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91.111(c) operating near other aircraft

Asked by: 1580 views FAA Regulations

This might be a dumb question but it peaked my curiosity when reading it.  

91.111(c) says "no person may operate an aircraft, carrying passengers for hire, in formation flight". 

I fly out of an airport where there's a company on the field that does the "simulated dog fighting" in old war birds and I've seen them fly in formation with their customers before.  Am I missing something?

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2 Answers



  1. KDS on May 11, 2019

    Hopefully Mark will come along and weigh in on this one. Meanwhile, I will throw out a few thoughts.

    I have only seen that regulation enforced one time. It was a lot of years ago and how they got into the situation has been forgotten. But, somehow, the captain of an airliner knew the PIC of a B-17 and they managed to get close enough to each other to be called a formation. That captain of course was an aviation enthusiast and just thought it was a wonderful thing that everyone would be pleased to see a historic treasure flying alongside of them for a short distance. Well, when you have 100 passengers, 99 of them might be tickled pink, but there is going to be one person who is not. So, bad stuff happened and the captain got some kind of slap on the wrist.

    Extrapolating from that may be the answer. The people who pay to go up in such events are the ones who are going to be tickled pink and not the ones who complain. So it falls into the old line about there are no speed limits where there are no police. Generally speaking, if nobody complains, nobody cares.

    The other possibility is one I think is much more likely. The operator has a waiver from the FAA. A lot of FARs are violated with the blessing of the FAA through waivers. Common ones are seen at air shows and air races. The Air Race Classic (and I am old enough to still call it The Powder Puff Durby) gets one every year from the FAA.

    It would be a good training exercise to ask the operator about it. Just do it in a way so he does not think you are accusing him of something and get on the defensive. With luck, he might show you his waiver and tell you some interesting stuff about his operation.

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  2. Kris Kortokrax on May 12, 2019

    Indeed, they must have a waiver. See Order 8900.1, Volume 3, Chapter 69, Section 1.
    fsims.faa.gov

    It outlines the process for obtaining a waiver for 91.111(c). The example waiver is worded specifically for the case you are asking about.

    If the company is conducting operations without a waiver, they are in violation of regulations. If they are advertising the rides, they probably do have the waiver.

    However, if they are conducting instruction in formation flying (not dogfighting), they can do it without the waiver. See the Mostofizadeh interpretation.

    https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/agc/practice_areas/regulations/interpretations/data/interps/2013/mostofizadeh%20-%20(2013)%20legal%20interpretation.pdf

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