Original Message

Ever since the crash of that B-17 in Connecticut in October of 2019, people began taking a close, hard look at the issue of carrying passengers for hire in ex-military aircraft. Remember that B-17 had 13(!) people on board, and seven of them died.  There are those who want to prohibit these flights.

Do the regs permit military aircraft from being certificated and flown? Yes. Check out FAR 21.191. Can you carry passengers for hire in them? FAR 91.319 says definitely no. I won't cut/paste 91.319 (it's easy enough to find on faa.gov), but paying passengers are clearly not allowed. In the past, "Warbird" groups have gotten around this by claiming that the passengers were actually members of aircraft's crew, by way of their "donation" to the organization. It's been a gray area and loophole and, up until that B-17 crash, the FAA pretty much looked the other way. You can be sure that the issue is going to get a lot of scrutiny again. Watch this space!