91/91k/135 question.. (trying to see how I can legally be paid to fly someone else’s plane)
Posted by Flying-Guy-6699@reddit | flying | View on Reddit | 9 comments
Long story short, I know a gentleman who owns a very nice plane, he is a pilot and so far it’s only been for his personal use. He found me to help him get his commercial license and in that I jokingly mentioned him making his plane for commercial use and me being a full time pilot for him. This brings up all the fun questions because he’s also down for it but we want to stay LEGAL!!! Also he isn’t really trying to make profit he just wants the plane to pay for itself if any way possible
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What is the easiest, safest (in terms of legality) and cheapest way to go about this. The owner of the aircraft knows a lot of people would like to pay to have me fly them to their places. But I’m not sure if it would be a 91 opp, 91k, 135, 119.. all of it confuses me after staring at the far aim for hours.
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If someone can confirm, isn’t it technically legal if his plane is under an llc and I am solely a contract pilot not advertising myself. Or does that mean I can only fly people related to his llc?
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If he hypothetically wanted to go all in and try and start a small 135 operation, how hard is that, how expensive even is it to get all that stuff set up legally, and is this the smartest (again in terms of legality) way to go about this.
I’m sure I’ll think of more questions but I know there’s a lot of folks on here that know a lot more about this than I do. And I always struggled on this aspect of training when I went for my commercial. I am a full time cfi and have been for 2 years now so obviously I see this as a potential gold mine but again I want us to stay legal. Any help is much appreciated.
Sunsplitcloud@reddit
It’s not possible for the plane to make money flying the non owners around and you making money doing it. You’ve described a charter without a charter certificate.
The owner of the plane can lease the plane to other people, and those people can find themselves a pilot to fly them, but it cannot only be YOU as the pilot since essentially the owner provides the plane and the pilot for a fee.
Sounds like the owner wants to charter the plane. Go get a part 135 cert and be legal.
caelum52@reddit
What’s odd is that you don’t know this but you’re a CFI, this is covered in commercial training which you should be providing to students and passed yourself
Twarrior913@reddit
All depends on who has operational control and what exact flying you’re doing. If he’s just hiring you as a contract pilot to fly him and his plane around, it’s likely Part 91. The way you describe “a lot of people would like to pay to have me fly them to their places” sounds very much like a charter operation, though.
Are you asking if it’s legal for him to hire you to fly his aircraft? Yes, and you can even advertise yourself as a contract pilot. No, he can pay you to fly anyone he wants to fly (it’s his plane. . .) if he’s charging them for the privilege to do so, that’s likely a charter operation.
Prohibitively expensive, time consuming, and with all respect, out of reach for the type of flying you guys are looking to do.
Flying-Guy-6699@reddit (OP)
Makes sense, so I guess back to question 2, it seems everything in the faa’s eyes is how you word it. But how would you go about making that legal. And what is it legally called since it isn’t a charter operation.
ltcterry@reddit
A key component to a legitimate dry lease is that the customer can use any crew they want. If it even vaguely looks like the expected crew is you then it’s “134.5” not a dry lease.
The FAA is not stupid. And neither are the legitimate 135 businesses who will drop a dime on you in a heartbeat.
But you can hire someone to create a single pilot 135 relatively cheaply. Relatively.
Flying-Guy-6699@reddit (OP)
Thankyou for this. And yes trust me everyone talked out of the dry lease idea. I thought it was legal not barely legal but I was wrong. Any ideas on how much it would run you for the simple single pilot 135? Because I’ve seen that it a lot cheaper than a massive 135 operation but idk what to actually expect in terms of money
ltcterry@reddit
It’s in the several thousand dollar range. It needs to be a marketable airplane.
My charter boss does this for people.
Flying-Guy-6699@reddit (OP)
I mean it’s a sr-22. There’s a decent market for it in my area because a lot of people have shorter trips around the area they want to take
taxcheat@reddit
To put this into context, there was a dude who posted on here a while ago without giving too many details that got busted working for a 134.5 operation.
He lost all his certs and had to start again as a student pilot. I think total time still counts to meet mins, but he had to redo it all. Solo, writtens, checkrides with DPE wait and inflated DPE fees. That's the price of skating too close to the edge.