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2 Answers

Letting friends film on a flight

Asked by: 1495 views FAA Regulations, Private Pilot

I have a private pilot's license and a friend of mine was wondering if I could take him and some others on a site-seeing flight around our town. They want to film some material for one of the passengers who is promoting one of their products (the interview would be in the aircraft and the product as well). The flight would be payed for pro-rata and I wouldn't receive any excess compensation. Would the flight still be considered common purpose since we are technically just sight seeing or would the video cause issues? 

Thanks

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2 Answers

  1. Best Answer


    Mark Kolber on Nov 06, 2018

    The issue is that acting for compensation as a photography platform is a commercial pilot privilege. So is commercial aerial photography even if you are the only person on board. Accepting a share of the costs of a flight for commercial photography is compensation. I don’t have a reliable answer about how the FAA would look at your scenario.

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  2. ayavner on Nov 08, 2018

    I guess the issue here is do YOU see it as common purpose? Would you be going up for the sight seeing trip even if they left the camera on the ground? Then it seems fair to me that a share of the flight expenses is legitimate. Just a trip wtih friends to look around.

    IF you are only going up because THEY want to look around/take pictures, then you don’t have common purpose and then yes it would be a matter of accepting compensation for the costs of the flight (for whatever reason), which is as Mark says a commercial privilege.

    so i guess just be clear on all that before you take the flight would be my guess.

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