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A good friend of mine is a local federal district judge. He likes to fly with me on occasion and I told him about your scenario. He laughed and my words above are a summation of his. ....
Splendid advice.. NOT!
Your above comment is just like the one recently in another thread where the member stated "Oh my good buddy is an Aviation Attorney and I spoke with him and he confirmed THIS was not a Part 107 flight'. He argued and argued so we finally told him, "Contact the FSDO and ask them because at the end of the day they are the ones investigating it."
Well he did exactly that and he was man enough to come back and admit he (and his Aviation Attorney friend) were wrong and it was indeed a Part 107 flight. The FSDO had made it abundantly clear that what he asked was well outside of Hobby/Recreational flight.
So thecaptainkirk how about this... draft up a letter to your local FSDO with the exact scenario the OP has stated (why not copy & paste it into your letter?) and see what they say about it. Please do this so the rest of us, those who have no common sense, can be enlightened and learn from your wisdom and experience in this arena.
While I whole heartedly agree this SHOULD NOT be a Part 107 flight, I wasn't asked by the FAA when these rules/regs were drafted, just like everyone else I am required to fly by them.
Sometimes the rules & regs don't make sense even to those who have VAST amounts of commens sense but they are law none-the-less.