Graham wrote:
‘Cost-sharing’ is another issue like this, where I don’t believe the concept has any proper basis in law and therefore attempts to regulate are woolly, inconsistent and largely unwarranted. What is a ‘cost-sharing’ flight? In order to define it, one would also have to define what is not a cost-sharing flight and if we follow the regulator’s logic that presumably means a flight where a private pilot pays the entire cost of that flight.
You mean no proper basis in UK law? It has a clear basis in EU law where it is well defined.
@Airborne_Again, how is it defined?
How does EU law treat a situation where none of the cost is picked up by a pilot or passengers?
Does it define any sort of default situation where a private pilot is assumed to have to pay the costs of their flying?
https://www.caa.co.uk/General-aviation/Aircraft-ownership-and-maintenance/Cost-sharing-flights/ local copy
There is no requirement as a PPL to pay for your flying but you cannot profit – eg if you were offered a free ferry flight for maintenance at a club or a mate let you fly his aircraft for free, you couldn’t then ‘cost share’ ie charge a passenger for coming along
I understand the PMD restriction on cost sharing is to
stop Wingly type operations where the passengers are unlikely to have an idea of the nature of the operation
That’s somewhat amusing…
The UK CAA were forced to swallow could not block wingly-type (openly advertised to all) cost sharing on an EASA PPL (with Class 2 medical, implicitly) so they block it on the PMD in the knowledge that eventually most UK pilots will end up on the PMD because it avoids AME involvement 
Surely that is worthy of Mr Cummings I would love to have been a fly on the wall at the CAA when they came up with that.
Graham wrote:
how is [cost sharing] defined?How does EU law treat a situation where none of the cost is picked up by a pilot or passengers?
Does it define any sort of default situation where a private pilot is assumed to have to pay the costs of their flying?
Air ops regulation article 6, item 4a: By way of derogation from Article 5(1) and (6), the following operations with other-than-complex motor-powered aeroplanes and helicopters, may be conducted in accordance with Annex VII:
(a) cost-shared flights by private individuals, on the condition that the direct cost is shared by all the occupants of the aircraft, pilot included and the number of persons sharing the direct costs is limited to six
GM2 to Article 6.4a (a) and (b): ‘Direct cost’ means the cost directly incurred in relation to a flight, e.g. fuel, airfield charges, rental fee
for an aircraft. There is no element of profit
That doesn’t define what a ‘cost-shared flight’ is, it just gives some rules about what cost-sharing is allowed.
The CAA piece posted by @MattL is riddled with inconsistency and poor drafting. It starts off saying costs can only be shared between people in the aeroplane, which would appear to contradict the idea that a third party can cover costs.
Later on it has a wonderful sentence about pilots having an obligation not to fly if conditions are ‘unsuitable’. I am unable to recall any formal definition of ‘unsuitable’ conditions from my training, so how is one supposed to interpret that?
An organisation cannot issue regulation and guidance with such woolly and ill-defined wording and expect to be taken seriously.
This is what concerns me about Brexit and UK aviation. Recently, EASA has been able to rein in the excesses of “CAA yellowjackets”, but come January, these kinds of people will be free to do all sorts of “freestyle regulating” (mostly restrictive, of course!) without any kind of effective oversight.
MattL wrote:
You haven’t been able to fly an EASA aircraft on a U.K. national PPL or NPPL since April this year
You mean an aircraft subject to UK jurisdiction. Denmark automatically validates an ICAO Annex 1-compliant UK licence for non-commercial operations by visitors to Denmark in Danish EASA aircraft. Denmark AIC A 2017: 05/17 (link).
Indeed; I simply don’t get how the CAA can prevent the UK National PPL (which is an ICAO PPL) from being used on any G-reg aircraft.
Or, as Qalupalik shows above, on any aircraft anywhere whose State of Registry chooses to accept an ICAO PPL. The FAA, under 61.3, is another example; it would be hilarious that you can fly an N-reg TB20 on a UK National PPL (in the UK) but could not fly a G-reg TB20.
It is prevented by the Basic and Aircrew Regulations and the doctrine of supremacy of EU law. The supremacy of the retained versions of those regulations will continue after implementation period completion day although the UK will be free to make whatever amendments it wants. You can read more in section 7 of this Commons briefing paper number 08375 of 30 Jul 2019 by Graeme Cowie: The status of “retained EU law” (link).
