Public Benefit Flying

Sharing is caring – if you are at least a private pilot (the exact certificate and hourly requirements vary by organization) and are looking to make your personal XC flights more meaningful, there are plenty of organizations you can choose from to give back by transporting for free (i.e. at your cost entirely) people and animals* as well as needed goods from A to B.

A good example is Angel Flight West. They are constantly looking for pilots to fly patients who cannot afford recurring flights to specialty doctors not available where they live, to ferry blood packages, and more.

We encourage you to explore this exciting and meaningful way of flying! Here are two helpful resources to get started:

Flight ID

The Flight ID (the callsign broadcast to ATC) can be customized on all three planes:

  • On 3WF‘s GTN750: open the XPDR page by tapping on the squawk code to find the corresponding button
  • on our Twin Stars: press the TMR/REF softkey on the PFD and find it at the bottom of the REFERENCES popup

Flight IDs are alphanumeric (upper-case only) and have an eight character limit.

Example Angel Flight:
When filing the flight plan and in the aircraft, the prefix in the Aircraft Identification field should be NGF followed by the 4-digit call sign ID assigned to you by the organization – e.g. NGF3007.  
When talking to ATC use the term Angel Flight followed by the 4-digit call sign ID; i.e., Angel Flight 3007, ready for takeoff.”

The FAA permits the use of the NGF call sign while transporting medical passengers or cargo. In many instances this will provide the flight preferred handling by controllers while en-route, thus expediting the mission. Please refrain from use of the call sign on any unrelated flights.

IMPORTANT: The Flight ID does not automatically revert to the aircraft’s tail sign upon shutdown – if you customize the Flight ID please make sure after your flight to manually change it back to the regular tail sign (e.g. N283US) so as to keep the next pilot from accidentally flying around with the wrong callsign sent to ATC!

* Animals: We LOVE animals, but if you intend to indeed engage in animal transport, our planes are not suitable for that particular purpose – if a “biological accident” happens, the costs for both professional cleanup and loss of revenue due to rental interruption could be substantial.