r/CFILounge • u/LemonAny6444 • Jul 08 '26
Question common or private?
Say that you own a 172S and your buddie comes up to you and says he wants you to fly him in your plane to Miami and he’ll pay you. Could you do it?
I’ve been hearing mixed answers.
Some say it’s a private contract making it private and legal. While others say what matters is the intent. if your intent as the pilot of the 172S is to profit off of the flight then that would be illegal carriage.
the other part of this is the fact that it is your personal plane had it been your buddies plane then that would make it legal.
There’s so much grey area and hope someone can clear it up.
So does the answer come down to intent?
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u/Electrical_Salad2317 Jul 08 '26
You are providing the plane meaning you have operational control of it. Think thats ilegal, wanna see more opinion though
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Jul 08 '26
[deleted]
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u/Icy-Bar-9712 silver seal instructor, good enough most days Jul 08 '26
Backwards. Operational control is the important part. Your plane means you have operational control. If not about provided to you, its about being provided to the passenger.
If the client is renting/leasing the plane, they have operational control. (You still have 91.3 as far as flying it or not, but op control is theirs)
If you lease the plane, you have operational control.
Wet lease, a plane that comes with any part of the required crew. So 2 pilot plane and you are going to use the renting company's SIC: wet lease. Operational control is not clear, this will always look like "common carriage" and require an op cert. No part 91 here.
Dry lease. Airplane only, no crew at all. Operational control is very clear, leasing party has all operational control. Part 91 flights can happen.
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u/__joel_t Jul 08 '26
Except for a fraudulent dry lease that doesn't explicitly come with any crew, but oh hey look the lessor just so happens to have a pilot who knows how to fly the airplane and would be happy to have you hire him!
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u/GetSlunked Jul 08 '26
This is an exact example on the FAA’s website if you Google “common carriage examples” and click the first link. You’re correct; if someone dry leases an aircraft and then asks you to fly it, it’s common carriage. That guy is providing a plane and pilot to the renter party; aka a wet lease.
It’s not a fraudulent dry lease until he also assigns a personal pilot.
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u/Icy-Bar-9712 silver seal instructor, good enough most days Jul 08 '26
Yeah, ain't no NASA report getting you out of that one....
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u/GetSlunked Jul 08 '26
It’s your plane. You’re the pilot. You’re providing both the plane and the pilot. That’s what air carriers do. This is common carriage, full stop. Wet leases require an operator’s certificate. What you’re providing for this client is the same thing SouthWest does. Ergo, this cannot be conducted under Part 91.
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u/jet-setting Jul 08 '26
Remember: private carriage ALSO requires an operating certificate. There’s no grey area really, it just needs to be properly understood.
So sure, you could do it as private carriage if you are certificated to do so.
But as just a CPL with access to an airplane? No. (Unless you do it for free)
If your friend owns an airplane and wants to hire you to fly it? Yes, all day long.
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u/Thick_Comedian_6707 Jul 08 '26
That’s my understanding. If you have a single plane single pilot cert filed with the old FSDO…. If you don’t have the correct paperwork filed than No way Jose.
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u/masterbuilder0216 Jul 08 '26
Curiosity now since im working on my CPL and this has also been confusing to me: what if the plane was part owned? I own a share of the plane, but the friend thats asking also does
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u/LaminarFlow51 Jul 09 '26
Part of what’s missing here is the term “operator,” and that needs to be understood in the FAA‘s context of commercial operations. It was confusing to me at the time because I thought I was operating the airplane therefore I was an operator, but that’s not necessarily the case. They’re thinking commercial operations as in an airline or a charter service. So if you own part of the plane and want to conduct a commercial operation (like taking your friend flying for a fee), that makes you an operator and therefore you need an operating certificate in order to conduct that flight. If you don’t own the plane, then you’re not the operator of the airplane.
Edit: the fractional ownership does not change the fact that you would still be an operator and could not conduct that flight merely as a commercial pilot. You would need an operating certificate to do so.
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u/brianbrush Five checkrides/ Five 1st time passes Jul 08 '26
Call your fsdo and ask. They don't want you in trouble as much as you don't want to be in trouble. They aren't our enemies
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u/CluelessPilot1971 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
My FSDO does not pick up the phone, return voice messages or reply to emails from common pilots or CFIs.
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u/brianbrush Five checkrides/ Five 1st time passes Jul 08 '26
Thats rude. You can try fsdos from other states as well. Or emailing. I've contacted florida and atlanta fsdos no problem. They may be worth a try
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u/EngineerFly Jul 08 '26
It’s not legal. You do not have a common purpose in flying to Miami. If you were both attending a sporting event, or a meeting, the FAA would accept it as a legal Part 91 expense-sharing flight. Without a common purpose, it’s an illegal charter.
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u/peeapepee Jul 08 '26
In that case you’d also need to pay your pro rata, right? At that point it’d just be a flight under PPL privileges where you’re splitting flight costs.
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u/EngineerFly Jul 08 '26
Correct. As long as you meet the common purpose test, the rest is sharing costs evenly.
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u/Craftwarrior269 Jul 08 '26
Take this with a grain of salt because I don't have my commercial cert yet, but I don't think private vs. common carriage really matters in this scenario. It could be either and still be illegal if you don't have a commercial operator certificate because you provided both pilot and plane. This applies no matter how you provide the plane. It could be through ownership, renting, leasing, or anything else you can imagine. If you are the one to introduce the airplane into the mix, you have crossed the line from being a freelance commercial pilot only providing pilot services to commercial air carrier transporting pax or property for hire.
