Interesting stuff, EXDAC. Just goes to show that there can be different approaches in different countries and the sky doesn’t fall in. The concept that the manipulator of the controls thereby becomes PIC – at least for logging purposes – is novel.
In the scenario in which you are receiving a flight review eventually logged as PIC and instruction received time, whom do you consider to have ultimate ‘responsibility’ for the safety of the flight? You? Or the person from whom you’re receiving instruction?
I coincidentally get involved in marine pilot professional development, and there’s always a frank and free discussion about who’s ‘in charge’ of a ship when the ship is under pilotage. The law pretty clearly provides that the master of the ship remains ultimately responsible for the safety of the ship, and has ultimate authority, even while the ship is under pilotage. The pilot has what’s called the ‘conduct’ of the ship – manipulating the controls or ‘directing’ the manipulation of the controls by others. When I ask marine pilots: “Does the master have authority to intervene and direct the crew to ignore you?”, they (sometimes grudgingly) concede that the master does have that authority (and duty, in cases in which the master considers it necessary for the safety of the ship). I invite them to ‘hold that thought’, because the distinction is very important for their liability if things go pear shaped. If, for whatever reason, they are a ‘defacto master’ when things go pear shaped, their protections from civil liability as pilot fall away. I suggest to them that any 'greyness' or 'confusion' about who has ultimate authority at a point in time is 'bad'.
All of these concepts from maritime law are enshrined in aviation law (in many places). Just because someone happens to be manipulating the controls of an aircraft at a point in time does not turn that person into the PIC and, conversely, a person who doesn’t happen to be manipulating the controls at a point in time isn’t thereby precluded from being PIC at that point in time. Just as the master of a ship remains master while asleep, so does the PIC of an aircraft. And just as any 'greyness' or 'confusion' about who has ultimate authority over an aircraft at a point in time is 'bad'.
Anyway, I looked at my logbooks to see the spectrum of approaches to logging of ‘review’ time over the last 4 decades.
It seems that formal 2 yearly reviews didn’t come into the Australian rules until the early 90s. Before then I have lots of ’90 Day Checks’ in my logbook, with the instructor recorded as PIC and my time as ‘Dual’. I think back then it was the policy of the places from which I hired aircraft to require hirers to have been checked in the 90 days prior to hire.
My first recorded BFR is in 1991. My time is logged as Dual. But … the instructor wrote “ICUS” next to it, there being no ICUS column in that logbook.
My time for the BFR in 1993 is logged as PIC. Some of 43’s commentary above caused me to recollect that that was the approach back then. The flight was merely a ‘review’ rather than a ‘test’ – the clue is in name – of someone who could be (and in my specific case in 1993, was) ‘current’ to be PIC, with the instructor merely ‘reviewing’ and providing comments and guidance as to the pilot’s competence. After all, it was - and remains - open to a ‘current’ pilot to be PIC of a passenger-carrying aircraft on the last day of the 2 year period anyway.
But, as is so often the case, CASA the complicator turned these ‘reviews’ into something they weren’t originally intended to be. (It is surreal spending some AFR time having a serious discussion about what stupid rules have been made in the previous two years.) I’ve logged all my BFR/AFR time post 1993 as Dual.
Last edited by Clinton McKenzie; 17th Feb 2024 at 22:10.