Originally Posted by mistarose
Okay, I am sitting down at my Commercial EOC Oral exam, and the guy asks me, "If some random guy walks in with an airplane and wants a commercial pilot to fly him and his airplane back home because he does not like flying at night, I offer to take him.
Is this operation legal or not? The way I have been taught at my flight school up here in Washington, is too determine who has "operational control," in this case I do not have operational control, the guy with the airplane is arranging everything, im just flying. Is this right or wrong, its enough to interpret the regs.
Also I have been told that our Chief Flight Instructor wants too hear that this IS a legal operation, not requiring a 135 cert...
Sounds legal to me, it's done all the time. Really, if you don't provide the airplane and the customer does provide the airplane, common carriage would be a real stretch. The only way to run afoul of that would be if the customer has customers of his own or employees who need to ride along on a regular basis.
If he's a rated pilot but uncomfortable with the conditions of a specific flight it is TOTALLY legit for a CFI to go along as a paid safety pilot/baby-sitter. The FAA would far prefer that than another "continued VFR into IMC" event.