I think the comments on “possibly in Norway” are misplaced because the comment I was commenting on was
Me: “much of the European rental scene would vanish if the strict US-style “common purpose” cost sharing was implemented”
LeSving: “Absolute nonsense”
The subsequent comments imply that the GA scenes in Norway, Sweden (airborne-again being in Sweden which I assume his “Not just in Norway…” comment is aimed at) and France don’t need cost sharing in order to flourish. That would be great, and is probably true for the US one, but the UK one most definitely does need it.
Look up the US common purpose rule to see what I was talking about (several past threads).
I actually have no clear personal view (no stake in this discussion) on allowing free advertising of cost sharing and allowing the pilot get 99.9% of his cost recovered. Sure, this will not allow anybody to run a business on the back of this concession, but it will draw out some number of incompetent pilots into offering flights. Ask any number of experienced pilots privately on how many would fly in the back of a plane flown by some random pilot and the majority will say NO WAY. And it isn’t just plain PPLs; there are some truly crazy risk takers who have an IR. So I can see the objections too. The UK average is of the order of 20-30hrs/year so you don’t need a PhD to work out the potential for trouble. Whether we will get any, I have no idea. It is wholly possible that the whole issue will not fly anywhere simply because of a lack of demand combined with a “lack of rental aircraft availability” when cost sharing is suspected by the club business which owns the plane. And only a tiny % of pilots are outright owners who also want to fly with random people breaking their €800 Bose A20 headsets, etc. However, anybody voicing the “pilot competence” objection openly is going to look really mean and nasty 
Peter wrote:
The subsequent comments imply that the GA scenes in Norway, Sweden (airborne-again being in Sweden which I assume his “Not just in Norway…” comment is aimed at) and France don’t need cost sharing in order to flourish.
For the moment it has net been proven that cost sharing platforms will boost GA (leisure). The committee report clearly states
(12) The current number of flights conducted under existing platforms account for less than 1% of the total flights conducted in the EU in General Aviation (leisure flights). This is clearly a niche activity.
Peter wrote:
The UK average is of the order of 20-30hrs/year so you don’t need a PhD to work out the potential for trouble.
Interestingly enough the report further states
(9) Available data and studies do not evidence a direct correlation between the number of flying hours of a GA pilot and this pilot’s safety level.
Available data and studies do not evidence a direct correlation between the number of flying hours of a GA pilot and this pilot’s safety level.
That (if true) would be due to risk compensation (the 10hr/year pilots doing just sunny Sunday local runs, not having the confidence to do more, etc) but I can’t see that working so well if you are advertising your service… but who knows? Maybe risk compensation will work there too?
The current number of flights conducted under existing platforms account for less than 1% of the total flights conducted in the EU in General Aviation (leisure flights). This is clearly a niche activity.
Under existing platforms, which almost nobody is using, that’s probably true. But cost sharing has been widespread (subject to national-specific arguments as above) for years. For example I reckon in the UK rental scene, cost sharing is done on at least 50% of the flights.
Peter wrote:
Can anyone guess at the DGAC’s motivation for its relatively hard position on this issue?
To that you need to add the opposition from the clubs which
1) follow the lead from the FFA/DGAC
2) have presidents with over-inflated egos who think they are liable for everything that takes place in the club
3) fear fiscal problems (why on Earth as long as the financial transaction does not involve the club, and cost-sharing by car appears to pose no issues)
Aviathor wrote:
3) fear fiscal problems (why on Earth as long as the financial transaction does not involve the club, and cost-sharing by car appears to pose no issues)
Guillaume wrote:
Despite what people think, fiscal cost-sharing by car is highly regulated
It does however remain the responsibility of the pilot – not the club. If you cost-share with a rental car, they will not go after the rental car company. They will go after the driver. And unless you drive your car for the sole purpose of transporting paying passengers, the revenue is not taxable.
Aviathor wrote:
And unless you drive your car for the sole purpose of transporting paying passengers, the revenue is not taxable.
If you apply this to aircraft, Part-NCO is clearly more liberal as the lasts two conditions are not required per EASA.
Aviathor wrote:
It does however remain the responsibility of the pilot – not the club. If you cost-share with a rental car, they will not go after the rental car company. They will go after the driver.
Here, you hire an aircraft through an association (NPO).
I’m far from being an expert in the fiscal field but I’ve read some part of the French law and it looks like it’s not legal to promote such flights through an association which provides “tax free” aircraft.
Peter wrote:
That (if true) would be due to risk compensation
I wonder about this. “Obviously” someone flying 10h per year, do so on nice Sunday afternoons, but what restricts flying is life (as we know it ) and money, not “risk”. Flying on nice Sunday afternoons in a risk adverse manner, isn’t all that obvious after all. Risk is defined as hazard multiplied with exposure. What do that particular statistics show? risk or hazard? It could be hazard, ie accidents per flight hour. It could also be accidents per year (flight hours being relevant only to divide the groups), and in this case it would be the risk.
I can’t imagine people having a perceived level of risk in this sense, it’s much too abstract, but we do have a perceived level of hazard. For the risk compensation theory to work (which is hazard compensation), then the pilot with lots of flight hours is the risk adverse one, and the low hour pilot is the one willing to take risks (or is unaware/ignorant of the actual hazards). That’s the only way they could achieve the same total risk (same accidents per year).
If what is meant is the hazard (accidents per flight hour) being the same, then none of them are compensating. The more you fly, the higher the risk becomes is the only rule in this case. This makes sense, because we cannot really perceive risk, only hazard. Besides, flying long distance for hours and hours, isn’t exactly food for adrenaline junkies (unless you are crossing the North Atlantic, alone, in stormy weather in a SEP or something similar). A person would normally compensate by doing adrenaline stuff, aerobatics, racing, or simply head into skydiving, paragliding, experimenting. Insurance companies don’t see certified SEP as hazardous, but microlight, experimental, paragliding, skydiving etc is.
We compensate for the perceived hazard. IMO, the “problem” with low time exposure, is that we cannot perceive the hazard accurately, or at all. Our heads are fully occupied with just staying on top of things, not getting behind. This leads to a situation where you follow the rules, you do, or at least try to do, exactly what you have learned. The end effect is a perfectly “safe” pilot. With more exposure and time, the hazards also start to materialize, and you act to them rather than simply “following the rules”. If you are normally risk adverse and responsible, then you can become a really safe pilot. On the other hand, if you start risk compensating, you are much more likely to sooner or later become part of the statistics. The end result is the same hazard (accidents per flight hour) on average, but the “high time” normally risk adverse and responsible pilot is by far the safest one with a much lower accidents per flight hour than the average (essentially zero, it’s the survival of the fittest in action here). My 2 cents about this.
Guillaume wrote:
Not according to the pdf above.
In order to be tax free, the revenue from car sharing must meet the 3 following conditions simultaneously :
You must use you car for your own need.
You can’t excess a certain price €/km. The price must be divided per the number of travelers.
The driver must pay it’s own share.
If you apply this to aircraft, Part-NCO is clearly more liberal as the lasts two conditions are not required per EASA.
But I think you are confusing fiscal regulation with safety regulation. No one has asserted that cost-sharing under Part-NCO has no tax implications. Nor does the regulation you quote appear to impose conditions on the driver qualifications or the car equipment.
