Log safety pilot hours?

[Mcstealth]

Folks, I know I've asked this before, but I can't find in the forum where. Please excuse the redundancy. 

You can, or you can not log safety pilot hours as PIC? 

Would you want to log those hours if the answer is yes? 

Thanks in advance. 

[LANCECASPER]

20 minutes ago, Mcstealth said:

Folks, I know I've asked this before, but I can't find in the forum where. Please excuse the redundancy. 

You can, or you can not log safety pilot hours as PIC? 

Would you want to log those hours if the answer is yes? 

Thanks in advance. 

 

[Mcstealth]

Haha. Thank you. 

[PT20J]

When two qualified and current pilots occupy pilot seats, they can both log PIC if one pilot is the sole manipulator of the controls and the other pilot is a required crewmember and acts as PIC. Since the safety pilot is a required crewmember on a flight conducted under FAR 91.109, the safety pilot can log PIC time if the two pilots agree that the safety pilot is PIC. 

However, there is a catch. While the two pilots can each log PIC time, there is only one PIC from a regulatory point of view. So if you are safety pilot and the pilot flying violates a rule (most common is an altitude bust on an IFR clearance that reduces separation) then the FAA is coming after you if you agreed to be PIC.

 

Skip

[Pinecone]

And the person acting as PIC needs to meet the requirements to BE PIC.  Ratings, currency, endorsement, medical.

[PT20J]

And, another interesting wrinkle: I have an airline pilot friend that also does insurance checkouts in cabin class twins. He was planning to check out a buyer of a C-340 and the seller wanted to check him out first. Before the flight, they agree that the seller would be PIC. Somehow, they missed a handoff and entered a class C without establishing two-way radio communication. FSDO wanted know who was PIC. My friend pointed out the circumstances of the flight and the pre-flight agreement that that the other pilot was PIC. However, the FAA decided that my friend was in fact PIC based on his ratings, experience and that he holds a flight instructor certificate. So, perhaps you need to get the PIC thing in writing if you are not PIC and even then, the FAA may decide otherwise and your only recourse would be to take it to court.

 

[carusoam]

This is a complex topic…

@201er wrote a paragraph about it once before….

So I invited him to see if he remembers any of the details….   

It’s been a while…

Best regards,

-a-

[midlifeflyer]

My article on Safety Pilot Rules (AvWeb. No paywall).

My article on Logging vs. Being PIC (IFR Mag. No paywall).

[Marauder]

This is a complex topic…
[mention=8223]201er[/mention] wrote a paragraph about it once before….
So I invited him to see if he remembers any of the details….   
It’s been a while…
Best regards,
-a-

If you recall, Stinky Pants was lamenting about how hard it was to find a safety pilot because a lot of us are BasicMed.


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[carusoam]

1 hour ago, Marauder said:

If you recall, Stinky Pants was lamenting about how hard it was to find a safety pilot because a lot of us are BasicMed.


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Sounds like one of those topics that is good for the legal team at AOPA to go after…

Basic med is good… but, it sounds like it accidentally keeps people from doing a necessary function that they could do with a Class III SI….

Hmmmmmm…….

-a-

[hammdo]

FAA and the alphabet soups are working to correct the basic med safety pilot situation..

-Don

[Pinecone]

17 hours ago, Marauder said:

If you recall, Stinky Pants was lamenting about how hard it was to find a safety pilot because a lot of us are BasicMed.
 

Basic Med can be safety pilot, but needs to BE the PIC.  Which means fully meet the requirements to be PIC of that aircraft.

[midlifeflyer]

19 hours ago, hammdo said:

FAA and the alphabet soups are working to correct the basic med safety pilot situation..

-Don

There's a Proposed Rule from the FAA out there to correct this BasicMed anomaly and expand it in a few other ways,  It's part of a small package of amendments aimed primarily at increasing medical requirements for commercial balloon pilots. The Proposed Rule was published last November and the short comment period ended last January. No action since. Guessing a combination of  broad staffing issues and dealing with negative comments from the balloon industry.
 

 

[Bolter]

Update from AOPA on the Basic Med update to permit legally acting as safety pilot.  It will go in effect, shortly

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2022/november/17/basicmed-limitation-lifted

[Danb]

Just read 30 days from 11-16 

About time. 

[rbp]

On 9/7/2022 at 10:34 PM, PT20J said:

FAA decided that my friend was in fact PIC based on his ratings, experience and that he holds a flight instructor certificate

this is not an isolated occurrence. regardless of who agrees to be PIC -- informally or in writing -- the courts the NTSB, and the FAA has ruled that the most senior pilot (and a CFI in particular) in the aircraft is responsible.  This is the Hamre doctrine, I believe. 

 

[PeteMc]

17 minutes ago, rbp said:

the courts the NTSB, and the FAA has ruled that the most senior pilot (and a CFI in particular) in the aircraft is responsible.

I remember a very public well known mega rated pilot saying once that he would give his friend at the local FSDO his Pilot Certificate if he was going flying for fun with people that were much less experienced than he was.  Don't think it ever became an issue, but would have been an interesting discussion if they tried to pin him for being PIC when he did not have the credentials that allowed him to be.  And if fact the FAA was holding those credentials.

