Questions about hours / cpl

J

JC565

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Mad_Scientist_565
My current company has a company plane through one of the owners. He also has a charter business and a cessna I Can rent, so i will be starting my training in the spring. (baby on the way so saving right now)

I know some guys do CFI work to make a little money. That's what id like to do eventually and maybe fly a few charters and get some twin engine experience.

So my question though, let's assume it takes me 50 hours to get the PPL... How do people afford all the 200 hours to get to 250? Can you fly SIC and have the hours count? Id like to get the CPL and instrument rating soon as i could since id probably be able to make a small but substantial bit of money doing charters for local corporations and cfi work.


Just to clarify, I'm not really interested in the money for profit... I just want to be able to put the money away to fly to visit relatives a few times a year. Not trying to get rich, but i do want to get into the market... Maybe buy/sell planes one day.. Who knows. (im 30 right now)


One more question... Would flying the company plane to visit customers be considered as requiring a CPL? Since the company wouldnt actually be paying me for flying just for the fuel /airtime to visit customers.

Anyways... Just curious how some of you folks have done it. Thanks!
 
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... I thought it was a serious and valid question. But thanks. I'll take it to my boss and the local guys and try to get an adult response
 
JC565 said:
... I thought it was a serious and valid question. But thanks. I'll take it to my boss and the local guys and try to get an adult response
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Don't mind the welcoming committee here.

Assume it will take you 50-60 hours to get your initial license. Your instrument rating will probably be another 40-50 hours, plus you need to do 50 hours PIC cross country to get that rating. You can combine some of that with your training, but it's probably cheaper to knock those 50 hours out on your own. Once that's all said and done, you'll likely have 125-150 or so hours under your belt.

It sounds like you want your commercial and CFI... don't know much about how many hours are average for acquiring those, but you'll need to be at 250 for your commercial. You are on your own to get the magic 250.

All of this will cost you thousands and thousands of dollars. Tens of thousands. There are some things you can do to make it a little cheaper here and there, but there are no easy answers and no cheap outs. Everyone works out the details in their own way.
 
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thanks. yes I did the cost calculations and I can cover the private license and then some after that pretty easily... but beyond that and it starts getting out of my price range. So Im trying to understand how to mitigate those cost. If there is a way. the 50 hours cross country should be doable for me, but only if i extend it out 2 years. figure trips home 2 times a year at 10 hours each is going to put me at 40 in 2 years. I can come up with 10 in there somewhere else Im sure.

The biggest thing, was if I could fly the company plane without a CPL. then I can knock out those hours really quick since we are constantly flying to do customer visits.
 
As long as you are not being paid to fly the company plane, you should be ok. You still need to be paying the expense of operating it, though, or it could be treated as a form of compensation.
 
So the flight would have to be completely incidental to how you made money on the trip, otherwise CPL or better.

If there was a cheap way to get a CPL, you wouldn't have some of the commerical/ATP pilot shortage numbers you have, fact is it's a expensive industry to get into and it's a tuff nut to make enough money to make the initial cost of becoming a CPL worth it to most, hence the shortage.

The other aspect your company might have to deal with, is the insurance, you're not just putting around enjoying aviation, you're doing for company business, there might be aspects both insurance and IRS wise that may prohibit a ink wet PPL from doing what you're thinking of too.


There is no free lunch here.
 
SCCutler said:
As long as you are not being paid to fly the company plane, you should be ok. You still need to be paying the expense of operating it, though, or it could be treated as a form of compensation.
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Huh? So I can't let my good buddy fly my plane for free because that could be considered compensation?

What if the local FBo gives a free hour rental as a promotion.. is that compensation?

When I win the angel wings scholarship, do I need a CPL?
 
ifly4fun said:
Huh? So I can't let my good buddy fly my plane for free because that could be considered compensation?

What if the local FBo gives a free hour rental as a promotion.. is that compensation?

When I win the angel wings scholarship, do I need a CPL?
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This was my thought as well. What it if was my own private company...and i was just using the plane as transportation...I dont see the differentiation there. still a company paying for the fuel


So would I Be correct in thinking the SIC hours wouldnt count towards my 250 at all? In other words I would have to be PIC for 200 hours to get the commercial rating? (ignoring the 50 hours required for IR)
 
Lachlan said:
Buy a copy of the FAR/AIM and read it. All of your answers are right there.
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Hell it's free online @ FAA.gov. The time OPers argue and sputter on here they could have googled or found their answer at FAA.gov and the appropriate publication.
 
