This is definitely not instruction. It is a flight meant to introduce someone to the world of small aeroplanes, so if a “passenger” goes on multiple introductory flights, it would not look right. Besides, it can only be a “marginal activity” in the organisation.
Someone responsible for the pilots and the safety of the flights has to be appointed in the club, and the CAA can of course ask that person for details.
The difference between this and cost sharing is that here the pilot does not have to pay his share.
If you believe in conspiracies, this could rather be one against commercial sight-seeing flights.
Peter wrote:
However I have difficulty getting my head around this in the real situation of a flying school, as I know them. They rarely have (or want) PPL holders of some experience hanging around to start with.
Schools and clubs are quite different though. Where I learned to fly, at any given time, there could be as many as half a dozen experienced pilots sitting around chewing the cud.
In the UK, how exactly does a school differ from a club, in terms of the financial structure?
AFAIK French clubs have tax concessions, and various other things which e.g. an ATPL ATO would not have.
You think too much business and not enough club. These introduction flights are around german clubs for ages and to my knowledge the Germans insisted on being able to carry on which led to the change of EASA ruling. Many people interested in flight do get their last motivation to start flight training through these flights. Often vouchers for those flights are raffled in local events and the local tourism office sells those, too. It is crucial to lobbying for small GA within the local population. Last year we did a day of flights (sponsored by the pilots and other club members in this case) with children who suffer from cancer and their families and they had a day of fun far from their usual routines.
We try to ensure that especially the new pilots perform those flights, or those members who have the lower “flying budgets”. In our view it is vitally important for new pilots to gain experience fast, before the effect of training deteriorates. So any call for minimum PIC time seems to undermine the beneficial effect on new pilots. (The only accident we had with those flights was by an experienced old pilot with thousands of flight hours who simply overrated his skill and showed bad judgement…)
Peter wrote:
In the UK, how exactly does a school differ from a club, in terms of the financial structure?
Probably more about ethos than financials I guess.
Regardless of any incentives (I’m not sure there are any?), there will obviously be less emphasis on making a profit. A lot of stuff is done by volunteers as well.
It turns out that we had a thread on this before – here – and this is actually an EASA proposal, from about a year ago.
There are some good posts in that thread. For example there is no such thing as a “trial lesson” – it is simply a flight implementing a specific PPL exercise number and taking advantage of the fact that the student doesn’t need to have a medical or any exam passes at that stage.
Interesting angles from outside the UK…
FWIW, as a businessman myself, I don’t get the “there will obviously be less emphasis on making a profit” because any small company doesn’t make a profit anyway – because the owner draws out all taxable profit as a salary, and/or draws out all distributable profit (limited only by cash in bank) as a dividend 
And you have to make a “profit” (in the sense of making a “surplus” rather than talking in terms of taxation e.g. a taxable profit subject to corporation tax) otherwise you will eventually go bust because there will be no cash left in the drawer to buy the tea bags with.
Jojo wrote:
Sounds very much like the “baptêmes” traditionally given in French aéroclubs?.
It’s exactly that. In the regulation it appears as “vol de découverte” in the French translation but “baptême” would be more familiar to most readers and was exactly what it was intended to continue to allow under EU rules. In the UK, it means that the pretence of a “trial lesson” can be abandoned — not to say that a trial lesson is a bad thing, but if it’s going to be a lesson it should be a lesson, and a baptême can be a baptême.
stevelup wrote:
This is totally different to cost sharing?1) The pilot cannot be paid, not one penny.
2) The flight has to be performed by an EASA approved ATO or ‘through an organisation created to promote aerial sport or leisure aviation’
Reading the IN, there is a lot of vagueness in this which the CAA clearly struggled with somewhat (they are not dumb).
The pilot cannot be paid, not one penny
Hmmmmm…. what if the non-FI pilot happens to be on the payroll of the school/club e.g. works as a toilet cleaner?
That would limit it to PPL holders volunteering at the establishment.
As I read it, an aircraft owner (not in any way related to the school/club i.e. not a member for example) could take some people up for a local flight, for which a school/club (but not the pilot, directly, though presumably he can be an employee of the school/club) gets paid. Does, say in France, such a pilot (and the passengers?) have to be a club member? I know club membership is often used to insure the person – this is standard in sports such as water-skiing where e.g. day membership is available. But I don’t think UK schools/clubs use membership to link-in insurance.
Also interesting that the IN allows e.g. N-regs to be used for the intro flights. I wonder what happens about the Aerial Work side of things then? The IN doesn’t mention that and merely says the State of Registry needs to allow it. Would the FAA have a problem with a 3rd party getting paid for a flight? I posted it here
huv wrote:
The difference between this and cost sharing is that here the pilot does not have to pay his share.
And you (the organisation) can actually make profit.
PS:
Peter wrote:
As I read it, an aircraft owner (not in any way related to the school/club i.e. not a member for example) could take some people up for a local flight, for which a school/club (but not the pilot, directly, though presumably he can be an employee of the school/club) gets paid.
I think you missed the bit where the aircraft has to be owned or dry leased by that school/ club.
