Aviathor wrote:
AFAIU the purpose of the flight should be the same, ie. I would do the flight regardless cost sharing.
AFAIK those are FAA rules. And it doesn’t matter whether we would fly together without cost sharing. For example, if I travel there to give a speech and my friend wants to hitch a ride to visit his grandparents, we can’t cost share. At least that is how I understood it.
The FAA does not have a requirement that the flight would be done whether it was cost shared or not. Apart from being unenforceable, it would kill (IMHO) most of the non-100%-owner GA activity in Europe.
The FAA has a “common purpose” rule – previous threads e.g. here and here and those are definitely worth reading, not least because the FAA Chief Counsel has ruled on this multiple times recently.
(I suspect a lot less cost sharing goes on in the USA, due to this rule, or maybe pilots there just don’t discuss the topic openly).
There are many cost sharing threads on EuroGA (do a search on cost sharing) but e.g. this one shows the typical rearguard action taken by one national CAA which thinks the EASA regs makes virtual public transport a bit too easy. Of course it doesn’t enable the pilot to actually make a profit but it does get very close in situations where the pilot is happy to fly for his/her enjoyment, and no doubt many in the establishment, plus most AOC/charter operators, will see it that way.
My view is that working within the law is obviously OK but in this case the regs do enable people to get really close to public transport, which enables some very provocative behaviour and that is likely to bring about a partial reverse in the current regs. France has gone to the extreme (assisted by the often patronising setup at the flying club level, which enables all kinds of FUD to become “law”) but you can be sure that all the other CAAs are looking at it closely. Obviously, having an accident while doing such a publicised flight is likely to result in one falling on one’s sword 
I also think that this level of cost sharing, legal in a G-reg, is likely to be illegal on a flight into France for example. The fact that France has disregarded an EU law on this is of little help when you have been picked up by a bunch of policemen with guns, they have interviewed your passengers separately (as is the standard practice in suspected AOC busting ops – the UK CAA has been doing that too, e.g. at some race event when somebody from the UK did a load of “cost shared” flights there in rapid succession, some years ago) and they take the view that the flight was illegal.
Clearly the suggestion cost sharing is common place.
.. but how common? Is it something going on with pilots who contribute to forums or the gerneral population?
I ask but I am surprised it is that common. I can imagine two pilots friends share trips and share the flying but beyond that?
I havent never cost shared. I can recall a very few occasions where another pilot has insisted on contributing to the cost but they certainly did some flying as well. I can recall lots of occasions of “mentoring”, but the other pilot paid the cost. I can recall longer trips where I flew the outbound and someone else the inbound and each paid the cost of their leg. Are we talking about something different as being widespread?
I think, Fuji, it varies according to the “scene” where you hang around.
At the scene where you and I hang around, cost sharing happens very rarely. I have never cost shared (not least because it is illegal in an N-reg in the UK – the Summary of Public Transport exemption applies only to G-regs, which makes any money in an N-reg Aerial Work) and I don’t suppose you do either. I have flown with passengers as “mentoring” or just to give them a flight which they hopefully find interesting.
But on the rental scene cost sharing is hugely common. I reckon, at Shoreham, the majority of rental flights are cost shared. Also I get to hear a lot behind the scenes, where people routinely cancel flights because a cost sharing passenger has dropped out. A lot of fly-in cancellations happen due to this. And a lot of longer flights are set up with contrived stops, to enable people to swap seats and log different parts of it.
Between the two – syndicates – cost sharing takes place sometimes. But even there I know of pilots who will not do a flight unless they can share the cost with another syndicate member.
That’s just my own experience.
Peter wrote:
I also think that this level of cost sharing, legal in a G-reg, is likely to be illegal on a flight into France for example. The fact that France has disregarded an EU law on this is of little help
The fact is that Part NCO has not gone into effect in France yet. It will on August 26th this year IIRC. I think the UK is the only country where Part-NCO is effective at the moment. So until then the question is whether it is the rules of the country of registration that apply.
Other than that, shouldn’t the EASA regs apply equally in all countries?
Peter wrote:
The fact that France has disregarded an EU law
Isn’t it a supreme court or something in EU? A deliberate, and by the looks of it, publicly announced disregard of a law by local “officials” will never hold up in a court, I would think. This is very much banana republic stuff.
I don’t see it as a loophole or something that should be admonished. I see it as a mechanism whereby some will/may tease the boundaries of the law.
Peter wrote:
And a lot of longer flights are set up with contrived stops, to enable people to swap seats and log different parts of it.
That seems quite natural when two pilots are flying. And in that case you don’t even need to cost share. You seem to imply that there is some problem with this?
Isn’t it a supreme court or something in EU? A deliberate, and by the looks of it, publicly announced disregard of a law by local “officials” will never hold up in a court, I would think. This is very much banana republic stuff.
Sure there is, but it doesn’t enter the picture until the case is already well underway in the national court system. Most people would avoid going that far due to the hassle and legal expenses.
Dave_Phillips wrote:
I don’t see it as a loophole or something that should be admonished. I see it as a mechanism whereby some will/may tease the boundaries of the law.
Which boundary are you thinking of?
As a member of the judiciary, I have to be particularly careful not to break any laws (yes, I am that PITA in front of you doing 30 mph 
).
Therefore I would love to know where I am supposed to be crossing a boundary (and also have to be very sensitive to any inaccurate public suggestion that I am doing so, which might be actionable, as one person has already discovered.)