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JC565 said:
This was my thought as well. What it if was my own private company...and i was just using the plane as transportation...I dont see the differentiation there. still a company paying for the fuel


So would I Be correct in thinking the SIC hours wouldnt count towards my 250 at all? In other words I would have to be PIC for 200 hours to get the commercial rating? (ignoring the 50 hours required for IR)
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In what capacity are you thinking you will be able to log SIC time? You would have to be required crew of a flight to log SIC. You can't just log that time because you are in the plane and helping out. Agree with Lachlan - start reading your FARs. In this case, 61.51(f).
 
OK I will do that.. Thanks for your input everyone. Ill get to reading more in-depth tonight now that I know where to look.
 
ifly4fun said:
What if the local FBo gives a free hour rental as a promotion.. is that compensation?
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Pro rated share, yeah, that would need a CPL.

Maybe if they gave you a check for "flight training" that would be different, the Feds make it quite hard to get free time as a PPL.
 
@JC565, this is just a very common and murdered set of questions. I have asked it before as well but I mostly asked it in person to one other pilot at a time which is actually easier than asking on a forum.

James is right in saying the feds don't like private pilots getting free flight time. A big chunk of my flight time pre-commercial certificate came from some good old dudes that allowed me to borrow their airplanes. I paid my fuel and put oil in them so I wasn't being given "free" flight time. There are fewer and fewer good old guys like that and fewer good guys for them to help out.

As for flying the company plane; if you are not being compensated for your time flying and you are paying your share of the flight (1/4 of the fuel, oil, and incidentals for a plane with four people in it) you should be fine. That's how I read the regs at least.

Last thing, if you read the regs and have specifics on what a specific paragraph means, ask that. People here will get less antsy if you ask specifics and cite regs showing you looked and are trying rather than just asking broad questions.

Best of luck in the long road to selling your soul to aviation.
 
You buy something like a FlyBaby (Or Avid Flyer if you REALLY need 2 seats) and fly the wings off it until you have the number of hours you need. Auto gas at 3 or 4 gallons an hour beats the snot out of 12 gallons an hour for avgas.
 
On the qu
JC565 said:
One more question... Would flying the company plane to visit customers be considered as requiring a CPL? Since the company wouldnt actually be paying me for flying just for the fuel /airtime to visit customers.
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It depends. FAR 61.113 deals with what private pilots can and cannot do with respect to compensation. The general rule is "no compensation" and the FAA has a long history of treating all sorts of things of value other than money as "compensation." Free flight time; business good will; all sorts of stuff. So, to use your example, your use of a company airplane at no charge in exchange for visiting customers would probably be considered a form of "compensation." (notice "in exchange" - that's a key difference between this and just letting a friend fly your airplane for free with no strings attached) .

But 61.113 also contains exceptions. These are things that are considered to be compensation but the FAA says it's OK for a private pilot. One of them is:
A private pilot may, for compensation or hire, act as pilot in command of an aircraft in connection with any business or employment if:
(1) The flight is only incidental to that business or employment; and
(2) The aircraft does not carry passengers or property for compensation or hire.​
That's probably what you are seeing being done. Although one really can't say one way or another for sure since the devil is in the details, it sounds like a flight in which an employee flies an airplane (that is not involved in an aviation business - that's the incidental part) to visit customers without bringing other employees or delivering company goods (that's the carrying passengers or property) would be permitted compensation.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
You buy something like a FlyBaby (Or Avid Flyer if you REALLY need 2 seats) and fly the wings off it until you have the number of hours you need. Auto gas at 3 or 4 gallons an hour beats the snot out of 12 gallons an hour for avgas.
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That's the smart move right there, also gliders.
 
If you fly the company plane to visit customers (yourself only, taking others along is a bit sticky), you should be fine as long as you pay for the direct expenses (gas, oil, parking, etc.).
If it's your own plane, you can put those expenses on your expense account and get reimbursed by the company, which is OK both FAA and IRS wise.
It's still a bit unfair, since if it were a company car you would be able to use it free of charge on company business, plus take other employees along, but that's our FAA...
In all these cases, regardless of who's paying and how, if you fly on company business it is highly recommended (and likely mandatory by well-informed companies) to get an instrument rating and liability protection for the company in the form of extra insurance.
 
midlifeflyer said:
On the qu

It depends. FAR 61.113 deals with what private pilots can and cannot do with respect to compensation. The general rule is "no compensation" and the FAA has a long history of treating all sorts of things of value other than money as "compensation." Free flight time; business good will; all sorts of stuff. So, to use your example, your use of a company airplane at no charge in exchange for visiting customers would probably be considered a form of "compensation." (notice "in exchange" - that's a key difference between this and just letting a friend fly your airplane for free with no strings attached) .

