On Nov 12, 4:17*pm, Tony wrote:
I just came across this letter on another forum. *I think we just
discussed this but it turns out that compensation is compensation and
the FAA is not in the business of delineating between "logging time"
compensation and "money" compensation.

http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/...s/agc/pol_adju...

Everyone take a deep breath and slow down. This FAA legal opinion is
not a model of clarity but is actually good news for the soaring
community. The key sentence is near the end of page two, where the
FAA finally gets to the bottom line and states: "Accordingly, Section
61.113(g) permits a private pilot to act as PIC for compensation or
hire of an aircraft towing a glider or unpowered ultralight vehicle."

There is a lot of history behind SSA's inquiry to the FAA on this
point, but what you all need to understand is that we were trying to
get the FAA to agree that soaring contests could reimburse volunteer
towpilots for their expenses (meals, hotel room) even if the towpilots
only had a private rating. The FAA agreed with us in a roundabout way
by concluding that -- even if reimbursement was considered
compensation -- it was not prohibited by the FAR as under the current
version of the FARs private rated towpilots can be compensated. So,
the FAA opinion letter is good news for the soaring community.

However, there is another voice to be heard from on this issue and
that is the insurance carriers. SSA is in the process of seeing if
our group insurance carrier -- on the basis of this FAA letter -- will
agree to insure contest tows where the towplane is piloted by a
private rated towpilot where the towpilot receives some form of
"compensation" -- whether it is wages or just expense remibursement.

Bottom line: nothing bad has happened and possibly something really
good. But we are still sorting it out and it is all a bit premature
to be talking about what this means. We will publish something on
this in Soaring magazine and on the SSA website when we get a clearer
picture of how the FAA and the insurance situations all fit together.

Phil Umphres, Chairman,
The Soaring Society of America, Inc.