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AOPA is warning flight instructors they can’t provide instruction for free in limited, experimental and primary category aircraft without risking sanctions from the FAA. AOPA says the agency has gone after CFIs who have given instruction as volunteers, citing regs that say money doesn’t have to change hands for them to have received “compensation.” According to AOPA, FAA prosecutors told a court that Advisory Circular 61-142, which covers expense sharing in private aircraft, says such intangibles as goodwill and the prospect of future rewards count as “compensation.”
The AC says sitting in the right seat helping out the pilot in the left seat “does not require a profit, profit motive, or actual payment of funds. … Accumulation of flight time and goodwill in the form of expected future economic benefits can be considered compensation. Furthermore, the pilot does not have to be the party receiving the compensation; compensation occurs even if a
GA Groups: FAA Flight Training Policy Changes Threaten Safety
GA Groups: FAA Flight Training Policy Changes Threaten Safety
Thom Richard s beautiful TP-40 Warhawk, American Dream, on its take off run. (photo by George Land)
PRESS RELEASE – EAA AVIATION CENTER, OSHKOSH, Wisconsin (June 9, 2021) Federal Aviation Administration policy interpretations on flight training arising out of a recent court decision will have a chilling impact on general aviation safety and create a bureaucratic nightmare for pilots and federal officials, according to numerous GA groups including the Experimental Aircraft Association.
In a letter sent to FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson, the groups called the policy changes “unnecessary and unwarranted guidelines based on irrational legal positions” and called for the FAA to immediately revise the policy to prevent degraded safety in flight training and unnecessary legal battles. The combined groups noted that they are “prepared to use all avail
- May 26, 2021, 11:51 AM
The FAA s new rule calls for operators, including corporate flight departments, to load in current pilot records within a year. (Photo: Chad Trautvetter/AIN)
The FAA released its final electronic Pilot Records Database (PRD) rule today, scaling back some of the reporting requirements but despite an outpouring of opposition maintaining corporate flight departments in the applicability.
Released a little more than a year after first proposed, the final rule requires air carriers, public operators, air tour operators, fractional ownerships, and corporate flight departments to enter “relevant” data on pilot employees into the PRD and calls on air carriers and certain other entities, including fractional and air tour operators, to access pilot records for hiring candidates. The rule provides a year for operators to load current pilot records into the database, two years for historical records dating back to 2015, and three years for all historical record