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New Service Lets You Hitch a Ride With Private Planes For Cost of Tank of Gas
v3rgEz (125380) writes "A new service, Airpooler, matches pilots with passengers looking to head the same way. Since it's not an officially licensed charter service, prices are limited to roughly the passengers' share of the gas, giving pilots a way to share the expense of enjoying the open blue and flyers a taste of their personal pilot."
There are some severe legal questions surrounding this service. In a nutshell, the FAA considers anyone who advertises at all ("Holding out" as a provider in their terminology) as a charter service. The fact that it's limited to the passenger's share of the costs is not relevant as far as the FAA is concerned -- you need a valid commercial pilot's license and a 121 license to do this legally in the opinion of many.
As a pilot, I'm not sure how to take your remark. I'm pretty sure the rigorous training and medical certifications I've completed will have you in much safer hands than the trip you take to the grocery store from your house. What are the requirements for driving a 3 ton vehicle these days, heartbeat and visit to the local DL office?
Cars are forgiving, the sky is NOT. If as many people flew small planes as people drive it would not be as safe in terms of fatalities. It is true when you compare apples to oranges driving is more dangerous; but if you want to even get close to a fair comparison you would compare jets to buses and you'd compare fatalities and injuries separately... since car accidents are far less likely to result in fatalities.
The FAA has strong rules about flying others around and the FAA never changes the regulations, they only add, never remove. The exchange of money at all for any connected reason is going to cause trouble.
Besides, if you thought the taxi lobby was a problem for ride sharing; you'd never even dare to mess with the airline industrial complex (which is so heavily subsidized, it is more of a scam than a market.)
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And you personally know all of the pilots before you board any plane?
On a commercial air carrier flight, I know that the pilot has been to recurrent training within the last six months (I think it is, maybe 12), has had a check pilot evaluate his performance within the same time frame, and has a second fully qualified pilot sitting in the other seat. He's had intensive simulator training to deal with a vast number of potential in-flight emergencies. I know both of them are fully IFR qualified in a fully IFR capable aircraft in case the weather deteriorates enroute. Both have 1st Class medical certificates which involve a lot more than "kicking the tires and peeing in a cup".
On a private flight, I'm pretty sure the pilot has had an hour of flight sometime in the last two years (a biennial flight review) and has made three landings that he could walk away from in the last 90 days (or heals really quickly). The airplane has probably been inspected sometime within the last year for airworthiness. But there is little overview by the FAA for those requirements. If he owns his own plane nobody really checks until the NTSB does the investigation after the crash. If he's renting then the FBO will probably make sure he's met the legal minimums. There's no easy way to tell rental vs. owner. And the medical? The last time the pilot may have seen any doctor was a decade or more ago*.
I fear this kind of ride-share is going to make the FAA look closer at the requirements for private pilots, not simplify them.
* sport pilot rules. All a pilot needs for a "medical" is a driver's license as long as he's not had an application for a medical certificate denied, revoked, suspended or withdrawn.
I'm a pilot too. I know all too well how "rigorous" that training is and how arbitrary and silly the medical certificate can be.
I know multi-kilo hour pilots who have no clue how to handle hard IMC, inflight ice, over-water flights, soft/short field landings, or even do a weight and balance.
I also know some idiots who I will not allow at the controls of any airplane I am in, regardless of what certificates they hold. I have been flying for 25 years. There is a lot of deadly ignorance out there.
I have lost four of my friends to airplane accidents. Two were pilots -- in one case the it clearly his own fault, and in the other it was extremely bad piece of luck. The other two deaths were the direct result of naively trusting the wrong pilot.
I see two flavors of comment so far. Non-pilots saying they think the idea is scary, and pilots saying "aw, pshaw, I am well trained, what is the problem?". Well, I am a pilot myself (commercial pilot and certified flight instructor), yet I strongly agree with the "that's scary" crowd. I've flown many thousands of hours in all sorts of locales, weather, and equipment. I've handled numerous emergencies, with never a scratch. I've taught hundreds of other pilots to fly. But, in all that time, by far the scariest moments I have ever had in the air were occasions where I made the mistake of riding as a passenger with the wrong choice of pilot!
Those who place their faith in the FAA's training standards, simply fail to understand that the ratings indicate compliance with the bare legal minima -- essentially they mean nearly nothing.
Nor does safety correlate with pilot rating. I've met some mere student pilots that I'd sooner trust with my life than many commercial pilots. The variation from one individual pilot to the next, regardless of qualifications, by far exceeds the variations from one rating to another. That variation comes from preparedness, attitude experience and common sense. Bottom line, with the exception of airlines (where I have no choice!) I will NEVER ride with a pilot whose experience, skills, and attitude I do not personally know first hand. And, I'd never advise friends or loved ones to ride with "just any old pilot".