Email sent – thanks Peter.
This is the contact I had when obtaining a charity flight permission in my N-reg TB20
He was very helpful.
He wanted to see evidence I had flown in UK airspace before, etc, so I pointed him to my website. My guess was that they are not keen on 5hr/year pilots doing charity flights and such.
The charity flight eventually didn’t go ahead because the guy who won the charity flight ticket forgot about it and my CAA permission expired, and by the time I got “his” phone call I was looking at paying the new £70 charge to renew it, so I told him “tough luck”. Anyway he wasn’t the original ticket winner; the winner had apparently sold the ticket to somebody else 
Balliol, I am not sure cost sharing works when the flight is for a commercial purpose (taking photos for a magazine assuming it is for something like that).
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/1428/20140919SummaryOfCatPtAwANO2009PostExemptions.pdf
And the page it is from:
http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=1428&pagetype=90
Think camera ship work would be operated under the cost sharing legislation, no need for AOC.
REGULATION (EC) No 1008/2008:
Without prejudice to any other applicable provisions of
Community, national, or international law, the following
categories of air services shall not be subject to the requirement
to hold a valid operating licence:
(a) air services performed by non-power-driven aircraft and/or
ultralight power-driven aircraft; and
(b) local flights
local flights are defined there as:
‘local flight’ means a flight not involving carriage of
passengers, mail and/or cargo between different airports or
other authorised landing points;
Neil wrote:
If flying is your job you would look a bit of a fool to get done for a flying offence and jeopardise your position with the airline.
Yep, that’s why I’m asking.
But I’d like to get my ducks in order before approaching the authorities.
This is definitely Aerial Work, but is it Public Transport? I wonder if Pilot Magazine have an AOC to do the pictures for their magazine.
Surely this is a situation that calls for a phone conversation with the CAA? If flying is your job you would look a bit of a fool to get done for a flying offence and jeopardise your position with the airline.
I have noticed that most internet forums tend to jump immediately to the position that everything is illegal. The CAA are sometimes more measured, you are taking a photographer, not selling tickets to Majorca.
But I know nothing!
To clarify, I’ve been asked to fly the camera ship for some air-to-air photography, something I’ve done before, a while ago. The Bonanza is a great aircraft for A2A, stable, with a good speed range.
bookworm wrote:
Is the aircraft an EASA aircraft or Annex II?
EASA.
Peter wrote:
What does need an AOC is charter (A to B), sightseeing flights (even A to A), and I know somebody who had to get an AOC for traffic spotting for a local radio station (10 years ago).
The traffic spotting requires an AOC because the operator is being paid to carry a reporter, therefore it’s public transport. If the crew are doing the reporting, it’s aerial work.
