Does this need the DfT permission, if no money (or other valuable consideration) is paid to the pilot?
The pilot has an FAA CPL/IR and a UK PPL/IR.
The flight would be A to A but more than 25nm radius.
You can do it as long as the last maintance was carried out no more than 50h ago by a licences engineer. You also need to get a permission from the CAA. Have a word with them as my memory is a bit faded.
Ben
Also Official Record Series 4 No 958: " 4) For the purposes of this permission, a Registered Charity includes Exempt and Excepted charities as defined by the Charity Commission. Small Charities as defined by the Charity Commission are not included in this permission."
Charity Flights are conducted under Article 266 which is an exemption to allow such flights to be classified as private flights when they would otherwise be defined as Public Transport Flights. In this respect the UK ANO only applies to UK registered aircraft
Article 223 gives specific requirements for Non UK and Non EASA aircraft:
223 (1) An aircraft registered in a Contracting State other than the United Kingdom, or in a
foreign country, must not take on board or discharge any passengers or cargo in the
United Kingdom where valuable consideration is given or promised for the carriage of
such persons or cargo unless it complies with paragraph (2) or is exempt from this
paragraph under paragraph (3).
(2) This paragraph is complied with if the operator or the charterer of the aircraft or the
Government of the country in which the aircraft is registered has been granted a
permission by the Secretary of State under this article and any conditions subject to
which such permission may be subject are complied with.
Thank you Tumbleweed.
So if I read it correctly I do need the DfT permission.
I emailed them yesterday but they haven’t replied, which is unusual for them. I am also checking the insurance.
Update:
You do need the DfT permission for a charity flight in an N-reg.
You also need a CAA permission if the radius is over 25nm – as per the AIC mentioned above which does apply to N-regs.
Both permissions can be obtained.
Insurance is not an issue providing (according to mine – Haywards) the pilot is not getting any money himself.
I have both permissions now.
DfT was quick and very helpful as always. The CAA > 25nm radius permission took much longer. Lots of restrictions from the CAA e.g.
In reality one would do this only on a nice day otherwise it is no fun for passengers. I went round there the other day in ~25kt surface wind and it was pretty rough, as one would always get < about 3000ft.
The CAA also wanted “logbook” evidence I have flown the route, as far as the Isle of Wight 
So I sent them my trip reports URL and that was OK.
It took loads of phone calls and faxes to arrange this. On this occassion, the DfT never received any emails from my email address (totally blacklisted, somehow, regardless of which SMTP server I used) but faxes worked, which (like me) they get delivered as PDFs
The problem is that (see other thread) if the CAA starts charging say £75 for the Article 223 permission, almost nobody is going to bother doing charity flights in a foreign reg plane. I am more than happy to do a charity flight in my plane, because I fly once a week even just for currency, but I am not going to pay an extra £75, or rent a (usually shagged) G-reg for it.
I can completely understand the CAA estimates £200k+ per year for doing the Art 223 permissions 
What is the reason for getting a permit for a “charity flight”? What is it actually? Haven’t heard of it in Sweden… A tax deductible flight?
A “charity” is an organisation which supposedly raises money for good causes (and isn’t supposed to spend it all in perks for its executives ). It is a UK corporate structure, like a Limited Company etc but with different accounting rules and various tax concessions.
A charity flight is generally one where somebody donates money to an organisation which has the charitable status, in return for which somebody else (me in this case) agrees to take the donor for a flight. In my case the charity was this one.
So I don’t get any money for it, but money is “changing hands in connection with the flight”, and that alone makes the flight classified as “aerial work” in UK regs, and aerial work in non-G-reg aircraft requires the permission of the Secretary of State – currently the Department for Transport, soon moving to the CAA (who will sell the permissions from a website, a bit like the catholic church sells indulgences) as per the other thread.
Has anyone had any experience of getting permission to do this in a PtF aircraft? Based at EGHH I can do the Isle of Wight or Jurassic Coast without exceeding the 25nm rule. With our 16:1 glide ratio, I am much happier over water than in a shagged rental. Combined with a 38knt Vs, 200m landing distance and ballistic parachute, arguably makes it a safer proposition than a lot of club aircraft.
If anyone’s had any luck doing this I’d love to hear.
