Note - Actual discussion is after the rant. You can avoid the rant by
skipping down to the part after the large "Argh".


-------
Oh boy if you didn't step right onto two of my favorite, all time, land
mines - so called "case law" and administrative regulations with the power
of law.

Case Law in any other profession would be held up to be a monopolistic
practice by a conspiracy of thieves calling their gang by the ominous name -
"The Bar".

Seriously, couldn't the legislative branch get off its lazy arse and rewrite
the laws so that they either clearly state what the case law reflects, or in
such a way as to negate the case law in instances of judicial activism or
wrong headedness? Isn't this the very heart of their job? Legislature has
law in its root for Pete's sake.

Instead we now have the legilature throwing out minimum sentencing
guidelines and other crazy crap because they can't manage to get a
reasonably competent judicial branch that is willing to do its job.

As for Adminstrative Law - if you hired someone to take care of your most
precious belongings, and they delegated that responsibility to someone you
never heard of and didn't even pay much attention to what they were doing,
you would fire, if not shoot them. Unless they are a legislator, in which
case, you reelect them!

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!

That's two rants in one night, sorry
---------

Anyway, you have a reasonably good way to look at this, and you are probably
right. If I were Mark, I would avoid compensation as well. In any case, it
would appear that most of the examples where people got nailed they made the
mistake of opening their big mouths or having obvious motives.

So lets say its too late, that he did ask for pro rata gas.

Here is what I say Mark should do (if his lawyer agrees). He should claim
that it was his desire to help his friends get the plane back. That may be
a weak excuse for commonality of purpose, but only if he had another
purpose. Now, let the FAA prove that he was doing it build hours. If its
his plane, he likely doesn't need the hours, so they are on shakey ground
themselves. If he states that it was his purpose to retrieve the plane,
then the FAA is in the position of PROVING that he had an alterior motive.
LET THEM PROVE IT!

The guy with the film crew was obviously trying to lessen the cost of his
lesson.

The guy with the ambulance got off in the end because his only purpose was
to help achieve the same mission that the mechanic and pilot were working
on. The fact that they were paid for their participation would be
incidental business.

The guy in the party example was transporting people who had paid to be
somewhere, so they were paying passengers, and thats gotta be a violation.

The guy with the lease dodge was too smart for his own good. He was
obviously doing what the laws were written to regulate in the first place.

To me, the closest case is the ambulance one, but that guy took no money, so
you need to determine how important the money was in the decision to grant
the appeal.




"John T" wrote in message
ws.com...
"Geoffrey Barnes" wrote in message
k.net

On Monday, our club A&P cashed in some favors with a client of his,
who we'll call "Mark". Mark agreed to take the mechanic to the
remote airport in Mark's personal aircraft. If it maters, Mark is
not a member of the flying club, but is friendly with several of our
members and was willing to help us out. Once all of this was
arranged, Paul was asked if he would like to go along on the trip,
but he said he was unable to do so. So instead, one of our club CFIs
and another club member ("Luke") -- who were scheduled to do some
instrument training that evening in a different aircraft -- agreed to
go along and fly the 182 back after the mechanic got things squared
away.


OK, after helpful tips from George Patterson and Todd Pattist, I have come
to the conclusion that my understanding of 61.113 was indeed wrong.
(Sidebar: I don't have any of my old FAR/AIMs. Did 61.118 change to
61.113
in a re-write of 14CFR?)

For those with AOPA membership (thanks to George's tip):
http://www.aopa.org/members/files/pi...04/pc0403.html
http://www.aopa.org/members/files/pi...95/pc9503.html

In the 2004 article, the pilot was found to have been compensated due to
the
"greasing of the wheels" for possible future work even though the pilot
was
not paid directly for the 4 flights.

The 1995 article references a pilot flying skydivers to altitude. The
pilot
argued that he wasn't operating for a profit, but the Board rejected his
arguments since the skydivers paid a share of the flight costs purely to
achieve altitude for jumps.

These articles referred to NTSB cases posted by Todd. Based on Todd's
helpful links, I found a couple other interesting findings including:

http://www.ntsb.gov/alj/O_n_O/docs/aviation/4791.PDF
Pilot flew a mechanic and owner to repair a helicopter. Pilot accepted no
money (not even shared expenses) but was charged with violating 61.118
(now
61.113??). The NTSB upheld the pilot's appeal and the pilot was not
sanctioned because he not only used his own aircraft at his own expense,
but
he did so without the intent to generate favor or goodwill with the
passengers.

So, the FAR still doesn't reflect the "common purpose" phrase implemented
as
law by the NTSB in 1994.

And there's the rub. There is *case law* implementing the "common
purpose"
phrase, but no regulation. This begs the question: How are pilots
supposed
to know and follow the rules when the rules aren't published? The
FAA/NTSB
may argue that case law is published (after all, I found it online), but
common sense suggests that 14CFR should be the single source for these
rules. If case law changes the meaning of a given regulation, then the
regulation should be changed. That's just my opinion and I know all about
the "everybody has one" rule.

The "common purpose" definition appears to hinge on whether the
passenger's
purpose is to move from Point A to Point B (say, home airport to stranded
airplane).

As such, this new understanding I have of this case law implies that
"Mark"
is really setting himself up for enforcement action by the FAA. His
*only*
hope of avoiding sanction (assuming the local FSDO investigates), is to
accept absolutely no payment for this flight - and even that isn't going
to
assure him of no action taken against him (see the "favor and goodwill"
phrases used by the NTSB and relate that to "cashed in some favors" in the
OP).

For pilots finding themselves in this situation (needing to retrieve a
plane
from another location due to maintenance, weahter, etc.), either hire an
air
taxi/charter service or hitch a ride from a pilot already going to your
destination. Pilots providing the ride should either have prior plans to
go
to the destination airport or accept absolutely no form of compensation
(no
shared expenses, favor or goodwill).

It still sounds asinine to me, but the FAA/NTSB appear to be very
forcefully
drawing the line between air charter and non-charter flying. Accepting a
fellow pilot's request for help is quite a different animal from, say,
flying an acquaintance to visit family. Again, just my opinion.

--
John T
http://tknowlogy.com/TknoFlyer
http://www.pocketgear.com/products_s...veloperid=4415
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