Donating a Flight to Charity (PIREP)

My PIREP on the process of donating a flight to charity as a private
pilot:

I have read and been involved in a couple of threads regarding private
pilots wanting to donate local flights to charities, such as a church
auction or fund-raiser. The summary I seemed to get from each thread
was that you needed to contact your local FSDO, and you might be
subjected to a drug test. Wanting to donate my flight services as a
fund-raiser for our church, I decided to follow-through with this, to
see where it would go...

I contacted the local FSDO in Sacramento, and was "greeted" (not
hardly) by someone who think I was a complete moron for asking such a
question. After telling him that every indication and understanding I
had about the process led me to believe that I had to contact my FSDO
at least a couple of weeks prior to the flight, and that I might even
be required to take a drug test. His basic response was, "What do I
care, if you want to donate a flight to charity? Seems like you need
to contact a tax professional, rather than me". I informed him that
his suggestion of my consulting a tax professional was valid, but that
it had nothing to do with FAA regulations, or anything requiring me to
contact a local FSDO for the purposes of exercising such a flight. His
response... "I don't see any reason why you couldn't do that" (with
no suggestion of my requirement to get permission)

So.... For anybody considering such a flight, I would still suggest
contacting your local FSDO, because everything I have read has lead me
to believe that to be the proper protocol. However, this was my
experience. :-(


Best regards,
Todd