Hi All,
Curious to see if anyone has been seeing the same scenario given by any DPEs for their commercial students.
I had a student pass their Commercial checkride relatively recently, but in the debrief the DPE mentioned that the student has gotten a question regarding Common vs. Private carriage incorrect. The scenario was as follows:
"A man runs into your FBO and asks you if you are a pilot. You say you are. He asks if you can fly him to an airport 60 nm away for a wedding that he absolutely cannot miss. You tell him you are a commercial pilot but you do not own a plane. He says he will buy a C-172 at the FBO for you to take him in, as he has never piloted an aircraft before and has no background in aviation. You have had a flight review in the last 24 calendar months, are IFR-rated and satisfy 66HITs, and have had 3 takeoffs and landings in the daytime in the last 90 days. Is this a legal operation?"
My immediate thought, and the student's as well, was that this was a legal operation as the passenger is providing the aircraft. However, the DPE stated that that was in fact incorrect, because the passenger had an "obvious lack of understanding of aviation safety and thus could not legally exercise operational control of the aircraft, therefore operational control would fall to you as the pilot."
Has anyone else heard this from their DPEs? Is there an AC that perhaps goes into more detail about this? I'd like to make sure my future commercial students go in with a more current understanding of these regs!
Thanks in advance!