It is drifting to another topic, but cost sharing platform should: -request CPL
What difference CPL makes? This guy most probably had CPL (and most probably MEP, based on posts about MEP training, I don’t know about IR – probably not) and still he decided to dispatch with en-route weather conditions beyond aircraft capabilities.
From my point of view, it prevents that less than 200h pilots gets in these type of flights. It requires definitely some serious and experience, and even if CPL is “just” an enforced PPL, it filters the ones that don’t want to be professional about flying. Unfortunately, it doesn’t put this kind or reckless pilots apart, but it just filters the less serious.
In my previous club, we had experience with 1 very stupid one, that would never goes to CPL. He’s been busted by DGAC and Club and lost his license, but he could also have crashed and not report damaged planes because of his behavior.
What a sad story.
My wishes to their families.
greg_mp wrote:
From my point of view, it prevents that less than 200h pilots gets in these type of flights. It requires definitely some serious and experience, and even if CPL is “just” an enforced PPL, it filters the ones that don’t want to be professional about flying. Unfortunately, it doesn’t put this kind or reckless pilots apart, but it just filters the less serious.
Well..200Hrs doesn’t say anything…..200Hrs of what? Towing gliders or flying around the local church on a Sunday in CAVOK doesn’t make you proficient in ENR flying. I would suggest that cost sharing flights advertised on sites a la Wingly beyond 50Nm from ADEP requires an IFR rating..and proven experience of several over 300Nm flights.
Please no more regulation. Reckless pilots are going to be reckless pilots, whatever the rules.
Regarding Wingly in France. Both FFA and DGAC were anti in the early days. There is now an agreement in place between Wingly, DGAC, and FFA. I don’t know whether or not there are any agreements outside that with Wingly.
I do occasionally do cost sharing flights but other than paying my share into the club I don’t know how they charge.
The cost sharing flights that I do with non club members are basically longer versions of discovery flights. The flights are touristic and A to A. Discovery flights are limited to 20 or 30 minutes but the extra time we can do on a shared flight means we can make a round trip a bit further afield.
I am not really kean to do shared A to B flights with strangers as they are usually more pressured to do things on a particular day and at a particular time
Please no more regulation. Reckless pilots are going to be reckless pilots, whatever the rules.
I don’t know. I’m not a fan of regulation, and I’m astounded that in this case Europe is more liberal than the US. Hard to think of another instance of that.
Regulation is primarily to protect third parties. The FAA is quite happy to let you go kill yourself, but makes it harder to kill passengers (e.g. requiring landing currency), substantially harder to kill only slightly-involved passengers (Part 135, air taxi) and extremely hard to kill total strangers (Part 121, airlines).
I think the FAA has it just about right. If you’re not a commercial operator, you can cost-share but you can’t “hold out” and you can’t run what amounts to a Part 135 (air taxi) operation. To be a commercial operator (Part 135) requires not only a CPL (and hence an IR) but also a whole bunch of regulatory supervision. There is one small exemption to this, which is that you can do local sightseeing flights (A→A only, <50 miles) under Part 91 – but even then it takes serious effort to get the required permit. (I know someone who tried for years and never made it). And the pilot still needs a CPL.
So… you can take your mates for a joy-ride, cost-sharing. It is on the hairy edge to say “I’m going to xxx on Saturday, does anyone want to come with me” – though if you put it on FB that is definitely “holding out”. Saying “hey, I’m a pilot. I’ll take you wherever you want to go” – whether on FB or something a lot less public – is a definite no-no.
Europe is more liberal than the US
I think, yes, that is true, but it is in reality irrelevant since in the US cost sharing “otherwise no flight” is clearly rare, whereas in Europe it is really common. So the US system doesn’t get exercised much.
johnh wrote:
I think the FAA has it just about right
I fully agree with your post. That’s why I suggested the 50 Mile restriction as the FAA has under part 91. I am still baffled sometimes by the idiosyncrasies of European aviation regulation.
The problem is that the European idiosyncrasies you write about are, in this case, those requested by GA pilots. If pilots didn’t want Wingly it wouldn’t exist would it.
Whatever the FAA regs are I would bet that there are pilots who break their regulations, also.
What further regulation in this area would suggest is that GA pilots cannot be trusted to know that they are being irresponsible.
It has always been the case that you can cost share in France, provided that a) you pay the appropriate share and b) you don’t advertise for passengers.
It is this 2nd area that Wingly has changed and as I wrote the organisation of clubs, through which also organises insurance and a get you home service were against Wingly as was the DGAC until an arrangement could be made to ensure that the passengers know the risks, before a flight and to ensure that it doesn’t become a service which is more suited to an AOC..
@johnh has it right. IMHO the issue isn’t the A > A flight around the local village to see one’s house from above or the beautiful coastline of the Côte d’Azur but the flights like the one we are discussing here, which really is air taxi. There’s a different skill set involved flying A > B. Planning, obtaining a wx briefing, W&B, etc. The biggest difference, however, may be the pressure to execute the flight. It’s easy to postpone a local bimble if the weather doesn’t cooperate, much harder for an international flight across the Alps. I’m actually somewhat surprised this happened on the outbound leg, he could have canceled. Now imagine the pressure for the (in this case hypothetical) flight back.
As an aside: there certainly is cost sharing happening in the US, but it’s mainly in two areas:
- flying with friends
- among students or freshly minted pilots for hour building towards the CPL or ATPL requirements.
I’m sure illegal air taxi flights like this one do happen, but they seem to be rare.
