100hr insp + non profit flying clubs

[DanH]

In the U.S., does 91.409(b) required 100hr inspections for a non-profit
flying club?
Here are some relevant details:

A club (a non-profit corporation in the eyes of the state) is formed
specifically as a flying club, and has no purpose other than to provide
its members with aircraft for private flying and training (commercial
use is specifically prohibited, other than training).

Members are charged monthly dues, and an hourly rate for the planes when
they are flying; all funds are used to maintain the planes. Members are
listed on the insurance policy, and members vote to decide if a plane is
bought or sold; most other duties for maintaining the planes and club
are delegated to a Board of Directors selected by the membership.

If the club ever disbands, the aircraft are to be sold and the funds put
in an account to start a new flying club. I think this point would make
the status of the members of the club who 'rent' the plane different
than a member of a private partnership where each member owns a share of
the plane (at least as far as 409(b) is concerned). I'm not convinced
of this yet, but I would like to hear what others think.

I know this topic has been discussed in this group before, and I thought
it was clear that a club like this is *not* required to have 100hr
inspections. But I have never seen the specifics of the non-profit
corporation addressed for 409(b).

I would like to hear your opinions and thoughts on this. Should the
club send these details to the FAA for a specific ruling?

Thank you!
DanH

[Paul Tomblin]

In a previous article, DanH > said:
>In the U.S., does 91.409(b) required 100hr inspections for a non-profit
>flying club?

No.


--
Paul Tomblin > http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
I use shell scripts at ork. Some cow-orkers refuse to touch them, their
excuse is usually "I don't understand perl". Their fear of perl is such
that all things unknown are also perl. -- Andrew Dalgleish

[Roger Long]

We've looked into this in our club which sounds very much like the one you
describe. Although, under the laws of our state, we can only hold stock and
ownership in the organization that owns the aircraft, the FSDO and the
insurance company have told me that they consider us owners of the aircraft.
This lets members (we restrict which ones) perform Annex 43 Preventative
Maintenance functions. Basically, we are each treated the same as if we
were an individual owner.

If you buy a plane to do your flight training in and hire a CFI to teach
you, you do not have to put in on a 100 hour inspection cycle. If you let a
friend use if for training, then it does because it is being "provided" for
training. The key point is whether the person receiving the instruction is
an owner.

Both the FSDO and insurance company have indicated that they would look at
it differently if someone owned an airplane and sold 1% shares to make
students "owners". Everyone needs to be equal in the deal (or roughly, our
buy in has gone up over the years but this doesn't appear to be a problem.
The FAA and the insurance company are just looking for obvious scams.).

We are careful that our CFI's, who are also members, understand that they
can not conduct any flight training in the aircraft unless the student is a
member of the club. Non-member CFI's can provide instructions such as BFR's
but only to members. Primary flight training must be from member (CFI) to
member (student). We could let a non member CFI's train students and not
run afoul of the 100 hour inspection as long as the students were members
but we want more oversight and control when extensive training of new pilots
is involved.

We are probably going to go to approximately 100 hour inspections anyway.
We already do the 100 hour on the engine because the 250 - 300 hours a year
we fly is too much to let an engine go without that attention. Adding the
full inspection will help us spot problems earlier. We will do an annual
twice a year and have it signed off as such. This will give us more
flexibility to work into shop schedules, stretches of lousy weather, etc.

--
Roger Long