted and where it ends. You’d need a second class medical.
Equal-Bed8002@reddit (OP)
The part where I’m confused is, whether it’s private carriage or Non - common carriage ? And if there’s a difference between the two.
__joel_t@reddit
I'll follow up with this -- if it is legal, what class of medical certificate privileges do you need to do this? Can you do this with just 3rd-class privileges and/or BasicMed?
jimcarroll_cfi@reddit
Wow — this is evil nuance at its finest. Lets see if the OP can solve it.
rFlyingTower@reddit
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Looking for some really confusing and interesting commercial questions
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