Gets into the mind puzzle realm of how the regs would be interpreted. 

As for someone with a Basic Med acting as Safety PIC...  I'll echo the Finally!

 

[midlifeflyer]

My article, Safety Pilot Riles.

The BasicMed hole is being filled (I'm working on the update article). The FAA recently signed a Final Rule requiring Class 2 medicals for commercial balloon pilots. Tucked in there was a small provision allowing BasicMed to suffice for safety pilots.  It has not yet been officially published in the Federal Register, but it goes into effect 30 days after that.

[WaynePierce]

From AOPA:

The FAA announced November 16 that Acting Administrator Billy Nolen has signed the final rule that will take effect 30 days after its forthcoming publication in the Federal Register. The rule brings significant change to the relatively small commercial balloon industry, establishing a medical certification requirement for the first time estimated to apply to just under 5,000 pilots. It also includes BasicMed provisions that now enable about 50,000 pilots (and counting) to take advantage of opportunities to fly as a safety pilot, as well as enabling pilots to act as pilot in command during a special medical flight test authorized under FAR Part 67 without holding a medical certificate.

[PT20J]

2 hours ago, PeteMc said:

I remember a very public well known mega rated pilot saying once that he would give his friend at the local FSDO his Pilot Certificate if he was going flying for fun with people that were much less experienced than he was.  Don't think it ever became an issue, but would have been an interesting discussion if they tried to pin him for being PIC when he did not have the credentials that allowed him to be.  And if fact the FAA was holding those credentials.

Gets into the mind puzzle realm of how the regs would be interpreted. 

As for someone with a Basic Med acting as Safety PIC...  I'll echo the Finally!

 

I would be careful with that. If you give your certificate to the FAA, they could view that as a voluntary surrender and you might not get it back.

[Steve0715]

There might be 5000 Commercial LTA pilots…maybe.  But the rule doesn’t affect all commercial pilots such as myself.  It only affects those who receive compensation for a commercial activity.  That narrows the affected pilots to maybe 500.  Overall it could be worse for our community.  It wasn’t a good thing to have 50 hour pilots flying 8-16 paying passengers.  It was even worse to have pilots on drugs doing the same.

I hope to be one of those basic med pilots soon..

Moving on to the question, who this will affect? Commercially certificated LTA pilots are affected ONLY if they use their commercial certificate for the purpose of receiving compensation for any commercial activity. This includes paid passenger rides (whether in free flight or on tether), banner and/or commercial advertising on the envelope being flown on contract or by a festival organization, and special shapes for which compensation is being received for display or flight. In other words, if you are being paid to fly, you are receiving compensation for hire.

Moving on to the question, who this will affect? Commercially certificated LTA pilots are affected ONLY if they use their commercial certificate for the purpose of receiving compensation for any commercial activity. This includes paid passenger rides (whether in free flight or on tether), banner and/or commercial advertising on the envelope being flown on contract or by a festival organization, and special shapes for which compensation is being received for display or flight. In other words, if you are being paid to fly, you are receiving compensation for hire.

[jaylw314]

4 hours ago, rbp said:

this is not an isolated occurrence. regardless of who agrees to be PIC -- informally or in writing -- the courts the NTSB, and the FAA has ruled that the most senior pilot (and a CFI in particular) in the aircraft is responsible.  This is the Hamre doctrine, I believe. 

 

I don't quite get the court case your referenced and how it would apply.  The court case was specifically in regards to a CFI rated pilot they concluded was acting as an instructor.  Is there another precedence for the court concluding another pilot would be PIC solely due to their seniority?

[rbp]

In Admin v. Thomas, N.T.S.B. Order No. EA-4309 (1994), the FAA held responsible the non-PIC pilot for a near gear-up landing: “an aircraft requires only one pilot does not support a conclusion that a second pilot (or even a non-pilot) participating in the inflight operations is not accountable for his own actions.”i

[PeteMc]

2 hours ago, PT20J said:

If you give your certificate to the FAA, they could view that as a voluntary surrender and you might not get it back.

Yep, get that.  But I kind of think that was his ploy... er... plan.  

Since it was a "friend" he was not concerned about getting it back.  But had there been an issue and they started to look at him, then he would have pointed out he HAD surrendered it!   The friend probably would have agreed that he had surrendered it, pending the severity of the infraction to help protect him.

But I think the real reason was to make a statement that I am not going as a Pilot.  I'm just going as a Pax.

 

 

Edited November 19, 2022 by PeteMc

[jaylw314]

2 hours ago, rbp said:

In Admin v. Thomas, N.T.S.B. Order No. EA-4309 (1994), the FAA held responsible the non-PIC pilot for a near gear-up landing: “an aircraft requires only one pilot does not support a conclusion that a second pilot (or even a non-pilot) participating in the inflight operations is not accountable for his own actions.”i

Thanks, I'll go look that one up, but it's again hard to extrapolate "does not support a conclusion that a second pilot participating in inflight operations is not accountable" into "regardless of who agrees to be PIC...the most senior pilot...in the aircraft is responsible". 

 

Edited November 19, 2022 by jaylw314