Silvaire wrote:
Never heard of such a thing. Maybe someone else can explain.What you’re describing sounds something like the FAA Medical Certificate procedure, with an AME, if you elect not to use Basic Med.
That was the usual procedure when I was applying for the 61.75 validation. You start at download and electronically file form AC8060-71, get a confirmation letter and have to fill in all your data into your IACRA account. I remember it was quite complex to get all the data in the right sections and I had to do that with the guy doing the test, because some was not at the correct topic.
I agree that it looks quite possible, but now we are in the world of AAIB reports, we should maybe move a little away from speculation like:
The flight was already way into the illegal territory on the grounds of carrying a paying passenger / doing a dodgy charter.
On a public forum probably being read by the gutter press.
We already know that the pigs will write anything without checking their sources (where are the four attempted take-offs, for example?), so tomorrow’s headlines will now have the pilot down with a criminal record and the cartoons will have him driving a Reliant Robin, just because something is “obvious” to Peter.
Maybe David Ibbotson was a massive football fan and was willing to do the flying just to spend time with an idol? Who knows?
I have flown two household names in the last few months for no reward and simply as favours to friends because I wanted to fly and it wasn’t inconvenient.
In my world, people are innocent until proven guilty, and neither the jury nor the bench can be one person’s opinion.
dejwu wrote:
That was the usual procedure when I was applying for the 61.75 validation. You start at download and electronically file form AC8060-71, get a confirmation letter and have to fill in all your data into your IACRA account. I remember it was quite complex to get all the data in the right sections and I had to do that with the guy doing the test, because some was not at the correct topic.
That explains it 
To get your FAA pilot certificate based on a foreign license you have to document validity of the foreign licence under foreign regulations in addition to completing a standard FAA biennial Flight Review – which isn’t actually test, you are not assessed in relation to (any) practical test standards, although it may have felt like it. Then once you’ve cleared that hurdle and attained the FAA pilot certificate, instructor sign-offs for subsequent FAA biennial Flight Reviews and your records of currency for carrying passengers, IFR operations etc are maintained only within your personal control (like any other FAA certificated private pilot) and while you must maintain those personal records to fly legally under the ratings, both the FAA pilot certificate and ratings are non-expiring without further documentation.
Timothy wrote:
Maybe David Ibbotson was a massive football fan and was willing to do the flying just to spend time with an idol? Who knows?
Absolutely, and I think the pilot being evidently unprepared for the flight, and not a Commercial Pilot either, points more towards that possibility than him being a pilot for hire. I actually cannot recall ever knowing personally of an FAA private pilot flying for hire illegally. With an instrument rating in hand, (and actually even without) it seems to me the FAA commercial rating isn’t a particularly onerous additional step if flying to make cash is what you want to do.
The European “how you pay for your next flight” landscape is very different from the US one.
I’ve been on US forums for many years (less these days due to lack of time) and on Usenet forums before that, going back to c. 1995. One striking thing is that in the US the topic of cost sharing almost never comes up. This could be that everybody is actually cost sharing flights but doesn’t talk about it because the FAA rules are so tight (the common purpose rule particularly so) but frankly I doubt it; I think US pilots are just pretty relaxed about it. Whereas here in Europe things are much tighter, particularly on the club/rental scene, and a large % of pilots are really struggling to hang in there financially. Most club/rental pilots here will not fly at all unless they can cost share.
A CPL makes no difference here in Europe, if the flight is A-to-B charter carrying a person on a flight in respect of which a payment has been made. One needs an AOC also. A CPL alone is worthless in Europe, in the context of carrying people. I vaguely recollect some old concession on charity flights where a JAA CPL increased the max radius from base.
Peter wrote:
A CPL makes no difference here in Europe, if the flight is A-to-B charter carrying a person on a flight in respect of which a payment has been made. One needs an AOC also. A CPL alone is worthless in Europe, in the context of carrying people. I vaguely recollect some old concession on charity flights where a JAA CPL increased the max radius from base.
Good point. Thanks.
Correction to my earlier post: a CPL alone (no AOC) is usable in a “paid pilot flying the aircraft owner around” scenario. This is how most bizjet ops are done around the world, though obviously you need an IR as well.
Not applicable to this scenario however, unless the footballer, or his club manager, etc, owned the plane, and what I believe is the guy in question (who arranged the transport) has already publicly denied owning it.
The AAIB report doesn’t show the radar track before it started to go wrong, but to me it doesn’t look like autopilot was being used. If things start to go bad, the last thing you do is disconnect the AP and instantly jack up your workload by a factor of 10. Then you have to ask why no AP…
I think the AAIB should stay well out of the legality of the flight. It has no bearing on the cause of the accident in this case (except in the trivial sense that the flight should not have happened if it was illegal)
Agree with Cobalt.
Licensing irregularities cannot make an aircraft crash.
I think a private pilot being subject to commercial pressures to complete a low altitude, VFR flight, in winter, at night, over the Channel, outside of any sort of regulated structure could well be relevant to the accident.
The AAIB will only focus on the accident and contributory factors but I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss this aspect in that sense.
But time will clearly tell. They will surely work out what happened given the likelihood of email/text/whatsapp etc.
Looking at the immediate and root causes of the accident should indeed be the AAIB’s only concern. It would then be up to others to investigate and prosecute as necessary regarding any illegality. The rule makers may also factor the findings into any future change in rules.
However in this case the AAIB has gone to great lengths to discuss the rules. I suspect they have felt forced to do this due to the extreme high profile of this accident, the very complicated circumstances and the scrutiny their report will get. By not exploring every legal avenue in their report they would leave the door wide open for the press to guess at filling in the blanks and implying incorrectly that it was reported by the AAIB. The AAIB is in a difficult position and I bet that report was reviewed by many people and edited countless times.
