Professional Pilot, August 2019

Charitable donation of aircraft time I had the pleasure of meeting the head of PR for Corporate Angel Network CAN at a recent Greater Washington Business Aviation Association meeting Most of us are aware of the existence of CAN but I doubt many are overly familiar with what they do or how they work This is not an admission of guilt and I cant get into specifics without my lawyer present but I too was ignorant about what they do This is a shame because what they do is mighty impressive You can go to their website corpangelnetwork org and get more in depth and accurate info about them but Ill give you a brief summary With an executive director 4 staff and about 25 volunteers they manage to find seats on corporate aircraft for cancer patients needing to get from A to B Since December 1981 they have managed to do this successfully for 60000 patients Thats a 6 and 4 zeros And all of this is at no charge to the patient Again impressive Patients must meet a few criteria For example they must be going to appointments at recognized centers for cancer treatment or diagnosis or to give or receive bone marrow or stem cells Also patients must be ambulatory and must not need medical assistance while on board Their financial status doesnt enter into the equation If you have a corporate flight department and aircraft and youd like to explore participating in this program your best bet is to go to their website and review the steps to do so It is incredibly easy and participation is non invasive to your operation Simply stated you register you provide your flight schedule you are contacted when a match or need is found and you say yes or no Needless to say CAN understands the security of your information is paramount As a rule CAN only interfaces with operations that fly with 2 pilots So if you want to become involved in providing charitable services via your aircraft but dont meet this criterion or just want to explore other options there are hundreds of non profit organizations providing aircraft related services listed on guidestar org In fact if you do a search on just those providing air ambulance type services the count is 2504 Other opportunities for donating exist in the areas of disaster relief animal rescue and transport organ transport and well you name it Take a gander at aircharitynetwork org Made up of several regional organizations this group like CAN matches pilots with access to aircraft to people or organizations in need Unlike CAN however their efforts are not limited to cancer patients nor are they limited to 2 pilot operations Pilots who want to contribute must sign up to be contacted and they provide the plane and all expenses Interestingly the aircraft might be a Piper Cub Aztec or Tri Pacer All told there are some 7500 pilots making themselves and their equipment available 12 PROFESSIONAL PILOT August 2019 Ground volunteers then try to match requests for assistance of which there are some 40000 annually to pilot aircraft availability These requests vary from flying a medical patient to transporting dog booties for the rescue dogs used to search buildings after 9 11 Legs are limited to 300 nautical miles at which point should the trip exceed this the flight is handed off to another pilot aircraft combination As you can imagine the ground volunteers face a significant task in making all this happen but they do so to the tune of more than 20000 missions annually And finally given my interest in animal rescue work I must bring your attention to Pilots N Paws This is not an organization that arranges flights as described above Rather it is an electronic ride board If you too are as old as dirt you will recall ride boards from your college days as a means of matching I need to get there to I have a car and Im going there In sum the website provides all sorts of information on and search capability for pilots that will fly your pooch or Post your requirement and if a pilot can and will do the trip they will contact you Go to pilotsnpaws org to read some cool stories Is all this tax deductible for the provider and tax exempt for the user Probably But Im no accountant or tax lawyer so check with yours In any event it is good to know the spirit of charitable giving is alive well and thriving in the aviation community POSITION HOLD an editorial opinion Corporate flight departments and private pilots volunteer their aircraft and time to help those in need of air transportation Angel Flight Southeast arranges free air transportation for people with medical or compelling humanitarian needs Founded in 1983 it coordinates more than 2800 missions and flies some 1500 trips annually with more than 650 volunteer pilots who use their own aircraft Bob Rockwood has been in the aircraft brokerage business since 1978 During his tenure at Omni Intl Jet Trading Floor he began writing The Rockwood Report which discusses the corporate aircraft market In 1986 he joined Bristol Associates as a managing partner By Bob Rockwood Managing Partner Bristol Associates Photo courtesy Angel Flight Southeast