GreatLakesFlying
Pre-takeoff checklist
Yesterday, the XYL (@denverpilot can translate what this is) and I are having a conversation about FAR -- she's a bioethicist, I am a newly minted private pilot, what else can we talk about on a nice spring evening, having a glass of wine in the backyard, right? And she poses the following hypothetical scenario for me:
14 CFR 61.113(c) is the guiding regulation and it says:
My educated guess is that while hangar rent is an airport expenditure, it is not an operating expense of a flight, and therefore I cannot accept compensation for 50% of the rent.
On the other hand, I can see someone making the argument that hangar rent (or tie-down fees, for that matter) is an operating expense because how else can you operate your airplane if you don't secure it somehow near a runway before or after a flight?
I am curious to read your thoughts about this scenario and I promise that if I get an airplane, and if I hangar it, and if you come flying with me for a month, I will not accept payment for hangar rent.
Let's say that you have your own airplane [all, please bear witness to implicit approval here], and that you keep it in a hangar at 06C [the scenario keeps getting better]. During May, the weather is perfect every day [we are now leaving the realm of reality] and you go fly every day. And every time you fly, the same friend comes along and she [!!] offers to pay 50% of the fuel for the airplane. At the end of the month, your friend offers to pay half the hangar rent for that month as well. As a private pilot, can you accept that payment?
The rationale here is that 100% of the time I operated the airplane, I had the same passenger with me who paid her fair share for fuel. Can it be reasonably argued that since the airplane was used exclusively with the same passenger every day of the month, that the hangar rent is also a pro-rateable expense?
14 CFR 61.113(c) is the guiding regulation and it says:
A private pilot may not pay less than the pro rata share of the operating expenses of a flight with passengers, provided the expenses involve only fuel, oil, airport expenditures, or rental fees.
My educated guess is that while hangar rent is an airport expenditure, it is not an operating expense of a flight, and therefore I cannot accept compensation for 50% of the rent.
On the other hand, I can see someone making the argument that hangar rent (or tie-down fees, for that matter) is an operating expense because how else can you operate your airplane if you don't secure it somehow near a runway before or after a flight?
I am curious to read your thoughts about this scenario and I promise that if I get an airplane, and if I hangar it, and if you come flying with me for a month, I will not accept payment for hangar rent.
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