But 61.113 also contains exceptions. These are things that are considered to be compensation but the FAA says it's OK for a private pilot. One of them is:
A private pilot may, for compensation or hire, act as pilot in command of an aircraft in connection with any business or employment if:
(1) The flight is only incidental to that business or employment; and
(2) The aircraft does not carry passengers or property for compensation or hire.​
That's probably what you are seeing being done. Although one really can't say one way or another for sure since the devil is in the details, it sounds like a flight in which an employee flies an airplane (that is not involved in an aviation business - that's the incidental part) to visit customers without bringing other employees or delivering company goods (that's the carrying passengers or property) would be permitted compensation.
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In regards to your first paragraph... And please forgive me, I'm not trying to be rash or anything, just trying to understand....

I. Wouldnt be getting any compensation if i flew the company plane to visit customers... As in fact i would be visiting the customer on behalf of the company, not myself, in accordance with my normal job duties. Simply using another means of travel to get there.

That said, you mentioned the FAA has said free flight time has been labeled as compensation... Again i don't feel that holds true either. The company is already legally compensating me as a salaried employee. (whose normal job duties do not include piloting) in order to get "compensated with free flight time" it would seem to be that you already performed a service and received the flight time as an incentive to complete "some" form of work. I just dont understand how you can call the logging of your travel hours, that you are not being paid for, can be construed as compensation. What if it was my own company and my own plane.... Basically what that implies is that as a business owner i wouldnt be able to fly the plane to an appointment because the business wrote the check for fuel.

That's just an odd position... Again im just stuck on the logged hours basically being considerd payment.. That just seems crazy to me.

Does the faa just not want people to fly?
Again sorry if that came off brash... Im just trying to get my head around the legalities since i honestly feel like most of my time will come on someone elses dime... One way or another.


One more thing that i found out today.. The company plane is actually technically owned by another company (that the owner also owns) technically the company is renting the plane... Just at a rate of 0 plus fuel. So.. I guess it gets even more complicated lol


I.think I'm just gonna start getting these first 50 done amd worry about it later. Gotta get it done regardless right! :)
 
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JC565 said:
I.think I'm just gonna start getting these first 50 done amd worry about it later. Gotta get it done regardless right! :)
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Congrats! You're on your way. See, you made a decision, the first of many in aviation. Like you said, get the basic stuff out of the way and then look into the other.
 
JC565 said:
In regards to your first paragraph... And please forgive me, I'm not trying to be rash or anything, just trying to understand....

I. Wouldnt be getting any compensation if i flew the company plane to visit customers... As in fact i would be visiting the customer on behalf of the company, not myself, in accordance with my normal job duties. Simply using another means of travel to get there.

That said, you mentioned the FAA has said free flight time has been labeled as compensation... Again i don't feel that holds true either. The company is already legally compensating me as a salaried employee. (whose normal job duties do not include piloting) in order to get "compensated with free flight time" it would seem to be that you already performed a service and received the flight time as an incentive to complete "some" form of work. I just dont understand how you can call the logging of your travel hours, that you are not being paid for, can be construed as compensation. What if it was my own company and my own plane.... Basically what that implies is that as a business owner i wouldnt be able to fly the plane to an appointment because the business wrote the check for fuel.

That's just an odd position... Again im just stuck on the logged hours basically being considerd payment.. That just seems crazy to me.

Does the faa just not want people to fly?
Again sorry if that came off brash... Im just trying to get my head around the legalities since i honestly feel like most of my time will come on someone elses dime... One way or another.


One more thing that i found out today.. The company plane is actually technically owned by another company (that the owner also owns) technically the company is renting the plane... Just at a rate of 0 plus fuel. So.. I guess it gets even more complicated lol


I.think I'm just gonna start getting these first 50 done amd worry about it later. Gotta get it done regardless right! :)
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Let's just say the FAA doesn't want private pilots to fly something that looks like benefit in exchange for flying. It's very protective of that distinction and of the pilots and operators who jumped through a bunch of hoops, paid big bucks, accepted a higher level of regulation, and are required to meet higher operational standards in order to fly commercially. Some would say too protective.

So, How much are you paying to use the airplane? Are you using it for personal pleasure or on company business? How much would you be paying if you rented it and were not working for the operator? Sounds like a bunch of money you didn't have to spend. Those are just some of the questions that go into the "is it compensation?" question.

Besides, as I said earlier, the operation you describe may well come under a regulatory exception to the no compensation rule.

Be as brash as you want. If the FAA decides an operation is improper and decides to take action on it, the pilot doesn't have to answer to me about it.
 
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