Originally Posted by
Clinton McKenzie
In the USA, FAR 1.1 defines PIC as the person who “has final authority and responsibility for the operation and safety of the flight; has been designated as pilot in command before or during the flight; and holds the appropriate category, class, and type rating—if appropriate—for the conduct of the flight.” I bolded "or during" for obvious reasons.
If I can be bothered, I'll dig up some Australian provisions and precedents for PICs changing during a flight.
If I think there's a substantial risk that the person in the right hand seat is going to bend my aircraft or me, I'll be taking over anyway. Fortunately the probabilities of that happening are extraordinarily remote.
A 'kind of' precedent exists in the airline world when a line check captain sits in the jump seat to check a new captain on upgrade, or two pilots on an annual route check. The person in the left seat is designated PIC and signs the release documents.
But if there is a problem warranting a 'fail' result the check captain relieves the candidate of command and swaps seats at the first safe opportunity.
I have done that once or twice. It's ugly, but if you don't do it at the point of failure you lay yourself open to dispute.
There's little merit in continuing the flight in training mode because the candidate will most likely be hurting too much to get anything useful out of it.
At least the AFR in bugsmasher land is not full jeopardy and not only allows training but encourages it. Some pilots could benefit from that by selecting their instructors for what they can offer other than a quick tick and flick sign off.