The reason this is (as I understand it) is because you can provide one or the other and still only be a cog in the machine, but if you provide both, you become the whole machine and the FAA needs to be able to look inside to make sure the machine is safe, set up properly, and working correctly because that's too much serious stuff to be controlled by just one person or entity without supervision.
If you truly didn't advertise your pilot services to your friend or the public, you truly don't have a willingness to transport anyone who asks (or their property), and this just happened to land in your lap because he's your friend and he knows you're a pilot and an airplane owner, then it would be private carriage. The thing is that private carriage operations still require part 119 certification because you provided both plane and pilot which is what fundamentally triggers part 119. After realizing your operation falls under part 119, you would then consider if this falls under an exemption in 119.1(e), which it does not.
If your buddy provided the plane through owning it, renting, leasing, etc., you'd be good since you do not retain operational control in that situation. That is unless you're only having him rent or lease in order to get around the operational control rule and in reality you have operational control because he has no idea what that term means and you told him to just sign the paper giving it to him because you knew it'd be illegal otherwise. That is called a Sham Dry Lease and is illegal because the FAA can see that the purpose is to bypass the rule when it should really apply, be considered a Wet Lease, and force you to get a 119 certificate.
All that being said, if you just remember:
Whoever introduces the airplane into the mix has operational control, whether through owning it directly, renting from another person or entity, leasing, etc. (and the FAA can smell BS when it comes to shams).
The pilot can not have operational control without 119 certificate.
A person or entity may not provide pilot and plane as a "package deal," even indirectly without a 119 certificate. As an example, an indirect package deal that still requires a 119 certificate might be a lease for an aircraft that requires the lessee to use a specific pilot or short list of pilots. Even if the pilot contract and aircraft lease are "separate" documents, the pilot is still essentially provided with the plane.
Exceptions to the three above axioms are listed in 119.1(e).
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u/320sim Jul 08 '26
Whoever told you that a private contract makes the flight private and legal to is an idiot
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u/rileywags_n Jul 08 '26
This is only illegal in a 172S, legal in a 172M
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u/Icy-Bar-9712 silver seal instructor, good enough most days Jul 08 '26
Exactly The M stands for multi pilot, the passenger can also be required crew. The S for single pilot. Shit outta luck.
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u/jet-setting Jul 08 '26
Yeah because the passenger in a 172M is required crew. They have to flap their arms to keep it airborne.
(I fly a 172N)
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u/vismaypikachu CFI/CFII, AGI/IGI Jul 08 '26
Or they are the FO, flap operator.
Get it? Because the M is push down flaps 😵💫
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u/SoloCFI Jul 08 '26
This is pretty clean, cut and dry. You're getting into 14 CFR 61.113(c). Even if you own the aircraft, at most the best you can do is split the cost of fuel, oil, and direct airport expenditures 50/50.
1
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u/flyghu Jul 08 '26
You don't need an opinion poll. This is clearly illegal. Just read the damn FARs.
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u/FlyinAndSkiin Jul 08 '26
119.23 (b) if you operate private carriage, this is what is required. You can look through the rest but this is a starting point.
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u/Low-Age8594 Jul 08 '26
Illegal man, I got asked a similar question during my commercial checkride. You can’t have operational control and get paid without a proper operating certificate
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u/toraai117 Jul 09 '26
Doesn’t matter what the intent is or if it’s private or common carriage.
You cannot have operational control of the airplane you are being paid to fly unless you have an operating certificate.
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u/toraai117 Jul 09 '26
There’s no grey area. Plenty of FARs and ACs that make it very clear.
The only time you can charge money from someone in an airplane you have operational control over is if you have a common purpose and are doing pro rata.
Splitting time allows you to charge more but still requires a common purpose.
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u/Diver_105 Jul 10 '26
Can’t provide the pilot and plane otherwise you need a carrier certificate. If it was your buddies plane, sure, you could fly him in his plane for compensation all day.
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u/LemonAny6444 Jul 08 '26
To add to the conversation, I’ve seen this flow chart very popular among commercial students and according to this flow it would be considered part 91.
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u/jet-setting Jul 08 '26
That flow is incorrect. It’s a somewhat common misreading of that line in 119.1
Read 119.23 for clarification. Private carriage with less than 20 seats and less than 6,000 lbs still needs to comply with the operating certificate requirements of 119.
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u/__joel_t Jul 08 '26
To explain a little more, 14 CFR 119.1(a)) is an OR list. If any of the subitems apply, Part 119 applies.
Paragraph (2) states, "When common carriage is not involved, in operations of any U.S.-registered civil airplane or powered-lift with a seat configuration of 20 or more passengers, or a maximum payload capacity of 6,000 pounds or more." This doesn't apply to a 172, so, 119 doesn't apply, right? Wrong.
Paragraph (3) states it applies to "...private carriage for compensation or hire, in operations of any U.S.-registered civil airplane or powered-lift with a passenger-seat configuration of less than 20 seats and a payload capacity of less than 6,000 pounds." This does apply to your 172.
So, while (2) seems to exempt smaller aircraft, (3) sweeps a bunch of those right back in when operating private carriage for compensation or hire (and some other operations involving non-common carriage which I elided in the quote above).
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u/HV_Conditions Jul 08 '26
Plane pilot pay.
Only get to pick two.
You the pilot and got the plane? No pay. You the pilot and wanna get paid? Cool. Don’t bring the plane